NAME AND EMAIL ADDRESS OF WHISTLE BLOWER WITHHELD FROM PUBLICATION

Dear John,

As a Shell insider I need to stay anonymous but I will point you to the right story.

As you possible know, there are export restrictions to export software and technology which is US based to restricted countries like Iran, Sudan, Syria, North Korea and Cuba. Shell violates this export restrictions as Shell is using software and technology without a valid export license.

One example will be that in the joint venture from Shell and Sinopec both companies are using Microsoft Windows Operation system. They never got a valid license from the US government. It looks like that in some cases Shell take the business risk only for profit to make business with terrorists.

The joint venture in Iran is operating in

Etelaat Newspaper Building
South Naft Ave
Mirdamad Blvd

Other violations happen in Syria and Sudan.

The other problem there is that Shell help Sinopec also with technical expertise in exploration and production. This possible will also violate current restrictions special from the US.

Companies and special oil companies which support Iran run the risk to loose all government contracts with the US. You will not find any information on the official Shell website about the joint venture in Iran as Shell is trying very hard to hide this.

From my point of view the Shell export compliance office must be aware about the violation from software and technology. The top management, Malcolm Brinded up to the CEO must be aware about the other violations with the joint venture.

I trust you that you keep my address confidential and that you take this maybe as a starting point to challenge Shell. The public need to know about how unethical Shell run this business just for profit.

With kind regards

THE NEW YORK TIMES

By LESLIE KAUFMAN and CLIFFORD KRAUSS

NEW ORLEANS — In another serious setback in the effort to stem the flow of oil gushing from a well a mile beneath the Gulf of Mexico, BP engineers said Saturday that the “top kill” technique had failed and, after consultation with government officials, they had decided to move on to another strategy.

Doug Suttles, BP’s chief operating officer for exploration and production, said at a news conference that the engineers would try once again to solve the problem with a containment cap and that it could take four to seven days for the device to be in place.

“After three full days of attempting top kill, we now believe it is time to move on to the next of our options,” Mr. Suttles said.

The abandonment of the top kill technique, the most ambitious effort yet to plug the well, was the latest in a series of failures. First, BP failed in efforts to repair a blowout preventer with submarine robots. Then its initial efforts to cap the well with a containment dome failed when it became clogged with a frothy mix of frigid water and gas. Efforts to use a hose to gather escaping oil have managed to catch only a fraction of the spill.

BP has started work on two relief wells, but officials have said that they will not be completed until August — further contributing to what is already the worst oil spill in United States history.

The latest failure will undoubtedly put more pressure — both politically and from the public — on the Obama administration to take some sort of action, perhaps taking control of the repair effort completely from BP.

President Obama, who is spending the Memorial Day weekend in Chicago, issued a statement Saturday evening on the decision to abandon the top kill.

“While we initially received optimistic reports about the procedure, it is now clear that it has not worked,” Mr. Obama said.

He said that Rear Adm. Mary E. Landry of the Coast Guard had “directed BP to launch a new procedure whereby the riser pipe will be cut and a containment structure fitted over the leak.”

“This approach is not without risk and has never been attempted before at this depth,” Mr. Obama said. “That is why it was not activated until other methods had been exhausted.”

The president continued, “We will continue to pursue any and all responsible means of stopping this leak until the completion of the two relief wells currently being drilled.”

For BP, the besieged British company, the failure could mean billions of dollars of additional liabilities, as the spill potentially worsens in the weeks and months ahead.

“I am disappointed that this operation did not work,” Tony Hayward, chief executive of BP, said in a statement. “We remain committed to doing everything we can to make this situation right.”

A technician who has been working on the project to stem the oil leak said Saturday that neither the top kill nor the “junk shot” came close to succeeding because the pressure of oil and gas escaping from the well was simply too powerful to overcome. He added that engineers never had a complete enough understanding of the inner workings of drill pipe casing or blowout preventer mechanisms to make the efforts work.

“Simply too much of what we pumped in was escaping,” said the technician, who spoke on condition of remaining unnamed because he is not authorized to speak publicly for the company.

“The engineers are disappointed, and management is upset,” said the technician. “Nothing is good, nothing is good.”

The spill began after the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded on April 20, killing 11 people. Since then, it has dumped an estimated 18 million to 40 million gallons into the gulf.

After the announcement Saturday, the disappointment was palpable along the Louisiana shoreline, where the oil has increasingly washed up in sticky, rusty globs.

Michel Claudet, the president of Terrebonne Parish, 60 miles southwest of New Orleans, said that when he heard the news, he felt “sorrow, despair and like this ordeal will never finish. If you go around the parish, it is all our folks talk about.”

Mr. Claudet said that he was trying to remain hopeful, but that it was increasingly difficult. “As every item fails,” he said, “I am less and less optimistic.”

In New Orleans, Margaret Shockey, 67, a retired teacher, said, “One thing’s for sure, this is the last city that deserved this.”

Last week, BP described the top kill — which was an effort to pump heavy mud into the well to counter the flow of oil — as its best hope for stopping the spill. During the course of the operation, BP officials had often expressed optimism that it would work.

But on Saturday, Mr. Suttles said the operation had pumped 30,000 barrels of mud into the well and yet failed to stop it from flowing.

Admiral Landry called the failure “very disappointing.”

The new strategy is to smoothly cut the riser from which the oil is leaking and then place a cap over it. Pipes attached to the cap would take the oil to a storage boat on the surface.

Though a first effort at a containment dome failed, Mr. Suttles said BP had learned from that experience and now believed that this cap, which is custom fitted to the riser, would be more successful.

He said it would capture most but not all of the oil leaking from the well, which is believed to be gushing 12,000 to 19,000 barrels a day.

He would not give odds for the operation’s success, but said he had “a lot of confidence” that it would work.

Earlier in the day, Mr. Suttles said preparations for such an alternative plan were already under way, just in case. “That equipment is on stage and ready to go,” he said. Equipment is being deployed on land and on the seabed, he said.

If the new cap is not successful, the company has said it will look into attaching another blowout preventer to the one that already exists at the wellhead and has not functioned.

But officials emphasized that the real solution to the spill was the relief well. They said one of the relief wells was currently proceeding ahead of schedule, but was still at least a month away.

“It’s like a bad movie that just won’t end,” said Billy Altman, 45, a mechanic in New Orleans. “You know, you think they finally killed the bad guy, and then he comes back to life. It’s crazy.”

The Sunday Telegraph

BP’s share price is likely to take another battering this week as the company last night admitted it was failing in its latest attempts to stop the Gulf of Mexico oil leak.

By Angela Monaghan Sunday 30 MAY 2010

By CHRIS KAHN (AP) 28 May 2010

NEW YORK — President Obama’s decision to halt new deepwater oil exploration will extend beyond the Gulf of Mexico, affecting boat captains, helicopter pilots, mechanics and others who rely on drilling for their livelihoods.

The industry employs a community of service companies with 75,000 workers in the U.S. Many of them can’t afford to rearrange their plans as easily as oil giants like BP and Shell.

“This can’t be good,” said Mark Cuevas, owner of a crew boat that transports passengers and cargo to deepwater rigs and production platforms in the Gulf. Cuevas’ business focuses on established oil platforms not affected by Obama’s announcement. That business also will suffer as service companies go after a smaller number of drilling contracts.

“We’re a small company,” he said. “We can’t compete with some of these guys.”

Obama announced the dramatic policy changes on Thursday as crews tried to plug BP PLC’s ruptured well off the Louisiana coast. The well ruptured more than a month ago, and scientists estimate it has so far leaked 19 million gallons of oil into the Gulf.

The government’s new drilling rules include a six-month moratorium on permits for deepwater wells. Obama also canceled lease sales in the Gulf and off the coast of Virginia. Companies like Shell Oil were asked to shelve plans to explore offshore near Alaska. Thirty-three deepwater rigs were forced to shut down.

The announcement doesn’t affect existing production of oil and natural gas, however, and it won’t apply to drilling in waters less than 500 feet deep.

Companies that have been probing the ocean floor for new oil sources will feel the impact immediately. The International Association of Drilling Contractors estimated earlier this month that a moratorium on new offshore projects will put at least 50 rigs out of work by the end of June.

Environmental groups cheered the decision. It’s “the first step needed in broader reform of a broken system,” said Vikki Spruill, president and CEO of the Ocean Conservancy. But industry observers point out that it also could lead to layoffs and possible bankruptcies as service companies struggle to adapt.

Analysts with Jeffries & Company said contract drilling companies could see profits slashed by 5 to 15 percent in 2010 and 2011 as oil companies move out of the Gulf. Shares of a variety of companies with ties to offshore exploration tumbled on Friday.

Noble Corp., Ensco PLC, Diamond Offshore Drilling, Schlumberger and Hornbeck Offshore Services saw their stock fall at least 4 percent in afternoon trading. Shares of BP and its partners in the oil spill — Transocean Ltd., Halliburton and Cameron International Corp._ also dropped.

“We’re going to see six months of tough times for the industry — at least,” Jeffries & Company analyst Jud Bailey said. “You’re going to see a lot of people lose jobs or take pay cuts. That means they’re going to spend less money, and that will impact the entire Gulf Coast.”

Shell said that it is evaluating the new drilling rules and how they will affect its exploration business. In a statement, the company said that its plan to drill in Alaska has already undergone “an unprecedented level of review.”

John Hofmeister, former president of Shell Oil and founder of Citizens for Affordable Energy, said Obama is overreacting. Penalizing drillers before investigators conclude what led to the rig explosion that caused the spill is “akin to shutting down the airlines because there’s an anomalous aircraft accident,” he said.

BP, Shell, Anadarko and others will be able to redeploy their drilling operations off the coasts of West Africa, Brazil, the North Sea and other waters. Smaller companies that live off the Gulf will suffer, he said.

Fadel Gheit, an analyst with Oppenheimer & Co. disagreed. Out of work contract workers “have found a good long-term job in the cleanup,” Gheit said. “They’re going to be cleaning up the mess, and that will cost billions of dollars. I think that beats drilling anytime.”

Copyright © 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

SOURCE ARTICLE

Francesca Steele: May 28, 2010

Royal Dutch Shell has agreed to buy East Resources, the US natural gas explorer, for $4.7 billion (£3.2 billion).

The Amsterdam-based oil and gas giant said that it had struck a deal with East Resources and its private equity investor Kohlberg Kravis Roberts to acquire “subsidiaries which own substantially all of the business”.

East Resources has more than 650,000 acres in the Marcellus shale, a rock formation running from West Virginia to New York, which is said to contain vast amounts of natural gas. It produces the equivalent of almost 10,000 barrels of oil a day.

The deal is pending regulatory approval.

Shell said that it had also acquired 250,000 acres of mineral rights in the Eagle Ford shale in South Texas and would be the only operator in the area.

Peter Voser, the chief executive, said: “East Resources’ management have built an excellent organisation, with high-quality assets in the Marcellus, which we are pleased to have as our centrepiece as we enter the premier shale gas play in the northeast US.

“The opportunity now is to consolidate our tight gas portfolio, divest from non-core positions across North America, and to invest for profitable growth by deploying Shell’s technology and capabilities on a large scale.”

Last month Shell reported a 49 per cent increase in first quarter profits after cost-cutting drive that led to the loss of 5,000 jobs last year, with another 1,000 to come this year.

Results were also bolstered by the start of two big oil and gas projects on the island of Sakhalin in Russia and at Parque das Conchas 70 miles (110 kilometres) off the coast of Brazil.

These added 120,000 barrels of oil to Shell’s daily production, helping to lift its average output by 6 per cent to 3.59 million barrels per day. The increase has helped to reverse Shell’s seven years of declining production.

TIMES ARTICLE

“Royal Dutch Shell shares have also dropped – around 11% – since the BP oil spill began.”

smartmoney.com

Published May 28, 2010 7:20 AM

“There’s nothing that’s going to get us to drilling in 2010,” said Curtis Smith, a Shell spokesman, when asked whether the language of the announcement left room for salvaging Shell’s summer operations in Alaska.

By Fred Pals

May 28 (Bloomberg) — Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Europe’s largest oil producer, agreed to buy most of the assets of closely-held East Resources Inc. for $4.7 billion in cash, expanding its portfolio of U.S. unconventional gas deposits.

East Resources owns and operates more than 2,500 producing oil and gas wells in New York, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Colorado and is actively exploring drilling programs in Wyoming, according to its website. It has been operating in the Marcellus Shale Area for 25 years.

Companies from India’s Reliance Industries Ltd. to Japan’s Mitsui & Co. are spending billions of dollars on drilling to dislodge natural gas from shale — sedimentary rock composed of mud, quartz and calcite. Shell expects its share of gas in total output to rise to 52 percent in 2012.

“They’ve seen others take material positions in U.S. gas, and this is one way they can also play a part in that business,” said Jason Kenney, head of oil and gas research at ING Commercial Banking in Edinburgh.

The acquisition is the second-biggest oil and gas deal this year, after BP Plc’s acquisition of deepwater assets from Devon Energy Corp. for $7 billion in March, according to Bloomberg data.

“We are enhancing our world-wide upstream portfolio for profitable growth, through exploration and focused acquisitions, and through divestment of non-core positions,” Chief Executive Officer Peter Voser said in a statement today.

Exxon Mobil Corp., the biggest U.S. oil company, agreed in December to buy XTO Energy Inc., the country’s largest natural gas producer, for $31 billion to gain control of shale-gas assets.

–Editors: Stephen Cunningham, Will Kennedy.

To contact the reporter on this story: Fred Pals in Amsterdam at fpals@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Will Kennedy at wkennedy3@bloomberg.net

SOURCE ARTICLE

THE NEW YORK TIMES

Spill Could Make BP Vulnerable

By ROB COX and CHRISTOPHER SWANN: MAY 27, 2010

BP is likely to eventually stop the flow of oil from its explosion in the Gulf of Mexico. After that happens, the autopsy of the spill will begin in earnest. But if the information dribbling into the public domain proves correct, the British energy giant will be a weakened creature — so weak it will be vulnerable to a takeover.

Royal Dutch Shell and Exxon Mobil are almost certainly running the numbers. Government leaders ought to be plotting their strategy, too.

The fiasco in the gulf, which killed 11 workers, has shined a new light on BP’s poor safety track record. The current disaster is the company’s third American offense in recent years, coming shortly after the 2005 Texas City refinery explosion that killed 15 workers and the 2006 Prudhoe Bay spill that leaked more than 200,000 gallons into Alaskan waters.

The list of problems reflects poorly on management and furthers the impression of a corner-cutting culture that the chief executive, Tony Hayward, had, until recently, been widely credited with improving. The response by BP’s board has been somewhat tepid, with little public support offered to management or guidance provided to shareholders.

Add these factors up, fold in the potential cost of cleanup, and it is little wonder that investors have wiped as much as $46 billion off the company’s market value since mid-April. At $141 billion on Thursday, BP’s capitalization is half of Exxon’s and less than the $165 billion value of Shell, which has traditionally traded at a discount to BP.

Even before BP’s latest troubles, the arguments for a deal were compelling, largely because of the cost savings that could accrue. Mr. Hayward’s predecessor, John Browne, wrote in his memoirs that BP had aimed for $9 billion in annual synergies from a possible merger with Shell a few years ago. Those would in theory be worth some $60 billion to investors.

And though a combination with Shell or BP would be huge, the antitrust implications might not be. The company would control no more than about 6 percent of the world’s proven oil reserves.

At a time when nearly 90 percent of the planet’s crude oil is controlled by even larger national energy groups — including Saudi Aramco and Russia’s Gazprom — that kind of scale seems defensible. It might even be viewed as a positive factor in securing Western energy independence from potentially unfriendly oil-rich governments.

Some operations in the United States and Britain would probably need to be sold, including refineries and service stations. That was envisioned in the discussions the companies held a few years ago, according to Mr. Browne’s book. But these would account for only a small fraction of the deal’s value.

Such wrinkles are tiny compared with BP’s other attractions for a Shell or an Exxon. Though BP has operations worldwide, it has a big footprint in the politically stable areas that the major oil firms increasingly crave. It is the largest producer in the Gulf of Mexico and Britain’s North Sea. And its Prudhoe Bay field in Alaska is still the largest in North America.

So what’s stopping Exxon or Shell from pouncing? For starters, there is still no clear indication of what happened on Deepwater Horizon, who was at fault and what it will cost to clean up things.

Any responsible acquirer would probably wait for greater clarity on these contingent liabilities before making a move. That could be months away.

And though antitrust concerns could be assuaged, the politics could prove trickier. For one, Britain’s new government might object to seeing a former national champion sold to a Texas corporation — even though BP was permitted by American authorities to buy Amoco and Atlantic Richfield in years past.

Washington, too, might fear the creation of a company so big it would be difficult for the government to put its “boot on their neck,” to use the language of the interior secretary, Ken Salazar, in relation to BP’s cleanup efforts. A merged BP-Exxon would effectively reconstitute a substantial part of John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil.

But times have changed. In 1911, when the government broke up Standard, oil was a domestic business. Today, private Western members of the oil fraternity operate on a global stage facing well-off competitors.

A weakened BP could struggle in that environment anyway. If rivals start circling, the company — and interested governments — may need to contemplate even bigger oil giants.

ROB COX and CHRISTOPHER SWANN

New York Times Article