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December 10th, 2010:

Interior Department Appeared To Give Shell Preferential Treatment -Report

DECEMBER 10, 2010

By Stephen Power and Siobhan Hughes

WASHINGTON (Dow Jones)–The federal agency that controls oil and natural gas production on U.S.-owned land “appeared to give preferential treatment” to Royal Dutch Shell PLC when the company was pursuing leases to drill on tracts of government-owned land in the western U.S. in 2005 and 2006, the acting inspector general of the Interior Department said in a report Friday.

The preferential treatment helped Shell obtain the leases and “disadvantaged” the company’s competitors, according to the acting inspector general’s report. But investigators say they found no evidence that Shell broke the law, and “no conclusive evidence” that then-Interior Secretary Gale Norton–who accepted a job with Shell several months after leaving her government post–broke federal conflict-of-interest laws. read more

This website and sisters royaldutchshellgroup.com, shellnazihistory.com, royaldutchshell.website, johndonovan.website, and shellnews.net, are owned by John Donovan. There is also a Wikipedia segment.

Former Interior Secretary Gale Norton won’t face charges

“It sounds like Secretary Norton was earning her salary from Shell even before they put her on the payroll,”

The Justice Department declined to file charges against Gale Norton. By DAN BERMAN | 12/10/10 6:15 PM EST Updated: 12/10/10 7:12 PM EST The Justice Department has declined to file charges against former Interior Secretary Gale Norton in connection with oil shale bids by Royal Dutch Shell. At issue are valuable oil shale leases that Shell won from Interior after Norton left the George W. Bush administration in March 2006 but before she took a job as a lawyer with the oil giant that December.

“We found that Norton was very interested in the [Research, Development and Demonstration] program during her tenure as secretary, but we did not find evidence to conclusively determine that Norton violated conflict-of-interest laws, either pre- or post-employment, with Shell,” Acting Interior Department Inspector General Mary Kendall wrote in a letter accompanying a report obtained by POLITICO.

The IG found that after leaving Interior but before joining Shell, Norton “failed to fully describe her role in the leasing program” to department ethics officials.” After she was hired, Norton contacted the Pentagon and Interior’s Bureau of Land Management, “indirectly,” regarding oil shale issues. read more

This website and sisters royaldutchshellgroup.com, shellnazihistory.com, royaldutchshell.website, johndonovan.website, and shellnews.net, are owned by John Donovan. There is also a Wikipedia segment.

WikiLeaks: Royal Dutch Shell Nigerian Shame

By John Donovan

Royal Dutch Shell PLC says it is “absolutely untrue” that it has infiltrated every Nigerian ministry affecting its operations in the oil-rich nation. (Bloomberg article)

This claim is totally at odds with the WikiLeak cables published on this website. We are being asked to believe that either Ann Pickard (above right) was misquoted by the Americans, or was not telling the truth to the American government.

This is of course all part of a desperate attempt at crisis news management by the Royal Dutch Shell propaganda ministry. read more

This website and sisters royaldutchshellgroup.com, shellnazihistory.com, royaldutchshell.website, johndonovan.website, and shellnews.net, are owned by John Donovan. There is also a Wikipedia segment.

WikiLeaks Touches Shell

Bloomberg News

Executive Ann Pickard, now in Australia, said Shell had ‘people’ in Nigerian ministries, according to a cable.

By JAMES HERRON in London and WILL CONNORS in Lagos, Nigeria

Royal Dutch Shell PLC feared it could lose the bulk of its oil-license acreage in Nigeria after the country’s new Petroleum Industry Bill is passed, according to one in a series of diplomatic cables that offer glimpses into the intersection between business and politics in Africa’s biggest oil producer.

“The PIB will redefine how a company can hold on to its exploration and production blocks, limiting what can be kept to two kilometers around each well,” said the cable from the U.S. Embassy in Nigeria to government officials in Washington. The message followed an Oct. 13, 2009, meeting between Dundas McCullough, the U.S. deputy chief of mission in Abuja, Nigeria, and Ann Pickard, who then was Shell’s vice president for sub-Saharan Africa. “We could lose 80% of our acreage” under rules that would redistribute undrilled areas, she was quoted as saying. read more

This website and sisters royaldutchshellgroup.com, shellnazihistory.com, royaldutchshell.website, johndonovan.website, and shellnews.net, are owned by John Donovan. There is also a Wikipedia segment.
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