THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: THE SOURCE

By James Herron: 8 February 2011

Oil prices may have stormed back into the headlines by crossing the ominous $100 a barrel threshold in recent weeks. But while this has happening the world’s largest oil and gas companies have been banging the drum for an altogether less newsworthy fuel–natural gas.

ExxonMobil, Royal Dutch Shell and now BG Group have been arguing that significant changes are afoot in the unglamorous world of natural gas that could have a big impact on patterns of energy consumption, carbon dioxide emissions and the balance of power in volatile energy markets.

The big driver of this shift is supply. Energy companies have done a remarkable job in recent years of finding vast quantities of natural gas, possibly adding more than a hundred years of supply of the fuel.

A boom in production of natural gas trapped in shale rock has already transformed the fortunes of the U.S. Just a few years ago, North America was grimly looking at the prospect of growing dependence on foreign gas. Now it’s sitting on so much of the stuff that people are seriously discussing export projects.

In other parts of the world, notably Australia and southeast Africa, new projects are starting and new discoveries being made that will be feeding growing Asian markets by the middle of this decade.

There is disagreement over the impact this will have. The International Energy Agency, which represents the interests of major energy consumers, says there will be a global gas glut lasting until 2020, leading to low prices for much of the decade.

But (not surprisingly) Shell, ExxonMobil and BG Group, all big producers of natural gas, disagree. Rather than swamping the market, they say the extra supply will stimulate greater use of gas either because it is cheaper, more secure or less carbon intensive than other energy sources.

Shell is the biggest promoter of the green credentials of natural gas.

“The quickest and cheapest way to cut CO2 emissions from the global power sector is to grow the presence of natural gas,” said Shell’s exploration chief Malcolm Brinded in a speech late last year. This is because natural gas produces less than half the emissions of coal for the electricity generated.

Brinded added: “Natural gas capacity is also considerably faster and cheaper to install than other new build sources of electricity.”

Shell has argued that the European Union could save half a trillion Euros while still meeting its ambitious target to cut CO2 emissions by 80% by 2050, if only it switched from promoting renewables and nuclear and instead focused on swapping coal for gas.

The sudden abundance of natural gas has also caused a substantial shift in its reputation as a reliable fuel source. Just a few years ago, many governments perceived natural gas as the weapon Russia would use to take over the world. The boom in gas production in a stable, friendly country like the U.S., and the hope it could be repeated elsewhere, has lessened those fears.

In its 2030 energy forecast last month, ExxonMobil predicted a shift toward natural gas by businesses and governments precisely because it is so reliable and affordable.

BG Group, in its long-term strategy update Tuesday, was particularly bullish, predicting gas demand will grow 3% a year between now and 2020.

“The increase in demand by 2020 will be equivalent to more or less the entire current North American gas market,” said BG Chief Executive Frank Chapman. Once you take into account the need to offset the natural decline in production from existing resources, more than two North America’s worth of new gas supply will be needed to meet this demand, he said.

A big part of this growth in natural gas demand could come at the expense of oil, Chapman said. As emerging economies develop, they will stop using expensive, dirty oil to fuel their homes and businesses and substitute it for cheaper natural gas. BG Group estimates that between 2010 and 2020, natural gas consumption could expand by up to 260 billion cubic meters a year at the expense of oil.

A switch of this magnitude could shave 4.4 million barrels a day off projected oil demand growth over the next ten years. To put this into perspective, BP recently estimated that total global liquids demand–oil, biofuels, natural gas liquids–will grow by 16.5 million barrels over the next 20 years. So a shift of this magnitude would surely affect the price of oil.

Unsurprisingly, Chapman saw all this as an opportunity rather than a problem. He reckons $2 trillion of new investment will be needed over the next nine years to meet these forecasts. Who wouldn’t want a piece of that action?

SOURCE ARTICLE

Photo Credit: Bloomberg – BP’s Miskar gas platform off the coast of Tunisia

COMMENT BY AN OUTSPOKEN FORMER EMPLOYEE OF SHELL OIL USA

Reference the articles on the South African Karoo region shale gas production controversy, I have to side with Royal Dutch Shell, et al, on this issue.

I could write you a commentary on the hydraulic fracturing (‘frac’ing’) process and what it does, but it would be somewhat technical so I think I will let it slide.

Very briefly, ‘frac’ing’ is a very common technique used for stimulating production rates from both oil and gas reservoirs. There are two types of hydraulic ‘frac’ing’: acid frac’ing which is very common and done mostly in carbonate reservoirs, and sand or propant frac’ing which is also common and done in sandstone or shale reservoirs.

In many cases the hydraulic ‘frac’ing’ process is one where existing natural fractures in the rock are simply opened up and a sand propant is pumped into these fractures to keep them open. The sand is usually carried by a thick goo like substance, a natural plant based gel (guar gum made from guar beans: Guar – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia), that breaks down and liquefies with temperature. This substance is usually completely recovered during the flow testing process immediately after the rock is ‘frac’ed’. The gel is completely biodegradable. This loose sand that is pumped into the fractures is naturally very porous and permeable and allows gas and/or oil to flow into a production well at much, much higher rates that would normally be the case.

The ‘frac’ing’ of tight gas sands and shales it is a very environmentally benign reservoir stimulation process if done right. In the course of my career I have designed more than one ‘frac’ job for the stimulation of ‘tight’ gas sands.

It is my guess that many hundreds of thousands of hydraulic ‘frac’ jobs have been done on production wells in the US, and the vast, vast majority have caused absolutely no problems with potable water reservoirs. (Millions of oil and gas wells have been drilled in the continental US. Most were dry holes and were plugged.)

If hydraulic fracturing is not done right, it can do a great deal of irreparable harm to potable water reservoirs. There have been widespread problems in the US with the technique because the oil companies and oil field service companies, like Halliburton, Schlumberger, BJ Services, etc., have not ‘followed the rules’, and because there has been little or no industry oversight. Most of these problems occurred during the last 10 years as exploitation of shale gas reservoirs exploded, and during the Bush administration, where oversight of oil industry well completion practices was relaxed to the point it was almost non-existent. Suffice it to say, that good governmental oversight is necessary to prevent the types of industry abuses that have occurred in the US. It is utter brain dead folly to put the fox in charge of the hen house. The term ‘industry self – regulation’ is an oxymoron.

I think the current controversy over hydraulic fracturing in South Africa, the US, and elsewhere is to a great degree a lot of fear mongering by people who have absolutely no idea of what the devil they are talking about. Motives for opposing tight shale gas production are many and varied and include those who are deliberately attempting to cause trouble for the gas industry because of their opposition to the use of fossil fuels. Unfortunately, there is no currently available substitute for hydrocarbons fuels that will economically eliminate the use of these fuels on a large scale and in the near future.

However, a healthy informed debate about the hydraulic fracturing process should do no harm for the industry and it should allay the fears of the general public. It is incumbent upon the oil and gas industry to engage the public in this debate and provide the necessary educational information. If it does not do so then it may find itself on the wrong side of an largely contrived environmental debate, and it may find its ability to exploit this large untapped source of natural gas curtailed unnecessarily.

UPI.com

Published: Feb. 8, 2011 at 7:31 AM

MOSCOW, Feb. 8 (UPI) — Royal Dutch Shell could hand some of its assets in Asia over to Russia’s Gazprom in an effort to expand liquefied natural gas options, sources said.

Shell executives are said to be eager to add a third LNG unit at the Sakhalin-2 facility north of Japan. The move would increase output at the plant, Russia’s only such facility, by as much as 50 percent.

The Sakhalin-2 facility started operations in 2009. Shell, which holds a minority stake in the project, said the plant meets 5 percent of the world’s production of LNG when operating at full capacity.

Sources familiar with the possible deal between the two companies said the Sakhalin-2 move follows agreements reached in November to increase bilateral cooperation, reports Bloomberg News.

Both sides, Bloomberg adds, are pondering deadlines for the negotiations but sources revealed little else. Talks in November, sources added, covered oil and gas developments in Siberia as well as overseas work and possible exploration of Russia’s arctic regions.

Russia’s Rosneft and BP reached a deal last month to explore the Russian arctic, though the measure is stalled in a London court.

By Justine Gerardy (AFP) 8 February 2011

CAPE TOWN — Energy giant Royal Dutch Shell is targeting potential untapped shale gas reserves in coal-hungry South Africa where landowners – including a Dutch princess – are readying for a showdown.

Shell applied in December to explore 90,000 square kilometres — twice the size of Denmark — for gas deposits in the clay-like shale rock of the arid central Karoo.

“The shale gas potential is quite high, because there is a high volume of shale and therefore the potential for gas development is very big,” said Jenny Marot of the state’s Petroleum Agency SA (PASA).

But more than 200 people want the application dropped, including landowner Dutch Princess Irene, due to environmental concerns and the use of hydraulic fracturing or “fracking” to release viable deposits if discovered.

The Anglo-Dutch giant, whose 2010 net profits nearly doubled to $18.6 billion, is one of several companies interested in the Karoo where gas finds in the 1960s were technologically and economically unviable to exploit.

South Africa’s petro-chemical heavyweight Sasol is in early studies in a joint venture, while American firm Falcon Oil&Gas, and Bundu Gas and Oil are also eyeing additional chunks of the Karoo.

“We have always known that there was gas trapped in shale but it was a whole lot more expensive to extract when you had potential reserves elsewhere of conventional gas,” said Shell Africa communications vice president Phaldie Kalam.

“We’re now moving from easy to tight gas. It’s effectively a sign of the times; as it becomes more economically viable, and the prices are a whole lot better for the commodity, its worth actually using the different techniques and going further and deeper.”

But locals fear “fracking”, in which water, sand and chemicals are blasted deep underground to force rock cracks and free the trapped gas, will pollute underground water which the barren Karoo is almost entirely dependent upon.

The process is also water intense, a scarce commodity in the inland region.

“Our biggest concern is water and the risk of contamination of that water,” said Derek Light, a Karoo attorney who represents 200 people including farmers against Shell and smaller groups against Falcon and Bundu.

“The mineral resources of this country must be exploited for the benefit of our people and at the same token, you need foreign investment. But all we see at the moment is a threat to our people.”

With shale gas tipped to make up a fifth of the US gas supply by 2020, potential harmful effects of fracking on drinking water is subject to a study by the country’s Environmental Protection Agency.

Shell, which will submit an environmental management plan to PASA in April, says its track record shows safe use of the technology and that opposing views will be taken into future thinking.

The area’s potential will only be known once exploration starts but, if viable, the Karoo will have a major impact on energy supply with early conservative estimates above five trillion cubic feet of gas, said PASA chief executive Mthozami Xiphu.

“It is potentially much higher than that. If you compare with Mossgas, that’s more than five times what is being produced at Mossgas” gas fields off the southern Cape coast.

South Africa relies heavily on coal for 95 percent of its electricity and the government plans to increase gas consumption from three percent to 10 percent within a decade.

But WWF South Africa head Morne du Plessis questioned the pursuit of more fossil fuels.

“We’re sitting with massive opportunities for renewable energy production above the ground,” he said.

Copyright © 2011 AFP. All rights reserved.

SOURCE ARTICLE

RELATED: DOREEN ATKINSON: Development (Business Day)

By Eduard Gismatullin – Feb 7, 2011 6:35 PM GMT+0000

Royal Dutch Shell Plc’s Chief Executive Officer Peter Voser and five other executives agreed to convert the maximum proportion of their bonus into stock.

Voser got 50 percent of his 2010 bonus, or the equivalent of 1.875 million euros ($2.55 million), converted into 73,457 class-A shares, the company said today in a statement.

Five more executives, including Chief Financial Officer Simon Henry, also converted half of their bonuses into shares. Marvin Odum, president of Shell’s U.S. business, was the only one listed in the statement who converted 25 percent of its bonus into the company shares.

The executive directors have the option of being paid at least 25 percent and not more than 50 percent of their bonuses in shares under the deferred bonus plan, according to the statement.

To contact the reporter on this story: Eduard Gismatullin in London at egismatullin@bloomberg.net

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

SOURCE ARTICLE

THE DAILY MAVERICK

Royal Dutch Shell is seeking to prospect a total area of almost 100,000km²  made up of three segments of about 30,000km² of the in the ancient Karoo Basin in a bid to locate and extract shale gas via a method known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. Other companies are also seeking to prospect massive swathes of Eastern Cape, Western Cape, Free State and KwaZulu-Natal. Sasol wants to prospect more than 80,000km², mostly in Free State. Anglo American, Falcon Oil and Gas, and Bundu Gas and Oil Exploration have applied for prospecting rights to the Petroleum Agency South Africa.

Farmers and townsfolk in the affected areas, along with scientists involved in astronomically sensitive sites in Sutherland and Carnarvon (where SA is competing against Australian scientists for the SKA large-array radio telescope contract) and high-profile land owners like Johan Rupert are opposed to the fracking. Although the Dutch royal family is a major shareholder in Shell, Princess Irene of the Netherlands, second in line to the throne and a prominent landowner near Nieu Bethesda in the heartland of the Karoo, has publicly voiced her vehement opposition to the Dutch company’s plans.

Reuters reported on 1 February that an indefinite moratorium had been called on all new exploration and production rights in the Karoo, but those applications already in the pipeline would not be affected.

There are numerous concerns about the proposed drillings, chief among them being that fracking has caused great environmental damage in countries where it’s been tried before. The process, which seeks to release unconventional gas from shale rock formations deep underground, involves pumping millions of litres of water, sand and chemicals under pressure into the earth. The shale rock is fractured, releasing the gas for pumping to the surface. Companies are lax to release their chemical recipes, but farmers in the US where fracking has been happening for years, found chemicals that are carcinogenic, endocrine and disruptive. In a famous documentary made by Josh Fox on fracking’s environmental impact, footage of flammable tap water is shown. The companies in the Karoo want to bring that process to South Africa.

Water is scarce in the Karoo, and should fracking ruin the groundwater it would devastate farms. So far, Shell has not convinced the farmers and greater community the process will not harm their livelihoods. The Dutch oil company has delegated local company Golder Associates to compile an environmental management plan. Golder business unit leader for environmental services Brent Baxter explained to Independent Newspapers’ Heather Dugmore that “once a company lodges an application for an exploration right under the Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act, they have 120 days to submit an environmental management programme in support of the exploration rights application. This is a legislated timeframe. Shell thus needs to submit an EMP, in support of each of the three exploration rights applications they have lodged in the Karoo by 18 April 2011.”

The scope of the study and the timeframe are far too short, according to independent analysts. “The EMP, by its nature, must include studies by geologists, ecologists and specialist ground and surface water studies. Without these they cannot responsibly comment on the potential impact of gas exploration or mining required in the EMP,” Fritz Bekker, an environmental consultant and farmer said.

There is simply not enough knowledge about the Karoo’s aquifers to say for certain what sort of impact this process would have, say experts. Geohydrologist Ahee Coetsee says, “We simply do not understand enough about the aquifer systems in the Karoo, which is why various studies are being done, such as by the water research commission to look at the dolerite ring aquifer systems of the Karoo, from the surface to a depth of 300m to 500m.

“There are many and varied aquifer systems in the Karoo, some dating back 300 million years and older. If Shell is planning to drill down to 4km and more, and if the boreholes constructed are not 100%, there can be cross contamination between aquifer systems.

“If they do not comprehensively research and understand the hydro-geology of the exploration area, then that will need to be investigated from a technical and legal point of view,” Coetsee said.

The process also involves pumping millions of litres of water, a resource the Karoo simply does not have, into the ground. Shell’s proposal is to use sea water, brought in from the coast by railway.

Golder has been holding public meetings with residents the Karoo, where the answer has been a resounding “no” to Shell’s plans. The meetings are largely academic, of course. Farmers do not have any rights of the minerals below their soil and, therefore, no say in what happens to them. It’s up to Pasa and the department of minerals.

Given Shell’s interest in the unconventional Karoo gas, the end of this story is far from close. Watch this space as the great drama of the ancient African land unfolds. DM

Read more:

• Shell under fire for Karoo gas plan in Business Report;
• South Africa farmers oppose Shell’s shale gas plans in Reuters;
• Large shale gas find in Karoo would be game changer – Sasol in MiningWeekly;
• Podcast on Karoo fracking with Johan Rupert in Moneyweb;
• Fracking the Karoo – the people say no in Karoospace.co.za;
• Fracking may cloud Karoo’s stars in TimesLIVE.

Photo: Cambdeboo conservancy (The Daily Maverick)

Daily Independent (Lagos)

7 February 2011

Lagos — Royal Dutch Shell at the weekend continued its defence on allegation of environmental and human rights impacts in Nigeria even as the controversy of the company’s alleged cover up of 44, 000 barrels oil spill continued.

Shell stands the chance of paying damages if found guilty of the allegations, which are considered weighty in the wake of the billions of dollars in fines handed BP by the U.S. government over the Gulf of Mexico disaster.

Amnesty International (AI) and Friends of the Earth International (FoEI) had announced that they had filed formal complaints with the British and Dutch governments over Shell’s failure to take responsibility for the majority of the oil pollution in the Nigeria’s oil rich Niger Delta region.

But the company denied the allegation maintaining that the discrepancy between the originally reported figure for 2008 and the updated one was explained at length in our 2009 briefing notes – which are available on the web.

“The spill was 44k bbls (44, 000 barrels). It was not included originally because it had not been certified by the independent joint inspection team. We were proactive in bringing this to the attention of many interested third parties, including Amnesty International,” Shell spokesperson, Precious Okolobo said.

He added in another e-mail message that the Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria-operated Joint Venture has continued to strengthen the economies of its host communities.

The company, he said, spent N5.53 billion between 2005 and 2010 on various economic empowerment programmes in the Niger Delta.

“These include 241 micro-credit schemes, 35 agro and fisheries and 120 land and marine transport projects. Another set of skills and enterprise development programmes within the same period directly benefitted over 5,200 youths.”

But (AI) and Friends of the Earth International (FoEI) insisted that Shell “breached the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises” for allegedly using discredited and misleading information to blame the majority of oil pollution in the Niger Delta on sabotage.

The advocacy groups noted that under Nigerian law, Shell does not have any liability for the oil spills if the environmental damage is found to be the result of sabotage.

Nnimmo Bassey, who heads the Friends of the Earth branch in Nigeria, said evidence contradicts Shell’s claims in the Niger Delta.

“Several studies have placed the bulk of the blame for oil spills in the Niger Delta on the doorsteps of the oil companies; particularly Shell,” he said in a statement. “It should take its responsibility and clean up the mess it made in our country.” The company has been at dagger drawn with Amnesty International and Friends of the Earth International (FoEI) over its operations in the Niger Delta over reports that it breached basic standards for responsible business set out by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

The groups said Shell in the 1990s took responsibility for much of the oil pollution in the Niger Delta. Now, however, the company is blaming sabotage by rebel groups for more than 90 percent of the oil spills in the region, the groups claim.

On the economic empowerment programme by Shell, the company’s General Manager Sustainable Development and Community Relations, Tony Attah said: “Our economic empowerment programmes date back to the 1960s.

SOURCE ARTICLE

Royal Dutch Shell Plc may offer OAO Gazprom assets in Asia in exchange for a deal to expand Russia’s only liquefied gas export plant, part of talks on a wider global alliance, said people with knowledge of the negotiations.

Shell wants to add a third liquefied natural gas production unit at the $22 billion Sakhalin-2 venture north of Japan, raising output 50 percent. The Hague-based company is selecting overseas assets to win support from Gazprom, said three people, declining to be identified because the plans are private. Shell may gain access to new offshore blocks to supply the plant.

The talks follow an agreement in November to expand cooperation between Europe’s largest oil company and Russia’s gas export monopoly. Shell Chief Executive Officer Peter Voser and Gazprom’s Alexei Miller have set deadlines for the negotiations, one person said, without elaborating.

Shell, Exxon Mobil Corp. and BP Plc are teaming up with state-run companies to gain access to resources in Russia, the world’s biggest producer of oil and gas. For their part, Russian producers are looking to expand overseas and maintain output at home using foreign expertise. Last month, BP agreed with OAO Rosneft to swap shares, explore three blocks in Russia’s Arctic waters and possibly work abroad.

In addition to the talks on Sakhalin, the two companies are exchanging data on oil fields in west Siberia, where they run the Salym Petroleum venture, two people said. The November accord covered possible oil and gas projects in west Siberia, Russia’s Far East and abroad, as well as European refining and retail.

Government Pressure

Shell, which agreed to cede control of Sakhalin-2 to Gazprom in 2006 under government pressure, is pushing to expand the plant and win markets in China and India. Gazprom has held back on agreeing to expand Sakhalin-2 while it examines a rival plant near Vladivostok.

Gazprom will target areas of “strategic interest,” which may include the Asia-Pacific region and LNG projects, one person said. The list of possible assets in exchange for Sakhalin expansions hasn’t been finalized, the people said.

Shell is spending about $50 billion in Australia over the next decade to develop gas export projects. The company is also drilling for unconventional gas in China.

“As Gazprom wants to be a major player in the LNG markets, then I think Australia equity participation would be most obvious” as a candidate for the Russian company, said Oswald Clint, a senior analyst at Bernstein Research.

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin invited the explorer to participate in the nearby Sakhalin-3 and Sakhalin-4 oil and gas projects during a June 2009 meeting with Voser and then CEO Jeroen van der Veer.

Full Capacity

The Sakhlin-2 plant started production in 2009, reaching reached full capacity last year and accounting for 5 percent of global production of the fuel, according to Shell. Gas may account for more than half of Shell’s total production by 2012.

Vera Surzhenko, a spokeswoman at Shell in Moscow, said the companies are “considering opportunities” and declined to name any assets outside Russia that they may consider. Within Russia, Shell and Gazprom are looking at new projects on the basis of existing assets, she said, declining to elaborate. Sergei Kupriyanov, a Gazprom spokesman, and Denis Rebrov, a Gazprom Neft spokesman, declined to comment.

Gazprom owns 50 percent of Sakhalin Energy, the Sakhalin-2 operator. Shell holds 27.5 percent and Mitsubishi Corp. and Mitsui & Co. also have stakes.

To contact the reporter on this story: Anna Shiryaevskaya in Moscow at ashiryaevska@bloomberg.net

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

SOURCE ARTICLE

By John Donovan

As regular visitors will be aware, this website, which is operated on a dedicated high traffic server hosted in the USA,  is being brought down on a regular basis. By coincidence or otherwise,  it often seems to happen when we publish negative information about Royal Dutch Shell, such as in WikiLeak cables, or revelations concerning Shell Malaysia whistleblower, Dr John Huong.

“Distributed Denial of Service attack, it is when a server is bombarded with so many requests that it can’t respond to legitimate traffic.”

We suffered another “event” overnight. The following is an extract from an emailed warning notice from our server hosting company in Dallas. Note that the traffic to the website was “under a crippling load that was preventing support staff from accessing and investigating this matter.”

This message is being sent to notify you that your server royaldutchshellplccom (70.86.44.66) has experienced the following event: We have received a monitoring alert for this server stating that ************ is no longer working. While the server is online it is under a crippling load that is preventing us from accessing and investigating this matter. Please stand by while I forward this ticket to our data center so they may restore remote connectivity to this server.

So, is it a problem caused by the popularity of the site, or deliberate coordinated denial of service attacks by an unknown party?

If it is Shell, they would have farmed the dirty tricks assignment out to a third party, as they have in the past (and been caught doing so). We know for certain that an aggressive counter-measures team has been set up and targeted on us and our website. We have a Shell internal document confirming this fact.

It is a federal crime to carry out a cyber attack and we might consider notifying the FBI except for the fact that Shell has used specialist facilities in Pittsburgh, partly funded and staffed by the FBI, as part of its response to our lawful activities. Shell’s head of security in the USA Frank T. Garcia, is a former senior FBI official, which perhaps explains the special relationship.

There is also a possibility that it is a case of mistaken identity. It is the only Royal Dutch Shell Plc .com website in existence and some activists in a foreign land corrupted, polluted and plundered by Shell, may think that this is the official Royal Dutch Shell Plc website and wrongly believe they are attacking Shell. That would be ironic.

Article by Alfred Donovan

By June 2006 Shell Malaysia legal boss, Thavakumar Kandiah Pillai (right), had got himself into a most dreadful mess.

Two years earlier he had advised EIGHT different companies, all within the Royal Dutch Shell Group, to bring a collective defamation action against a former Shell Malaysia Production Geologist, Dr John Huong. The action was in respect of information published on an earlier version of this website, which I jointly own and operate with my son, John Donovan.

After reading the Thavakumar Kandiah Pillai Affidavit and related High Court Writ, both issued in June 2004, I immediately notified the Judge and Shell that they were suing the wrong party. So they all knew within days of issuing Draconian proceedings, that Shell had no legitimate grounds on which to pursue the action against Dr Huong.

Despite that knowledge, Shell begun a long campaign to terrorise him into accepting blame for something he did not do. He had  never published a single allegation against Shell. We prepared, edited and published articles based on information supplied to us by Dr Huong (and other Shell Malaysia current or former employees) by email and in numerous telephone conversations. We had also received leaked Shell internal emails.

Thavakumar Kandiah Pillai was not interested in the truth. He was determined to persecute Dr Huong.

It was now June 2006. I had recently supplied a sworn Affidavit setting out the truth.

In response, Thavakumar provided his own Affidavit to the High Court demanding my presence in Malaysia for cross-examination in relation to my Affidavit, despite knowing that I was 89 years old.

In a related High Court Summons, Shell demanded that my Affidavit be “expunged from the record” if I did not appear in the Malaysian court for cross-examination.

It was, however, obvious from the content of his Affidavit that Thavakumar was desperate to put me off from actually making the trip. He knew that if I did do so, it would almost certainly demolish Shell’s entire case against Dr Huong, resulting in a huge loss of face for Shell Malaysia management and Thavakumar Kandiah Pillai. So he was in a real fix.

This explains the allegations in his Affidavit, which if accepted by the Judge, woud undoubtedly have led to my immediate imprisioment in Malaysia under a throughly corrupt dicatorship regime in bed with Shell for decades.  The same Affidavit contained reference to contempt proceedings which were already in progess against Dr Huong (seeking his imprisonment).

Extracts from some of the statements made by Thavakumar in his Affidavit: “Donovan is outwardly contemptuous of this Honourable Court”; “Donovan impeded or interfered with the administration of justice”; “admits, aiding and abetting the Defendant in breaching the Injunction Order…”; “the Malaysian courts have ruled against the Defendant because they have been influenced by the Plaintiffs.”; “Donovan continues to impede or interfere with the administration of justice.”

Very serious charges.

We had offered to be cross-examined at the Malaysian Embassy in London, but this was not acceptable.

Shell eventually gave up in the face of potential negative publicity arising from pressuring an 89 year old UK citizen to travel to Malaysia in such circumstances. In 2009 Shell settled the case with Dr Huong.

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