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March 10th, 2014:

Sasol ‘eyes Shell Karoo acreage’

Extracts from an article by Eoin O’Cinneide published by upstream online.com

Screen Shot 2013-12-22 at 19.09.52South African petrochemicals giant Sasol is eyeing some of Shell’s shale gas acreage in the country’s Karoo basin… “We are really interested in what is going in the Shell block and would love to farm in or take a piece of it,” Reuters quoted Sasol chief executive David Constable as saying on Monday. “Shell is issuing profit warnings and pulling back capex right now.”

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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.

When Shell was forced to abandon $80 million Deep Mensa well

Screen Shot 2014-03-10 at 14.41.06By John Donovan

In 2002, Royal Dutch Shell had a close call in the Gulf of Mexico when the oil giant was “forced to abandon drilling an $80 million well at a prospect called Deep Mensa in the Mississippi Canyon after the drill bit got stuck at nearly 28,000 feet attempting to drill through fractured rock.”

The event was described in a recent book by Tom Bower – “The Squeeze” – as a disaster.

He wrote: “Technicians monitoring the data witnessed the ‘crash out’ – the uncontrolled vibrations which smashed the drill as it struggled through fractured rock. 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.

Pioneer Flourishes in U.S. Shale Fields Where Shell Floundered

Extract from an article by Joe Carroll published 10 March 2014 by Bloomberg News

Screen Shot 2014-02-10 at 16.29.29Pioneer Natural Resources Co. (PXD), the top energy stock in the S&P 500 last year, is tripling drilling in shale fields as international energy explorers five times its size recoil from losses on the U.S. oil renaissance. Pioneer’s wildcatting bucks the trend among bigger explorers including Royal Dutch Shell Plc (RDSA) that are writing down U.S. shale assets and shrinking their footprints after drilling money-losing wells. For Shell, the world’s second-largest oil producer by market value, the dwindling value of its U.S. shale prospects contributed to a $2.7 billion writedown of its oil and gas portfolio announced in January. The Hague-based company said it would scale back drilling in those fields because of disappointing results. Shell’s global output dropped 1.9 percent last year to the lowest since 2009, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. 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.

Little known key role of Michiel Brandjes in Shell reserves scandal

Screen Shot 2014-03-09 at 23.42.12However, unbeknown to Van de Vijver, Michiel Brandjes (right), who was alarmed by the findings of the report, sent a copy to a New York law firm Cravath, Swaine & Moore. This meant that events were no longer in the control of Shell. Instead, Shell’s most sensitive issue since its close association with Adolf Hitler and the Nazis several decades ago, had been disclosed to an outside firm, that had to consider and protect its own reputation.

By John Donovan

In May 2003, Frank Coopman, the then Chief Financial Officer of Shell EP, delivered bad news about Shell’s operations in Nigeria to the Chief Executive of Shell EP, Walter van de Vijver.

Van de Vijver sent Coopman back to Nigeria to investigate further.

The subsequent findings, set out in a status report, were even more devastating, revealing an overstatement of 1.1 billion boe.

Van de Vijver had instructed a team led by Coopman to work on the reserves issues.

The team included a top Shell lawyer, Michiel Brandjes, the then Company Secretary of Royal Dutch Petroleum. 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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