In the corridors of global energy, Shell presents itself as a monolithic symbol of industrial prowess, dividend reliability and transition ambition. Investors like BlackRock, Inc. and The Vanguard Group, Inc. hold sizeable stakes. Yet behind the investor-slides and glossy sustainability pledges lies a series of historical shadows: offshore disasters, legacy pollution, human-rights litigation and repeated admissions of safety underperformance. This article takes a tour through select episodes—chronologically arranged—of how Shell has, in many instances, placed lives and safety on the back burner. While satire underpins the tone, the facts are stubbornly real.
Australia
Shell’s scandalous approach to safety
Shell vs Donovan: Oil Giant vs Watchdog
How one man’s persistence exposed decades of corporate deceit — and forced an oil giant to live with its reflection.
Part 1: The Origins of a Corporate Nemesis
“There are two types of corporations: those that fear whistleblowers and those that wish they’d hired one.” — Industry proverb
In the late 1980s, John Donovan was not yet a thorn in Shell’s side. He was one of its trusted collaborators — a marketing innovator whose company, Don Marketing, created hugely successful sales promotions for Shell in the UK and around the globe.
But what began as a partnership ended in betrayal. A bitter dispute over intellectual property, allegedly stolen concepts, and corporate bullying gave birth to a feud that would last decades.
Shell Bets the Planet on LNG: Ten More Years of “Lower-Carbon” Storytelling
Shell CEO Wael Sawan has finally shown his hand: the company’s main contribution to the energy industry for the next decade will be liquefied natural gas (LNG). Not wind. Not solar. Not storage. LNG. The same fossil fuel dressed up as a climate saviour.
What Sawan Said
At the Economic Club of New York, Sawan declared:
“We are absolutely committed to this sector.”
He argued LNG is “one of the most effective fuels” for lowering emissions because it can displace coal in Asia, citing India and China. (Reuters)
Shearwater Shambles: Shell’s Nitrogen Leak Turns Decking Into Deadfall (and History Repeats Itself)
When you’re Shell—the company that brought you unseaworthy Brent Bravo lifeboats, the Prelude floating gas plant evacuation in Australia, and the occasional oil-for-arms scandal—you’d think safety blunders would be less frequent by now. Think again.
The Incident
On July 12, the Shell-operated Shearwater platform, 140 miles off Aberdeen, sprang a leak of liquid nitrogen. The leak damaged the underside of the deck, sending debris crashing onto a walkway below. The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) later confirmed the falling material had the potential to cause a “fatal injury.”
Shell was served an improvement notice on August 4, with the HSE citing six separate breaches of health and safety law, including failures to protect workers from risks tied to “loss of containment events.” The notice must be complied with by September 9.
Shell Built a Floating Cathedral to Gas – Then Spent Years Praying the Lights Stay On
Let’s talk about Shell’s Prelude FLNG, a.k.a. the biggest corporate midlife-crisis purchase ever parked on the ocean. Shell didn’t just build a platform; they launched a 488-meter-long, 74-meter-wide, 600,000-tonne floating factory that maritime media straight-faced called “the largest offshore structure ever built”—and, yes, “it displaces six times as much water as the largest aircraft carrier.”
Anchored some 475 km (295 miles) off Australia, Prelude was moored with 16 giant chains to a 93-meter turret—“secured to the seabed by mooring lines”—so the behemoth could spin with cyclones and still keep pumping. Very metal. Very expensive. And very on-brand for a company that thinks the solution to climate and cost risk is… more steel.
Shell’s $66 Million Audit Fiasco, a Flaming Gas Rig, and That Time They Lied About Oil Reserves: Business as Usual
Let’s give a warm, fiery round of applause to Shell plc—the undisputed heavyweight champion of corporate facepalms. This week’s episode in the long-running series What the Actual Fuck, Shell? features the oil Goliath filing amended financial reports in the US, after its beloved auditor EY—yes, the Ernst & Young you know and regret—forgot the actual rules of auditing.
Apparently, the lead audit partner overstayed their welcome on Shell’s books, breaking SEC rotation rules two years in a row. But don’t worry! No financials were changed. Which is great, because if there’s one thing more reliable than Shell’s gas leaks, it’s their ability to break the rules without breaking a sweat.
Shell’s Prelude to Disaster: Floating Time Bomb Gets Regulatory Shrug While Transparency Sinks
If you’ve ever wondered what happens when a multibillion-dollar floating gas bomb loses power and the regulators simply nod along—look no further than Shell’s Prelude FLNG, the world’s largest offshore floating liquefied natural gas facility, and possibly the most expensive game of Russian roulette ever parked in Australian waters.
In December 2021, Shell’s bloated $17 billion Prelude vessel suffered a catastrophic blackout, knocking out critical safety systems, including emergency power, communications, and fire suppression. You know, just the stuff that keeps explosions from happening. Workers were left stranded, helicopters grounded, and any notion of “safe operations” went out the nearest gas vent.
Shell’s Floating Time Bomb: Prelude to a Cover-Up
When Shell isn’t busy triggering earthquakes in Groningen or handing its CEO fat cheques for torching the planet, it’s apparently running floating LNG death traps in Australian waters—with the full blessing of a regulator that seems more asleep than alert.
Welcome to the latest entry in Shell’s ever-expanding anthology of negligence: the Prelude FLNG disaster and the whistleblower who dared to pull back the curtain.
In December 2021, Shell’s flagship floating liquefied natural gas facility, Prelude—yes, the one Shell bragged about as a “marvel of engineering”—suffered a major power failure that knocked out essential safety systems. That’s not an inconvenience. That’s a “get-the-lifeboats” kind of event. Smoke in the UPS 214 room, power instability, a loss of control systems—it’s the stuff offshore nightmares are made of.
Shell Shocker: “Oops, We Broke the Planet (Again), But Don’t Worry, Trading’s Fine”
🤡 Unplanned Maintenance, Cyclones, and a Whole Lot of Fossil Fuel Fantasy
Just when you thought Shell Plc might start taking the climate crisis seriously, they drop a fresh load of fossil-fueled optimism—while their gas output slumps and their climate credibility melts faster than Arctic ice in a heatwave.
In a new “trading update” (read: PR gloss-over), Shell confessed that natural gas and LNG production in the first quarter of 2025 was—gasp!—lower than expected. The reason? Oh, just some “unplanned maintenance” in Australia and “cyclones.” You know, the kinds of weather events that are becoming more frequent because of companies like Shell.
Irina Woodhead: The Whistleblower Shell Couldn’t Silence
Shell Games: Oil Slicks, Exploding Death Boats, and the Whistleblower They’d Rather You Forget
Here we go again. Shell—the ethical oil behemoth that brought you climate chaos, fiery floating gas factories, and ocean-wide slicks the size of small countries—is under fire once more. And what do you know? It’s not just a fluke or a rogue pipe. It’s a pattern. A very expensive, very dangerous, and very preventable pattern of catastrophic negligence—and the people trying to stop it keep getting burned. Literally and professionally.
The Bonga Spill: “Oops” Doesn’t Quite Cover It
Let’s rewind to December 2011. Off the coast of Nigeria, Shell’s pride and joy, the Bonga FPSO (Floating Production Storage and Offloading vessel), decided it was time to vomit 40,000 barrels of crude oil into the Atlantic. Over 685 square miles of shimmering disaster followed, making it one of Nigeria’s worst spills in a decade. Shell took hours to stop the leak after their crew noticed that more oil was disappearing than arriving. Genius.
WTF Is Shell Whining About Now? Australia Dares Suggest Gas Should Help Australians—Cue Oil Giant Meltdown
Enter Irina Woodhead, a former Shell technical safety engineer who had the audacity to suggest that maybe—just maybe—ignoring safety protocols on a floating gas bomb was a bad idea. She raised concerns about Prelude’s emergency protocols, only to be shown the door faster than you can say “whistleblower retaliation.
Ah, Shell. The oil-stained poster child of unhinged corporate greed, environmental catastrophe, and staggering audacity. Alongside its equally charming BFFs ExxonMobil and Chevron, Shell is now losing its ever-loving mind over a radical, totally outlandish proposal: that some of the gas they’re hoarding and shipping offshore might actually be used to keep Australians warm and the lights on.
You know, in Australia. Where the gas comes from.
But don’t worry, Shell’s top brass is here to explain why that’s a very bad idea—for them, obviously.
Prelude FLNG: Shell’s $17.5 Billion Disaster Gets Another ‘Turnaround’—Because the First One Worked So Well
Stop the presses—Shell is once again “fixing” Prelude FLNG, the world’s most expensive floating LNG catastrophe. Yes, the very same Prelude that has lurched from one disaster to another since production began in 2018. The plan? A leadership shake-up, mass restructuring, and yet another grand vision: Turnaround 2026. Because when all else fails, slap a new label on the mess and hope investors don’t notice. If history is any guide, don’t hold your breath—unless you’re on Prelude, in which case, you might want to really avoid breathing in those unvented hazardous gases.
Prelude, Shell’s $17.5 billion floating headache, was supposed to be a marvel of engineering. Instead, it’s been a slow-motion trainwreck of operational failures, safety nightmares, and regulatory smackdowns. The company has already confirmed the departure of long-serving Asset Manager Peter Norman, but, surprise—no successor has been named. Meanwhile, a quiet exodus of senior figures, including Operations Manager Andrew Harvey and Offshore Installation Manager Kerry Lambert, is underway.
Shell’s Latest Offshore Gas Grab: Australia Bows to Big Oil’s Demands Yet Again
Prelude FLNG itself has been a spectacularly unreliable disaster, shutting down multiple times due to safety and operational failures.
Shell. The shining beacon of corporate responsibility. The ethical North Star of the energy sector. The company that never—ever—puts profit over people, the planet, or basic decency. And now, thanks to the ever-accommodating Australian government, this benevolent titan has been given the go-ahead to unleash yet another offshore gas project. Because if there’s one thing the world desperately needs in 2025, it’s more fossil fuel infrastructure!
Shell Australia—the local arm of the UK-based money-printing empire—has been handed the regulatory stamp of approval by none other than the National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Management Authority (NOPSEMA). This means Shell can now plow ahead with its “Crux” development (oh, the irony), a massive offshore natural gas project in the northern Browse Basin, 190 kilometers off the northwest Australian coast. Given that Shell’s track record on environmental stewardship is as spotless as an oil-soaked pelican, what could possibly go wrong?
NOPSEMA Slaps Shell with a Damning Safety Notice for Prelude FLNG
Because Who Needs Worker Safety When There’s Money to Be Made?
Shell Australia has been officially called out (again) for its staggering incompetence and complete disregard for worker safety after an inspection of its disaster-prone Prelude FLNG facility revealed that workers were being exposed to hazardous, cancer-causing gases.
The National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Management Authority (NOPSEMA) has issued Improvement Notice No. 1967, making it painfully clear that Shell has been ignoring serious health risks for years and will likely continue to do so unless forced to take action.
What Did NOPSEMA Find?
Let’s break down the most alarming findings from the regulator’s scathing report:
• Shell Has Known About This for Years
Workers have been reporting strong odours and health symptoms for an extended period, yet Shell has done nothing to fix the issue. Employees have experienced lung and eye irritation, which are classic symptoms of hydrogen sulphide and benzene exposure—but rather than act, Shell management has ignored complaints and let the risks persist.
Shell’s Prelude to Disaster: Workers Exposed to Toxic Gas, Regulator Issues Warning
Shell’s Prelude to Disaster: Workers Exposed to Toxic Gas, Regulator Issues Warning. Because What’s a Little Cancer When There’s Profit to Be Made? In Shell’s world, workers are expendable.
In a development that will shock absolutely no one familiar with Shell’s abysmal safety record, the Australian offshore regulator NOPSEMA has issued an improvement notice after workers aboard Shell’s troubled Prelude FLNG facility reported lung and eye problems from exposure to hazardous gas. Yes, the same Prelude facility that has been an over-budget, unreliable, and unsafe floating disaster since day one.
NOPSEMA’s notice calls on Shell to fix the problem (translation: stop poisoning your workers), after yet another hazardous gas leak was reported. But given Shell’s legendary track record of prioritizing profits over human lives, don’t hold your breath—unless, of course, you’re a Prelude worker, in which case holding your breath might be your only defense against cancer-causing fumes.
Shell Prelude to a Nightmare
Posted by John Donovan: 22 Jan 25
Ah, Shell—the undisputed champion of greed, pollution, and corporate ruthlessness. The ultimate sin stock. The very embodiment of an oil giant that will squeeze every last drop of profit out of a dying industry while dressing it up in greenwashing nonsense. And now, it seems, Shell is doubling down on a losing bet—LNG.
Yes, despite the global energy market shifting away from fossil fuels, Shell is hellbent on expanding its liquefied natural gas empire. Investors might want to brace themselves, because this ride promises to be expensive, unreliable, and, in classic Shell fashion, utterly disastrous.
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