Posts under ‘GoogleNews’

By John Donovan

On 31 March, Richard Wiseman, the Chief Ethics & Compliance Officer of Royal Dutch Shell Plc will be making a speech at a seminar in London: “Best Practice in Combating Corruption Extortion and Bribery“

“The event will examine new developments and tools in fighting corruption and providing practical methods for addressing and investigating extortion and bribery.”

We can only surmise that Mr Wiseman is present on the basis of being a poacher turned gamekeeper.

When he was Legal Director of Shell UK Limited we brought to his attention irrefutable evidence of corrupt practices inside Shell.  A Shell executive on the make had plotted with colleagues on how to deceive companies participating in what they foolishly thought was an honest tender process for a major Shell contract. The companies in question were enticed into confidentiality agreements under false pretenses, so that Shell could steal intellectual property from them and prevent them offering it to rival oil companies.

The contract was eventually given to a company which never took part in the tender. A company with whom the Shell executive had a close personal relationship. Evidence shows that he had an offshore bank account and had recorded in his diary a devious plan to set up his own business inside Shell and then retire from the company at the age of 35.

We also brought the extensive documentary evidence of this ruthless conspiracy to the attention of all directors of Shell UK, Shell Transport and Royal Dutch Petroleum. We invited Malcolm Brinded to disassociate himself from the thoroughly dishonest Shell executive in question. Instead of doing so, Shell senior management, including Wiseman, gave him its full backing.

It is therefore the height of hypocrisy that Wiseman was appointed to his current position and even more outrageous that he has the audacity to make another speech on the subject – unless he is giving tips on predatory conduct against small companies lulled into a false sense of security by sham business principles.

EMAIL TO MR RAY FOX FROM JOHN DONOVAN

Re: RAY FOX NUCLEAR NIGHTMARE

Hello Ray

Thank you for your email.

I note with interest your news about the imminent return of Professor Dr Chris Busby to the land adjoining the former Shell Terminal at Earley, Reading, to carry out tests using new equipment. Please be advised that I received last night, a confidential Shell internal document dated 21 January 2010 containing the clearest denial yet by Shell on “the alleged nuclear reactor at Earley“.

It says…

“We have given a categorical written assurance that Shell has never been involved in “atomic” or “nuclear” research at Earley or elsewhere in the UK, and that no nuclear bunker is buried under the former Shell terminal. According to the European Commission, the data show radioactivity levels substantially below those considered harmful to human health. Any radioactivity found on the site has nothing to do with Shell’s activities.”

Please feel free to pass this information to Professor Dr Busby as it is at variance with the report he prepared in July 2009.

So who should the residents of the housing estate built on the former Shell terminal believe? Shell, which has an international track record of deadly pollution, or Professor Busby BSc, PhD, C.Chem, MRSC, the renowned scientist, who is one of the worlds leading experts on radioactive contamination?

We have to bear in mind the evidence that Shell was unsuccessful in at least the initial and second attempts at decontamination of toxic chemicals at the site, otherwise there would not have been a third attempt.

ROYAL DUTCH SHELL CAUGHT AGAIN IN BITUMEN PRICE FIXING CARTEL

In September 2006, the European Commission fined Shell $137m for their role in a cartel that fixed the price of bitumen. According to a report published in the Houston Chronicle, “the EU Commission said the company was an instigator, took the leadership in the cartel and was a repeat offender”. The report went on to state that “Shell’s fine was increased by 50 percent because of its involvement in previous cartels and another 50 percent for instigating and leading the cartel.” A BBC news report revealed that Shell has previously been fined by the EU Commission for price-fixing in other markets (PVC and propylene). An article in The Daily Mail stated that Shell’s fine was increased by lOpc for “obstructing the probe”. On 29 November 2006, it was reported that the European Commission was imposing “its second-largest cartel fine against Shell, Dow Chemical, ENI, Unipetrol and Trade-Stomil.” The fine was imposed for “fixing prices of synthetic rubber, used mainly in tyre production.” According to an article in The Times newspaper, “Shell’s fine, as well as ENI’s, was increased because it was a repeat offender.” All three of the featured quotations are from The Times article. According to a BBC News report, also published on 29 November 2006, Royal Dutch Shell Plc was fined 160.8 million euros. (EXTRACT from Wikipedia)

The fines apparently did not deter Shell from deliberately engaging in price fixing cartels despite all the false claims of integrity, honesty and transparency in the Shell Business Principles. Today we publish news of Shell’s participation in a further price fixing cartel…

5 MARCH 2010

A SASOL application to the Competition Commission for leniency has opened a can of worms in the oil industry. The commission said yesterday it had found that major oil companies had fixed their bitumen prices.

The commission ruled against Chevron SA; Engen; Shell SA; Total SA; Masana Petroleum Solution (BP is a shareholder in the black-owned Masana); the Southern African Bitumen Association (Sabita), a nonprofit organis ation for producers; Sasol; and Tosas, a Sasol subsidiary, which accounts for nearly all of SA’s bitumen market.

They compete in the supply of bitumen and bituminous products, which are used mainly to tar and rehabilitate roads.

Masana admitted guilt, and agreed to pay an administrative penalty of R13m as part of a settlement.

The probe may have the unintended consequence of making the oil groups wary of co-operating, which the government wants ahead of the Soccer World Cup.

The investigation started in January last year, but the commission said the companies continued to collude until December, almost a year into the investigation. Last year, the industry applied to the commission for exemption from the Competition Act to allow industry players to hold regular discussions to ensure security of supply and to co-operate to access supply from the nearest depot when stocks were running low.

The exemption will revive joint planning and co-ordination in the industry.

The commission started the bitumen investigation in January last year, after Sasol and Tosas asked for leniency.

“In its application, Sasol admitted that together with its subsidiary, Tosas, it had colluded with its competitors, and was granted conditional immunity from prosecution provided it co-operates with the commission,” it said.

The commission has asked the Competition Tribunal to impose an administrative penalty of 10% of the turnover of each of the companies, except Sasol and Tosas.

In its investigations, the commission found that the companies had engaged in collusive conduct from about 2000 until “at least” December last year.

“The respondents collectively determined and agreed on pricing principles, including a starting reference price and monthly price adjustment mechanism,” the commission said.

“This was facilitated through meetings convened by Sabita, as well as through correspondence through Sabita and direct communication between oil companies. The conduct resulted in final customers being charged prices which were not competitively determined,” the commission said.

Commissioner Shan Ramburuth said yesterday that the uncovering of the cartel was another important step in the commission’s work in addressing anticompetitive conduct affecting infrastructure development.

Engen spokeswoman Tania Landsberg said yesterday the company was aware of the investigation, and had cooperated with the commission.

“We are conducting an internal investigation in respect of our operations in the bitumen industry, and that investigation is ongoing,” Landsberg said.

Shell SA said yesterday it had also instituted its own investigation. Chairman Bonang Mohale said the company had co-operated with the commission.

Mohale said Shell had undertaken extensive training for employees in commercial roles “to ensure they understand and comply with competition laws to prevent this type of reoccurrence”.

Although the size of the bitumen and modified bitumen products market could not be immediately ascertained yesterday, these companies are well placed to benefit from the huge road construction works now under way in SA.

njobenis@bdfm.co.za

SOURCE ARTICLE

Posting on Shell Blog on Feb 27th, 2010 at 10:19 am by “guest1″, a regular contributor.

We should not give the impression that we are over-concerned with the D’s website, or that management spends a lot of time worrying about it. (Shell)

By John Donovan

I am still studying the Shell internal documents and communications the company was recently obliged to supply to me in accordance with an application under the Data Protection Act.

It is interesting to note the way events in our unusual relationship with Shell have been spun by Shell lawyers, depending on who is being given the information.

Richard Wiseman (right) is now the Chief Ethics & Compliance Officer of Royal Dutch Shell Plc. We crossed swords with him many times during the seven separate court actions we brought against the oil giant, which settled ALL of these claims, involving breach of confidence, breach of contract and libel.

You would never guess this when reading the written briefings given regularly to a Shell senior management obsessed with our activities, to the extent of running a global spying operation against Shell employees, the Donovan’s and our website. This includes “invisible” investigations involving Shell Corporate Affairs Security (CAS), trying to discover who is supplying us with insider information, and who is visiting or posting information on our Shell Blog from Shell premises.

Since Wiseman was intimately involved in the bouts of litigation heading up Shell’s legal team, it is inconceivable that he has not had an input into the written briefings, at the very least checking to ensure accuracy. Indeed, he informed me when we last met at a Shell AGM (in 2006?) that he is still brought in to all matters involving the Donovan’s, including the royaldutchshellplc.com domain name battle, which Shell also lost.

I will just pick out a few examples of blatant spin in a briefing dated 31 August 2007.

1. The first sentence of the first paragraph states:

We should not give the impression that we are over-concerned with the D’s website, or that management spends a lot of time worrying about it.

This is like a boxer trying to pretend that punches to his midriff are not making any impression, when everyone else is gasping at the obvious damage from sickening blows. A small selection of Shell internal documents, mainly from 2007 onwards, confirm that contrary to the self-delusion, Shell management is indeed obsessed by our activities.

2. Shell says in the briefing document:

…the company has always refrained from commenting on specific issues raised by the Ds and will continue to do so.

Anyone who has seen the recent published email correspondence I had with Wiseman in relation to the worlds biggest breach of employee data knows this claim is more BS. Extracts from what Wiseman said to me in his email replies were republished around the world. Shell lawyers have provided comment many times previously as would be obvious to our regular visitors.

3.  Shell also said in the internal briefing document:

In the early ’90s when Shell wanted to use Make Money again, Mr D claimed that he still owned the concept. Shell paid D for the transfer of the concept. Mr D then launched legal action against Shell in connection with two other promotions. While Shell was confident of defeating the claim, in the interest of saving costs for both sides, it was agreed that the matter would be settled. Following this settlement, Mr D sued Shell again. He claimed that he had invented the Smart promotion and that Shell had “stolen” it from him. The case went to court but Mr D eventually abandoned his claim

Yes, Shell did settle the Make Money claim, but only after we issued High Court proceedings seeking an injunction.

With regards to the litigation concerning “two other promotions”, Shell says it settled to save both sides costs. How unusually generous of Shell. We previously received an entirely different explanation from Mr Wiseman in his email dated May 1997. At the time, he was claiming  that Shell had settled out of a moral obligation which  arose out of the termination of the Company’s long standing relationship with us, not out of any particular claim. In fact, Shell settled after independent mediators reached the conclusion, after accessing the evidence and interviewing key witnesses, that “Don Marketing has been pissed on from a very great height”. A memorable verdict.

Wiseman claiming that Shell settled with us on moral grounds is on a par with the claim by Shell executive director, Malcolm Brinded, that Shell settled the Wiwa litigation last June on the court room steps for $15.5 million as a “goodwill gesture”, after Shell had dragged out the proceedings for many years. Oil and morals do not mix. All such decisions by Shell are taken on purely commercial grounds, which factor in potential reputational damage.

Shell also misrepresents the outcome of the SMART trial. Shell made two settlement proposals. I rejected the first and accepted the second only after it was agreed that my legal costs would be paid and that I would receive a secret payment not even disclosed to the trial Judge.

What hope is there for Shell management to make informed decisions when such inaccurate self-serving information, trying to cover-up past embarrassments, is conveyed to them?

Comments from our sources on recent statements about Shell’s operations in Angola made by it’s Executive VP for sub-Saharan Africa, Ann Pickard (Right).

Shell’s exit from Angola was not a success story and it throws a slightly different light on Ann Pickard’s remarks in Nigeria.

Her comment about Angola’s production exceeding that of Nigeria sounds like an attack on Bichsel et al who pulled Shell out of Angola a few years ago. It is Brinded and (especially) Bichsel who threw the Angola opportunity away.

I remember our explorers bid for some blocks and got all of the crap while the others found big fields. And what we sold off turned out to be much better than expected.

Shell had the opportunity to obtain block 17, but decided that the huge structure visible on the seismic was too big to be an oilfield. It was in fact the Girassol field, and Elf (now Total) got it!

Shell pulled out of Block 16 (where they were operator), selling out to CNR who in turn sold it to Maersk (who have recently made major discoveries in the block.

Shell sold their interest in Block 18 (operated by BP) to the Chinese. It is currently producing very large amounts of oil…

Basically the whole Angola story is proof of the inability of Shell to find oil. You cannot find oil and gas via a strictly controlled process whereby after ticking all the standard boxes you have a big field. One needs top professionals in their fields and surely they should be guided by some simple processes so you don’t overlook something critical. But it is the professionals that do it. And they have mostly left or are kicked out.

Because professionals are difficult people, they may say things that managers do not want to hear…

Angola’s Oil Exploration/Production Blocks January 2005

“One of the principles underlying all of our work on the Web has been that we should be true to the spirit of New Shell. This means that we are seen to be open, listening, interested in the views of others…”: SHELL CENSOR – MARCH 1999

Shell Internet Censorship

By John Donovan

Printed below is a Shell internal email sent in March 1999. Shell was obliged to supply it to us in accordance with an application we made under the UK Data Protection Act. The “X’s” denote sections redacted (censored) by Shell, which includes the name of its author and apparently an extensive circulation list – 4 lines deep.

Although not mentioned in the still visible text, the author of the email was talking about the former “Tell Shell” Internet discussion forum once available on shell.com, until it was censored into oblivion.

Knowing of the involvement of Shell International General Counsel Richard Wiseman in the overt and covert censorship carried out on “Tell Shell” postings, we asked him if he was the author of the email. This was his reply yesterday, 22 February 2010:

Dear Mr Donovan,

I have no record or recollection of drafting or being involved in the drafting of the email you refer to.  Since you claim it was written more than 10 years ago, this is not surprising.  The style is not mine however and I do not believe that I am likely to have been the author.

As usual, I do not propose to comment otherwise on your draft and this should not be taken as acceptance of any of the assertions you make.

Regards
Richard Wiseman

Chief Ethics and Compliance Officer
Royal Dutch Shell plc
Shell Centre, London SE1 7NA

We accept what Mr Wiseman says. Of course, since Shell carried out the blanking out process on the email, it could reveal all of the censored information, but has not offered to do so, even though Royal Dutch Shell CEO Peter Voser and  Company Secretary Michiel Brandjes are fully aware of this article.

It is clear from the content that the author of the email was someone in control over the content of “Tell Shell”.

He or she claimed:

“One of the principles underlying all of our work on the Web has been that we should be true to the spirit of New Shell. This means that we are seen to be open, listening, interested in the views of others…”

Astonishingly, the author then goes on to try to provide a rationale behind the decision to remove 9 out of ten postings we made on “Tell Shell” and to say that if accused of censorship, Shell would argue that it had simply been trying to prevent us dominating discussions. The postings were also manipulated to make it less likely that forum users would visit our own website and be exposed to the full list of our allegations i.e. the truth.

Despite the claims of an open, censorship free discussion forum for lively debate, Shell did not want to entertain controversial postings. Hence the introduction of censorship on “Tell Shell”, providing an explanation on the forum whenever an unwelcome contribution was deleted.

Shell subsequently resorted to secret censorship, whereby postings vanished without trace or explanation. This underhand policy, involving Richard Wiseman, brought about what we described as: “The slow death of the Tell Shell Internet discussion forum”.  After the secret censorship was exposed, Shell “suspended” the forum, as it turned out, permanently.

Not content with censoring “Tell Shell”, Mr Wiseman also wanted us to censor our website. The following is from an email he sent to us on 11 November 2005:-

The extraordinary tolerance shown to your internet activities ought to demonstrate better than anything else the fact that we are uninterested in, and unmoved by, your current activities.  It is true that when your comments to “Tell Shell” overstep the bounds of honest comment and become vituperative or defamatory, we remove them.  In this context, I suggest that the image on

http://www.royaldutchshellplc.com/week44/vantheman3putinnovember2005.htm.

be removed as a matter of urgency.

Some extracts from our response to Mr Wiseman…

The implied threat in your email regarding the satirical comments directed at President Putin, betrays Shell’s real attitude to freedom of speech on the Internet.

Thank you for the official confirmation regarding Shell’s censorship of the “Tell Shell Forum”. Such suppression of free speech is directly at odds with statements made by Shell on the forum inviting feedback and lively open debate in “uncensored space”. Since we have never posted any bad language on Tell Shell, the censorship relates entirely to our criticism of Shell and our accurate account of past events, supported by documents in our possession.

Having admitted to Shell’s censorship policy on the Tell Shell Forum, your next comments imply that Shell has rights or influence over what is published on RoyalDutchShellplc.com. I would respectfully point out that although you can censor postings on your website, you cannot censor commentary posted on ours. You have not mentioned the censorship of postings by other contributors to Tell Shell offering constructive criticism, including former Shell employees (with one such posting deleted in an underhand manner). As far as I am aware, none of the postings critical of Shell contained any bad language.

EXTRACTS END

If you also read the information on the linked articles, it is clear that Richard Wiseman has been a driving force behind the machinations (trickery and censorship) over unwelcome critical postings on “Tell Shell”, which led to its demise and replacement by an unauthorized “Shell Blog”. I refer to the facility at royaldutchshellplc.com on which visitors can make positive or negative postings about Shell (or the Donovan’s), without being subjected to censorship.

In other words, people posting comments can rest assured that some self-serving lawyer is not controlling what is deemed sufficiently favorable to Shell to remain on display. Under the circumstances, perhaps Wiseman’s already lengthy job title should be expanded still further: Chief Censor, Ethics & Compliance Officer, Royal Dutch Shell Plc.

MAIN ARTICLE ENDS

RELATED INFORMATION

A posting made on our Shell Blog by former Shell executive Paddy Briggs was noted with disdain by a Shell employee in an internal email sent on 25 June 2007, who stated:

FYI, Paddy Briggs latest contribution – I think he should choose his friends more carefully…

In the absence of “Tell Shell” I think that this is possibly the best forum for those of us who care about Shell and have informed opinions about the company to share with others. The Donovans perfume (subsequently corrected!) a very useful function and, whilst I don’t always agree with them, I do admire them and certainly do not question their motives or their integrity.

(Since we know the above posting was made by Paddy Briggs, we have inserted his name where it was previously redacted. BTW, we have never met or even spoken to Paddy Briggs, who is now a Trustee of the Shell Contributory Pension Fund.)

A Shell internal email sent earlier the same day contained a more enlightened view about postings on our website. Its author said: “I support Mr Donovan’s right to free speech – even if it is anti-Shell.”

THE SHELL INTERNAL EMAIL SENT IN MARCH 1999

From:XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Sent: 23 March 1999 10:54

TO: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
(E-mail)
Subject: FW: DONVAN

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

One of the principles underlying all of our work on the Web has been that we should be true to the spirit of New Shell. This means that we are seen to be open, listening, interested in the views of others and providing information which helps people to make their own minds up, not just thrust our opinions at them.

This is why, for several years, we have included links to the websites of organisations critical of Shell and have only removed contributions to the Website discussion fora if they were either:

a) abusive of individuals, or:

b) contained libellous material, where we didn’t wish to become involved in the legal implications of being a publisher:

Beyond that, we have deliberately not censored contributions, because this would simply have handed ammunition to our critics.

Before we launched the new campaign, we agreed that we should apply the same guidelines to the new campaign-related discussion fora. It was recognised that they might become targets for our critics, but if we claim to be interested in dialogue, then we need to be seen to be engaged in it and our arguments need to be seen to stand up for themselves.

In respect of Don Marketing, the monitoring of the fora quickly picked up that he had posted ten contributions and we decided to reduce it to one. If we were challenged, our argument would be that we had not censored, but had simply stopped him dominating discussions to the irritation of other users.

His one remaining contribution will be located in the Human Rights section at
http://www shell com/campaign/jssue/stage/1.1850.2.00.html

At the moment, this particular contribution of his is simply a link to his Shell Shareholders site. However, I have asked XXXXX to include Donovan’s text from one of his other postings so that people can see the essence of his case without having to go and enter his website and get the full list of his allegations. This will be done later this morning.

Regards

xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Shell International Limited, Shell Centre
London SE1 7NA, United Kingdom
Tel: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Email: xxxxxxxxxx

Printed below is an article by Tony Allwright, a retired Irish Shell EP manager. It is published on his blog. It was brought to our attention by a Shell insider who shares the views expressed and believes the article deserves wider publication.

Organizational Dementia

By Tony Allwright

We are all familiar with elderly people sometimes being a bit forgetful.  This is no surprise, for just as the body gets weak over time, so can the brain.

What is surprising, however, is that organizations can likewise become forgetful and this can be very costly.  The memory of an organization is held in two ways: in its paper and electronic records and in the minds of its employees, however the latter are also relied upon to access the former.

Last week, Irish TV showed a programme about Shell’s travails, over many years, to bring gas ashore from an offshore field called Corrib, to treat it and to sell it to the Irish grid, supplying 60% of the nation’s industry and consumer demand.

Shell is spending nearly €2 billion developing Corrib.  With full planning permission and legal backing for every piece of work completed, this technologically complex project entails

	drilling several 3,000-metre wells in 350 metres of water depth,
	laying an 83 km subsea pipeline to shore plus a 9 km section onshore,
	and building a gas treatment terminal to clean the gas ready for consumption.

Ireland, with no indigenous energy resources other than a little hydro power, a puff of methane and some filthy peat, is situated at the very end of a huge 7,000 km long gas network stretching across Europe.  It begins in faraway Siberia within the de-facto empire that is Russia, notorious for cutting off exports in unpredictable hissy fits.  Considering this extreme vulnerability to disruption of energy supply to Ireland, you would think the strategic value of Corrib is obvious.

Yet for over five years, Shell has been fighting a rearguard action against a small number of local residents who maintain that Corrib represents a threat to their lives because the inland gas pipeline or the gas plant might – based on no scientific evidence – explode, and to the offshore pipeline for perceived damage to fish stocks.  The locals have been skilful in mobilising professional international objectors (to Shell, to oil and gas, to capitalism, to colonialism, to racism, to whatever) who periodically descend to join protests and gain media airtime.  Somewhat menacingly, they are also supported by Sinn Fein and other ex-paramilitary groups, which have had the effect of chilling the vast majority of local people who in fact strongly support the project.  Five local protestors were jailed in 2005 (for contempt of court), another last year (for assault) and several more jail sentences are pending, but this has been no deterrent to the protestors.

It’s a kind of asymmetric warfare, where a small gang of insurgents is successfully engaging the vast might of multinational Shell and the Irish State itself, and causing huge time and cost overruns.  Police overtime alone is costing €5m per year.

How ever did Shell get itself into this mess?  Through organizational dementia, that’s how.

Enterprise, an independent UK oil company, discovered Corrib in 1996, the first commercial discovery since 1973, after the exploration industry had spent over €2 billion in otherwise fruitless offshore exploration.  It launched the development project at the turn of the millennium, but had little experience in mounting such a difficult endeavour (offshore, deep water, bad weather, new country).  So it was with some relief, as far as Corrib was concerned, when Shell bought Enterprise in 2002 for £3½ billion in cash.  A project such as Corrib was right up Shell’s street.

The seeds of trouble had been sewn when Enterprise, in its naïveté, had made a basic mistake when it embarked upon Corrib.  But Shell had no excuse to make the same and more.

Nigeria

I worked for Shell in Nigeria, for a total of seven years in two different postings, the second as a senior manager, until just before the PR disaster that erupted in 1995 with execution of Ken Saro Wiwa.  I can state categorically that Shell as a corporation – both its Nigerian arm and its twin head offices in The Hague and London – never entertained any kind of conspiracy whatsoever to engineer the harassment, imprisonment or execution of Mr Saro Wiwa and his eight colleagues.  As the record shows, they were convicted and executed for murdering four Nigerian chiefs, not for anything connected to or demanded by Shell.  The Nigerian judicial process may have been flawed, but Shell had not hand or part in it.

It is of course true that over the years Shell, the country’s biggest company, made lots of mistakes which occasionally resulted in accidentals oil spills, injuries and even deaths.  But accidents they were, fully investigated and promptly rectified (and compensated) to the extent possible.  In the early days of attacks from enraged locals, Shell would sometimes call the Nigerian police for protection.  However when it became clear that this might result in disproportionate violence by the police (and/or army) it discontinued the practice, and merely closed down operations instead, at great cost in forgone oil.  On not a single occasion did Shell call in Nigeria’s security apparatus with the intention (much less instruction) of having demonstrators attacked.

Nevertheless, protestors – with a legitimate complaint that almost none of the vast tax money from Shell’s production (some 90% went in tax) was used to improve the lot of the local people – chose to vent their anger at Shell (safe) rather than the true culprits, the State and Federal Governments (deadly).

From this simple scenario, the PR disaster unfolded that engulfed Shell around the world, with the gross calumnies that Shell was causing wanton pollution and death in pursuit of profits, culminating in the execution of Mr Saro Wiwa and his colleagues.

On the day they were killed, I was a guest at a long-service dinner in the Hague hosted by Shell’s then Chairman, Cor Herkströter.  I vividly remember the extreme emotion of this otherwise expressionless Dutchman, and the deathly silence that befell the room, as he announced the horror that had happened a few hours earlier.  The earlier gaiety of the evening did not return.

Brent Spar

This PR disaster coincided with the other one in the North Sea when Shell announced it planned to sink an obsolete cylindrical floating platform, the Brent Spar, in the Atlantic Ocean.  Environmentalists and other angry people concluded that Brent Spar was a toxic, oil-laded monstrosity whose disposal in the North Sea (sic) would cause untold damage to marine life.  Clever media campaigns and distortions by Greenpeace and others captured the world’s TV screens and imagination.  Growing its own international legs, amplified by the Nigeria accusations, the story caused enormous damage to the Shell brand, eventually forcing a U-turn.  Yet the accusations were totally untrue, and even Greenpeace eventually acknowledged that the planned dumping posed no hazard to the environment.  Brent Spar had been meticulously cleansed of all oil and other pollutants, and was planned to be sunk in the Atlantic far beyond territorial waters and at 2,500 metres, a depth so enormous that virtually no marine life existed anyway.

In the end, Shell ran a public competition which resulted in disposal by slicing up the Spar to make a quay for a roll-on-roll-off ferry in Norway.  Due to the complete openness of this approach, there were no further demos.

The common lesson from both these catastrophes was that it is insufficient to be right – whether factually right, scientifically right, technologically right, environmentally right, logically right, legally right, morally right.  In fact “rightness” might as well have no meaning unless and until it is successfully communicated to the people who need, or want, to know about it.

	Shell worked hard to improve the lot of Nigerians (certainly during all the twenty year span during which I worked there).
	Shell came up with an elegant, environmentally-friendly and cost-effective solution for safely disposing of Brent Spar.
	Yet a great many people didn’t know any of this, didn’t believe it when/if they were told, and in the resulting knowledge-vacuum drew precisely the opposite, most malign conclusions.
	If you fail to convince people, especially the neighbours among whom you are working, of your bona-fides, they can cause all kinds of grief to your enterprise.

A further difficult lesson was that, for multinational giants like Shell, the world had – perfectly reasonably – moved on from “Trust me” to “Show me”.

Within Shell, this message was drummed relentlessly into everyone throughout the second half of the 1990s, especially among managers (such as I was) and other senior employees.  Every effort was made to put the new philosophy into practice. Never again would Shell propose big projects without clearing the way first with the locals.

Just one example was the accolades Shell won from all bodies of all persuasions for their sensitive development in 2001 of Malampaya gas field in very deep waters offshore Philippines, a $4½ billion project even more demanding than Corrib in almost every respect.  One such was the International Chamber of Commerce and the United Nations Environment Program naming Malampaya, at a World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg in 2002, as one of its “Ten Best Examples of Sustainable Development Partnerships in Action”.

Yet ignoring this philosophy has been the root of the problem with Corrib.

I believe that Enterprise started the rot by ignoring and not respecting the locals.  But for the above reasons, Shell had no excuse, when Shell bought their way in, for forgetting the horror stories of Brent Spar and Nigeria.  Shell simply didn’t bother to get the locals on board at a very early stage and to secure their support.

Why did the corporate memory apparently hit the Delete button?  It’s a good question.  It is doubtless associated with the large numbers of senior people who left the company (with juicy packages) at the beginning of the millennium as part of corporate restructuring, and took their expertise and experience with them.

For that elementary, inexcusable mistake made in Corrib, Shell shareholders are paying a ridiculous premium in terms of Corrib’s hugely increased cost and delayed revenue, not to mention badly damaged international credentials.

Rugby

There is an interesting parallel in recent Irish rugby, no less.

In 1872 Dublin built the world’s first international rugby venue in Lansdowne Road on which a stadium for 49,000 in due course emerged.  Largely for reasons of comfort and safety, the IRFU (Irish Rugby Football Union) launched a project in 2004 to tear it down and replace it with a much larger, modern stadium.

A landmark deal was reached, for the duration of the construction, to play big rugby and soccer matches at the huge, 88,000 person Gaelic Games stadium across the river.  (This stadium was heretofore closed to non-Irish games ever since police militaries, protected by the British Army, invaded the pitch during a match in 1920 and mowed down fourteen people including a team captain.  This was in retaliation for the earlier killing of fourteen British Agents by the IRA.)

Croke Park, the fourth largest stadium in Europe, has been filled to capacity for nearly every rugby and soccer match played there since 2007.

But, like Corrib, the Lansdowne Road redevelopment quickly ran into massive resistance from local residents who didn’t want the extra crowds, the loss of their views, the noise, the floodlights etc etc.  A compromise was eventually reached which entailed reducing the seating capacity to 50,000 and also the size of the pitch.

This compromise has ensured that the new stadium will be a €365 million white elephant, not to mention the delays and overruns entailed.  Thanks to Croke Park, we now know that, due to the downsizing, every single match will create at least 35,000 enraged and frustrated fans unable to get tickets.  How long will such anger be sustainable before something gives? Will they one day storm the bastions of the IRFU like some latter-day sans-culottes? Who knows.

Alternatively, the new stadium will stand empty while matches are switched to Croke Park.  Conversely, moreover, the less popular Gaelic games, which often fail to fill Croke Park, will be unable to use Lansdowne Road because the pitch is too small.

As I said, a white elephant.  And all because the IRFU failed – like Shell – to consult the local residents early enough, to respect their views, to explain the project, to cut lucrative deals with them, to do whatever was necessary to secure their support.

(It is said that the GAA – which had skilfully expanded Croke Park over many years – is a game for amateurs run by professionals, whereas rugby is a game for professionals run by the amateurs of the IRFU.)

By contrast, the management of rugby in the province of Munster also needed to upgrade and expand its Thomond Park stadium in Limerick, from 12,500 to 26,500.  But Munster Rugby first went to all the neighbours and flattered them to the high heavens. It then bought out a pile of nearby houses at inflated prices. Only when everyone was onboard and happy, did they give the go-ahead to build the new Thomond Park, the first step of which was to demolish all those houses to make room for a big enough stadium. It was delivered on time and within its paltry €40m budget.

Shell should get over its organizational dementia and learn (ie re-learn) from Munster Rugby. So should the IRFU.

News articles generated by royaldutchshellplc.com and its Shell insider sources in 2009

By John Donovan

Shell media spin machine went into overdrive last week trying to downplay the worlds biggest ever leak of employee details, including personal information, which Shell Ethics boss Richard Wiseman, has twice admitted puts the safety of some employees at risk.

A copy of a related email from Mr Wendel Broere, Group spokesman, Global media relations, Shell International B.V, desperately engaged on a damage limitation exercise with the news media, was leaked to me on the day it was sent. My role is discussed in the email, no doubt because I am the person who broke the story which turned into a global PR disaster for Shell, with all kinds of unwelcome repercussions, including an investigation by the Information Commissioners Office and the prospect of a fine for being reckless with confidential employee data.

The information sent by Broere on the record says that Shell is investigating the matter and will comply with all legal requirements. The issue of personal security is only mentioned “Off the record” in his email, down-played to being no greater risk to Shell employee personal safety than merely handing out a business card.

Shell now says there was no private address information. That was not the case in the leaked employee data I received which Shell pressured me into destroying before Shell media started pumping out smoke. In fact, many post-codes were included in the data: Far more than could be only Shell addresses. Also personal mobile phone numbers, along with an array of other contact information.

The line now being taken by Shell is totally incompatible with the unambiguous statement on the personal security aspect made by Shell Ethics Richard Wiseman that he subsequently reconfirmed to me by email. This was after I published a leaked email Wiseman had sent to all employees, which failed to mention any risk to personal safety.

And it was not just Shell employee information that was leaked, but four other data files, all forming part of an carefully contrived plan – formulated with almost military precision – for a claimed corporate revolution at Shell by a subversive group that appears to have successfully infiltrated the oil giant. The whole thrust of the plan directed at Shell is motivated by its alleged crimes in Nigeria, which are listed in the extraordinary document.

Following contact with the Information Commissioners Office, we have also destroyed the other related files supplied within the attachment containing the Shell Global Address Book. However, we understand that now that the information has escaped into cyber-space, it will always be potentially retrievable.

Although Shell Corporate Affairs Security (CAS) is mounting a major investigation, how much confidence can employees have in a department headed by retired spooks, when CAS was presumably ultimately responsible for safeguarding security in the first place? At least it might divert CAS from carrying out “invisible” investigations against the Donovans.

Clearly the global spying by CAS against Shell employees to try to stop information from reaching us has not been entirely successful. The flood of leaked Shell information continues unabated.

According to a posting on our Shell Blog by a Shell IT insider (a regular contributor of articles to this website) a breach of the employee Directory could have happened at anytime in the last decade:

IT4me: What interests me about the Directory Leak story is that any competent scripter could have done this at any time in the last 10 years using just NOTEPAD and maybe 20 lines of VBS code. That’s because Active Directory (parts of it anyway) have been left open for use by RDS’s diverse collection of systems. So why didn’t it happen before ? And why doesn’t this sort of thing ever happen at GOOGLE ?