Posts under ‘Jeroen van der Veer’

POSTING ON SHELL BLOG BY “SirPhil” ON 31 Jan 2012

“Having read that the former RBS-CEO, Fred Goodwin, has been stripped of his knighthood by UK authorities. Makes you wonder if and when Sir Phil Watts will stripped of his one. No doubt Phil’s selfish behaviour at the helm of Shell did more harm to the industry and private investors than Fred.”

RELATED ARTICLES

Memos expose Shell’s years of lying

EXTRACT: The correspondence between Mr Watts and Mr Van de Vijver began in June 2001 when Mr Van de Vijver took over as head of exploration and production. He was promoted after Sir Philip was made chief executive partly because of his success with reserves. The two engaged in a “pointed dialogue”, with Mr van de Vijver complaining Shell had overbooked reserves throughout the 1990s.

‘It happened on my watch. I am determined to fix it’

EXTRACT: Shell chairman Sir Philip Watts is resisting pressure to quit following the oil giant’s devaluation of its reserves.

Royal Dutch Shell still diddling its shareholders

EXTRACT: What a mad world we are in when the person most responsible for the fraud, Sir Phillip Watts KCMG, escaped with a severance/pension package of $18.5 million and also managed to retain his title and his Order of St Michael and St George, a British order of chivalry founded in 1818.

FSA Interrogation of Sir Philip Watts following resignation in disgrace as Shell Group Chairman

EXTRACT:

Transcript of Financial Services Authority Interview with Sir Philip Watts: 24 June 2004

Samantha Griffin for the FSA to Sir Philip:

“You are not under arrest and are free to leave any time. The interview is being conducted under caution. That is to say you do not have to say anything but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something you later rely on in Court. Anything you say may be given in evidence. Do you understand?”

Link for searchable Transcript of Financial Services Authority Interview with Sir Philip Watts: 24 June 2004: 75 pages – every page marked “CONFIDENTIAL”

Peter Voser, another Royal Dutch Shell CEO tainted by scandal

EXTRACT:

by John Donovan of royaldutchshellplc.com

Soon after Sir Philip Watts was escorted by security guards from the Shell Centre in humiliation and disgrace as a result of his leading role in the Royal Dutch Shell securities fraud, Shell directors appointed Jeroen van der Veer to replace him.

This was despite the fact that van der Veer and fellow Royal Dutch Shell Group Managing Director, Malcolm Brinded, “only narrowly avoided being sacked over their role in the oil giant’s reserves scandal.” Both had signed Form 20F Declarations submitted to the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission containing materially false information. Both were subsequently co-defendants in a U.S. class action lawsuit settled by Shell in which Royal Dutch Shell, as part of the multi-million dollar settlement, made a range of commitments about future governance of the oil giant.

THE SADISTIC SACKING OF SHELL CHIEF EXECUTIVE WALTER VAN DE VIJVER

EXTRACT: He resigned as a result of the cumulative assault, shocked, humiliated and disgusted at the shabby inhuman treatment he received from his colleagues.

From a Shell Insider: “…Malcolm Brinded is certainly lying when he states that he did not know”: Mon 20 Feb 2006 04:27 AM EST

Mr Donovan

After reading some contributions to your site of insiders it made me decide to share something with you and your readers. Perhaps you see it fit to publish, I have no other avenue to vent my frustration and very deep anger.

Of late the networks have highlighted the treatment of prisoners by Americans in their prisons for presumed terrorists. At least to me it has become very clear that there has been a fundamental flaw in the command structure of the armed forces. And I am cynical enough to believe this flaw was designed and knowingly created by the ‘brass’ and top politicians.

They first brainwashed the soldiers (mostly non professionals and reservists who only joined the army to have medical insurance and get an education) via direct messages and via the various media that are under their control to prepare them psychologically to commit acts that most of them would never dream of doing in a normal life, whether or not these acts comply with the Geneva Convention. I am a mere engineer and not a psychologist so I am out of my depth here. But I am convinced that if you repeat messages time and again that your enemies are all evil terrorists, people will start to believe this, especially if they are in an elevated state of stress such as a war in Iraq. Next the brass (from the president down) says that no stone must be left unturned to get the truth out of the prisoners to defend the nation of good citizens and god fearing Americans, and the foundation is laid to get excesses. To top it off you put reserve personnel in charge of these prisons and interrogation and on purpose do not arrange for extra controls to check how things go, and you have disasters in the making.

Praise the interrogators if they come up with some ‘confessions’ beaten out of prisoners, real or simply made up, remove anyone that wants to say that this is wrong, and the result is very easy to predict. No instructions to do bad things will be on paper so the brass can always blame the little guys at the coalface. They overstepped and need to be punished. And you hand out severe prison sentences to simple soldiers who thought they were merely following orders. I guess this happens in all wars and if you quickly score a victory, it can all be covered up many years, enough to erase the tracks of the real culprits. The winner takes all and is right!

However, in this era of digital cameras and internet, there are fewer secrets. Images can be circulated globally and instantly. And then there is real trouble and on a global scale. It is totally beyond me that the advisors to the president and top brass did not see this coming. I leave that to psychologists to analyze and explain.

Why this long story and what does it have to do with Shell?

The whole reserves problem as well as the extremely poor project management that Shell is experiencing the last few years is almost a carbon copy of what happened to the armed forces. Great changes, such as the large reorganisation started by Herkstroeter in 1994, created great stress in the workforce. These changes were considered unnecessary by Bob Sprague, one of the cleverest people who ever worked for Shell. But initially this was still fairly positive stress and it led to a feeling of freedom and desire to conquer and improve the world. Remember, at that time we were the biggest and the best oil company and had been since the mid 70s! So there was still a lot of latent know-how and professionalism around, which the company cannibalised in creating a ‘new Shell’ with ‘self managing teams’, ‘Olympic targets’, ‘unleashing talent’ and other trendy nonsense. It even led to record profits in one year, I believe it was 1997.

But by then the company was getting (with the explicit knowledge of the top brass) into the hands of people who were only motivated by personal rewards, and who smelled their chance. None of that ‘Enterprise First’ stuff. It was ‘Me first’ and all the snouts were in the trough and nobody wanted to take their snout out of the trough. Anyone complaining or making remarks that things were not right was publicly destroyed and removed. And those with their snouts in the trough started to make promises and ever more ridiculous demands. When Watts came to power (he actually stole that job at the time with his gorilla talk and behaviour) the pigs were truly feeding. Explicit instructions to cook the books or ‘err on the high side’ were hardly given in written form or were at least well disguised. It was said and whispered in meetings, conferences and workshops and personal discussions during the annual staff evaluation time. There were clear instructions to aim for the impossible with those stretched targets and anyone who said he could go even further or higher was handsomely rewarded with promotions or fat bonuses.

Brinded was a real champion of this, he was #2 and later MD in Shell Expro and I believe they missed their business targets for 7 years in a row under his reign!

So, the foundation was laid and Watts started his circus with new and bigger promises every year. And then it became unsustainable and the truth came out. We have internet, everyone knows what has happened and why it happened.

But to prove that in a court of law will be very difficult. And with the vast profits created by high oil prices, the top brass can buy all the time they need and hire the most expensive lawyers to keep them out of prison. All paid for with the shareholders’ money.

To illustrate how difficult it will be to prove, consider the following story. I recently confronted a colleague who works on the Sakhalin project and told him that I had known that the project would be severely over budget in early May 2005. The word was out and a figure of $15.5 billion was being suggested by project managers from Sakhalin. How come, I asked him, that Malcolm Brinded and Jeroen van der Veer claim they did not know? The answer was very simple: Brinded was told there were severe problems and his response was: ‘give me a report as soon as you have the exact details and know precisely how much and what’. This led to a further delay and a week after the deal with Gazprom was announced, out came the surprise statement of the $20 billion and enormous time overrun. But there are probably no documents showing that Malcolm Brinded and Jeroen van der Veer knew. They are genuinely clever people. But in my simple world, the boss should know how his most expensive project is progressing, even if it is not exact all the time. So, Malcolm Brinded is certainly lying when he states that he did not know. He means he had no formal report.

And Jeroen van der Veer should step down because he either knew and lied or he did not know and that is just as bad for someone in his position.

I apologise for this longish note but it helped to reduce my anger. I hope others will follow and you will publish this on your great site. I think the top echelons in Shell by now know there are no secrets anymore.

RELATED ARTICLES

Offshore workers died as a result of a “Touch F*** All” safety regime at Shell, 25 Jul 2007

Royal Dutch Shell Fat Cat Malcolm Brinded: Big Brain but no scruples

Published: Oct. 4, 2011 at 7:55 AM

BERLIN, Oct. 4 (UPI) — Executives in the energy industry need to invest more in shale gas while advancing environmental issues, an official said from Berlin.

The United States is examining its shale gas potential as a way to address energy security issues. European countries like Poland and Ukraine are doing the same, though France has enacted a moratorium on shale gas exploration because of environmental concerns.

Jeroen van der Veer, a former chief executive officer at Royal Dutch Shell, told delegates at a petrochemical summit in Berlin, that shale could be a “game changer” if managed effectively, the Platts news service reports.

“Personally, I’m in favor of full transparency and I think Shell will very soon come out with announcements in this direction,” he said.

Van der Veer was referring to chemicals used in the extraction of shale gas. Critics note that some of the chemicals used in the extraction process, known as fracking, pose a significant risk to underground water resources.

Energy companies counter that fracking, if done correctly, doesn’t pose a significant environmental threat. Some environmental regulators in the United States note that shale gas exploration has a long safety history.

That’s in marked contrast to Shell, which while operating Sakhalin-2 in 2006, was forced to execute a below-market sale of its operating position at bargain prices to Gazprom, the country’s giant gas gathering and distribution company.

By Anna Shiryaevskaya – Sep 14, 2011 4:04 PM GMT+0100

OAO Gazprom expects the Sakhalin-2 venture to produce enough fuel to support the expansion of Russia’s only liquefied natural gas plant as its partner Royal Dutch Shell Plc (RDSA) seeks resources outside the project.

The partners plan to extend the Piltun-Astokhskoye field to feed Sakhalin-2’s liquefied natural gas plant, Vsevolod Cherepanov, head of Gazprom’s gas, condensate and oil production department, told reporters today in St. Petersburg. Additional volumes from producing fields may feed the plant’s expansion or be shipped via the Gazprom-owned pipeline network, he said.

There will be enough gas for a third LNG train “if there is such a will,” Cherepanov said. The project’s two LNG units, called trains, are working at their full capacity, producing more than 9.6 million metric tons of liquid fuel a year.

Shell has been pushing to add a third LNG production unit at the $22 billion Sakhalin-2 venture north of Japan as the Hague-based producer seeks to boost gas production worldwide. Gazprom hasn’t yet agreed as it tries to balance its obligations to supply gas domestically against the attractiveness of exports to Asia’s growing markets.

Cameron in Moscow

Expansion of the LNG plant, which was designed to accommodate a third unit, was on the agenda for talks between Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron in Moscow earlier this week. Shell Chief Executive Officer Peter Voser met with his Gazprom counterpart Alexei Miller yesterday, the Russian company said in a statement.

Producing gas at the southern part of Piltun-Astokhskoye, one of the two offshore fields that feed the plant, may be challenging as it lies under layers of oil and condensate, Cherepanov said. Gazprom, Shell and its partners in Sakhalin-2 Mitsubishi Corp. (8058) and Mitsui & Co. will seek to develop the extension as “the next stage,” boosting profitability, Cherepanov said.

Output at the Lunskoye field may be increased, a Kremlin official said ahead of Cameron’s visit.

The two producing fields may boost output by 4 billion cubic meters a year for as long as five years, Cherepanov said. The additional gas may be supplied to the LNG plant or into the pipeline system to supply to domestic consumers, he said. That volume would be sufficient for about 3 million metric tons of LNG, while the additional LNG unit may have a capacity to produce almost 5 million tons.

Supply Sources

“Sources of supply will be discussed by Gazprom and Shell as part of a protocol signed in November 2010,” Vera Surzhenko, a spokeswoman for Shell in Russia, said by phone today. They will include existing fields and potentially new fields, she said.

Gazprom and Shell in November agreed to expand cooperation in Russia and abroad. Shell may offer Gazprom assets in Asia in exchange for a deal to expand Sakhalin-2, people with knowledge of the negotiations said in February.

Gazprom last week opened a domestic pipeline from Sakhalin Island to the port city of Vladivostok on Russia’s Pacific coast under government orders to build pipelines and supply gas to Russia’s infrastructure-poor eastern regions.

Output from Gazprom’s Kirinskoye field, part of the neighboring Sakhalin-3 project, will be the main field feeding the link after production starts next year. Reserves at Yuzhno- Kirinskoye, also part of Sakhalin-3, may rise by as much as 100 billion cubic meters to 360 billion cubic meters this year after new exploration data, Cherepanov said.

Shell looked at Gazprom’s nearby Sakhalin-3 development for reserves on concerns the Sakhalin-2 fields may not be sufficient for the expansion. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin invited Shell to participate in Sakhalin-3 during a meeting in 2009 with outgoing CEO Jeroen van der Veer and his replacement Voser. Gazprom has since said it wants to develop Sakhalin-3 without foreign partners.

Gazprom, Russia’s biggest gas producer and export monopoly, agreed in 2006 to buy just more than 50 percent of the Sakhalin- 2 venture for $7.45 billion. Shell controls 27.5 percent of the Sakhalin Energy Investment Co. operator, and Mitsubishi and Mitsui hold the balance.

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

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Torrey Clark at tclark8@bloomberg.net

SOURCE ARTICLE

EXTRACT FROM RELATED ARTICLE:

Will Exxon Be Safe in Russian Hands?

That’s in marked contrast to Shell, which while operating Sakhalin-2 in 2006, was forced to execute a below-market sale of its operating position at bargain prices to Gazprom, the country’s giant gas gathering and distribution company.

By John Donovan

On Friday I sent an email to Mr Michiel Brandjes (right), Company Secretary & General Counsel Corporate of Royal Dutch Shell Plc. It had a subject – “Gannet Oil Spill: Document Authenticity” – but no content.  It was sent by mistake.

It prompted the subsequent self-explanatory email correspondence.

EMAIL RESPONSE FROM MR MICHIEL BRANDJES, COMPANY SECRETARY OF ROYAL DUTCH SHELL PLC

From: michiel.brandjes@shell.com
Date: 12 September 2011 08:00:54 GMT+01:00
To: john@shellnews.net
Subject: RE: Gannet Oil Spill: Document Authenticity

Registered office: Shell Centre London SE1 7NA UK
Place of registration and number: England 4366849
Correspondence address: PO Box 162, 2501 AN  The Hague,
The Netherlands

—–Original Message—–
From: John Donovan [mailto:john@shellnews.net]
Sent: vrijdag 9 september 2011 17:38
To: Brandjes, Michiel CM RDS-LSC
Subject: Gannet Oil Spill: Document Authenticity

Dear Mr Brandjes

ENDS

REPLY BY JOHN DONOVAN

From: John Donovan <john@shellnews.net>
Date: 12 September 2011 16:29:25 GMT+01:00
To: michiel.brandjes@shell.com
Subject: Re: Gannet Oil Spill: Document Authenticity

In view of the following paragraph of your email dated 22 December 2009, I am never sure whether we will receive a response from you:

It is in my DNA indeed to respond to all and everything as appropriate. However, while that is the starting position please note that I can not be held to always respond to everything as a Company Secretary. There are messages which do not call for a response or not by me, there are matters in which a further response can not serve any purpose, and there are persons with whom I do not or no longer communicate for justified reasons. I intend to continue to help genuine third parties whom you refer to me and do not fall in the earlier mentioned categories.

It is not quite as mind-bending as the explanation by Donald Rumsfeld of known knowns, known unknowns and unknown unknowns.

For the record, we do still receive email meant for Shell every day.

As per your standing request, I weed out what I consider to be junk mail, which appropriately is mainly from China.  Much of it is addressed to my father, probably because he is perceived, perhaps because of his WSJ image displayed on our website, as being the supreme leader at Royal Dutch Shell. We direct enquiries about “Shell” lottery scams to the Shell Fraud/Scam Alert on your website. All job applications/CV’s which arrive from around the world are directed to the appropriate page on your website.

John Donovan

CORRESPONDENCE ENDS

By John Donovan

SHELL NORTH SEA OIL SPILL DEBACLE

In June 2006, The Guardian published an article by Terry Macalister  under the headline “Shell accused over oil rig safety“.

It reported on criticisms leveled at the oil giant by its former HSE Group Auditor Bill Campbell (right) “who worked directly for Shell for 24 years, says he brought his concerns to the attention of directors as far back as 1999 – and again in 2004 – but still feels safety is compromised.”

Mr Campbell was asked by Shell to lead an expert team carrying out a review of Shell’s North Sea platforms in 1999. His subsequent report included allegations of falsification of maintenance records for safety critical equipment, non-compliance with routine maintenance and bodged repairs.

According to The Guardian article:

Shell offshore workers used an acronym TFA – Touch Fuck All – to describe among themselves the need not to meddle with equipment but keep things working. The report by Mr Campbell’s team concluded: “Directives such as TFA encourages a behaviour of non-compliance – the Brent TFA acronym is a potential reputation liability.

In this regard, it is notable how in the flood of articles about the Gannet Alpha oil spill and Shell North Sea Platforms, some mention antiquated infrastructure and “metal fatigue.” The leaking pipeline is said to be some 30 years old.

Bill Campbell was so concerned at what his audit team discovered and the subsequent lack of an adequet response from Shell senior management, that on 24 July 2007 he sent a chilling warning email to every UK MP:

Subject: “This could be the most important whistleblower email you have ever received.”

Some unfortunate Royal Dutch Shell workers have already lost their lives. More lives are at stake.

My name is Bill Campbell. I am a former Group Auditor of Shell International. I am writing to you on a matter of conscience in an effort to avert the inevitability of another major accident in the North Sea. The consequences could potentially impact on families in many constituencies, including your own.

As Royal Dutch Shell and the Health & Safety Executive would acknowledge, I am an expert on safety matters relating to offshore oil and gas platforms. In 1999, I was appointed by Shell to lead a safety audit on the Brent Bravo platform. The audit revealed a platform management culture that basically gave a higher priority to production than the safety of Shell employees. To our astonishment we discovered that a “Touch F*** All” policy was in place. Worse still, safety records were routinely falsified and repairs bodged.

I personally brought the shocking situation to the attention of senior management including Malcolm Brinded, the then Managing Director of Shell Exploration & Production. I revealed that ESDV leak-off tests were purposely falsified, not once but many times and that Brent Bravo platform management had admitted responsibility for the dangerous practices being followed. In response to my team ringing alarm bells, management pledged to rectify the serious problems which had been uncovered.

When I later complained that the pledges were not being kept, I was removed from my oversight function.

Four years later, a massive gas leak occurred on the platform. Two workers lost their lives. I have no doubt at all that the inaction of the relevant Asset Manager, the General Manager, the Oil Director and Malcolm Brinded, contributed in some part to the unlawful killing of two persons on Brent Bravo in September 2003.

Shell subsequently pleaded guilty to breaches of the HSE regulations and a record-breaking £900,000 fine was imposed. I thought this would bring about a real change in policy to put the emphasis on safety.

Unfortunately I was wrong. Although I supplied the evidence related to 1999, and the fact that there had been a collapse in controls of integrity from 1999 to 2003 on all 16 of Shell’s North Sea offshore installations covered in a post fatality integrity review to the HSE for review by the Procurator Fiscal, none of this evidence was presented before the Sheriff at the subsequent Inquiry. The situation is explained in a letter to the Procurator Fiscal and the Sheriff (on 24th February 2007).

Shell management has engaged in spin to try to pretend that it is getting to grips with its safety problem. However, its atrocious safety record – the worst in the North Sea in terms of accidental deaths and absolute number of enforcement actions – tells a different story. This fact has resulted in a number of newspaper articles.

I have had meetings with senior Shell people including its CEO Mr. Jeroen van der Veer. I regret to say that I have found him to be economical with the truth. He prefers to support cover-up and deceit rather than confronting the underlying problems. Brinded is now Executive Director of Shell Exploration & Production. He believes in burying evidence.

My family and friends would probably prefer me to give up on this matter and enjoy my retirement after so many years working for Shell.

However, by writing to every MP in the UK, no one can ever say that I did not do my best to avert an inevitable further major accident event in the North Sea. When it happens (I pray that I am wrong) I will make this warning communication available to the media together with the vast amount of evidence in my possession.

At least my conscience is clear. I have done everything possible to ring the alarm bells about Shell management and its unscrupulous attitude to the safety of its employees.

Yours sincerely

Bill Campbell

ENDS

Mr Campbell has been proven right to a large degree by subsequent events, including enforcement notices served on Shell by the UK Health & Safety Executive and Shell currently being forced to make one admission after another as a result of the uncontrolled oil spill. This is after Shell CEO Peter Voser took a hypocritical cheap shot at BP over the Gulf of Mexico disaster.

Shell was so concerned by the fact that Mr Campbell approached me on the matter that its lawyers wrote to Mr Campbell’s solicitors warning about contact with me. Shell also set up a crisis reaction team to combat our campaigning activities, closed down this website and instigated a global cyber spying operation in an attempt to prevent information reaching me from Shell whistleblowers.

What a shame that it did not instead concentrate on rectifying the horrendous problems uncovered by Bill Campbell and his team in relation to the management, maintenance and safety of Shell North Sea Platforms?

Mr Campbell also accused Shell of a massive cover-up.

In this connection, it is interesting to note some of the current headlines:

Don’t hide facts about oil leak: The Herald

Shell Under Fire Over Silent Tactics: Spiegel Online

Shell Withholds Information On North Sea Oil Spill: UK Progressive Magazine

These events will at least hopefully also ring alarm bells loud and clear with US authorities who have foolishly decided to place their trust in Shell to drill in the Arctic Ocean of Alaska.

If Shell cannot deal openly and competently with a relatively small spill in the North Sea, how can it be trusted to deal with the potential of a major spill in much more difficult conditions?

Ironically, I have just received the following invitation from Shell:

REGISTER HERE TO PARTICIPATE IN THE DISCUSSION

Results clouded by rivals and identity crisis! Titanic court battle looms for oil company! Executives may face charges!

By Rowena Mason: 9:33PM BST 30 Jul 2011

Shell has emerged as one of the top offenders despite promising to clean up its act five years ago after a large accident in which two oil workers died.

• Rob Evans, Richard Cookson and Terry Macalister
• guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 5 July 2011 22.34 BST

More than 100 potentially lethal oil and gas spills took place on rigs in the North Sea in 2009 and 2010. Photograph: Alamy

Documents list companies that caused more than 100 potentially lethal – and largely unpublicised – leaks in 2009 and 2010

One of the most striking features of the oil industry in recent times has been the divergent fortunes of Royal Dutch Shell and BP.

BP has well-publicised problems that explain its recent under-performance, such as uncertainty over its future in Russia and the shock of last year’s Deepwater Horizon drilling rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico’s Macondo area, which left 11 workers dead. Photo: REUTERS

By Damian Reece, Head of Business: 29n April 2011

The past two years has seen Shell outperform the All-Share index by 7pc, while BP has under-performed by 58pc.

Results on Thursday from Shell once again underlined the companies’ differences, such as profitability and prospects, which are driving investor sentiment.

BP has well-publicised problems that explain its recent under-performance, such as uncertainty over its future in Russia and the shock of last year’s Deepwater Horizon drilling rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico’s Macondo area, which left 11 workers dead.

Going further back, under Lord Browne’s regime we had his own troubled exit, the Texas City refinery blast, the Prudhoe Bay spill, problems in the Gulf’s Thunder Horse field and price-fixing allegations in New York.

If you consider the Texas City blast, which killed 15, was back in August 2005, BP has been beset by serious problems for nearly six years. This begs the question, can BP ever really change?

However unpalatable it might be, chief executive Bob Dudley could look across at his age-old rival, Shell, for the answer. Shell had its own Macondo moment back in 2004, with its reserves scandal. For nearly 10 years prior to that, Shell had been trying to change its culture, a process that had been largely ineffective.

Since the reserves scandal, under chief executives Jeroen van der Veer and latterly Peter Voser, it has changed tack, focusing on more investment upstream in exploration and production, more investment in OECD countries to reduce political risk and to replace its declining heart lands, more investment in gas and more large projects.

It has developed four key strategic partners in PetroChina, Gazprom, Aramco and Qatar Petroleum and shaken up its downstream refining and retail operations. Internally, Shell workers are now subject to a continuous improvement programme that stresses the speed of decision-making, the operational effectiveness of its assets and their integrity in terms of safety.

Another crucial difference has been the creation of the modern BP from a strategy of acquisitions (Amoco, Arco and Burmah Castrol, to name a few) bequeathing different cultures within the group.

Shell, an Anglo-Dutch construct, was a federal structure that found it difficult to issue shares to pay for deals, so stuck to organic growth. Even since adopting a unified structure it has avoided major deals. It is arguably a more unitary culture than BP.

This, then, is all the boring nitty-gritty behind Shell’s numbers on Thursday. But it goes a long way to explaining the increasingly marked difference between Shell and BP.

Oil investors rank companies in terms of what they deliver today in terms of earnings, the prospect of improving on that with more assets and management’s credibility and strategic vision. BP is struggling in all these departments. Maybe Bob Dudley should consider what he can learn from the way Shell has learned from past problems before deciding on how BP moves on from its own.

damian.reece@telegraph.co.uk

SOURCE ARTICLE

One of the examples of collusion between Shell and HSE was that HSE were aware that the Press Releases by Shell were false.  From the feedback from the CPS investigation they confirmed that the CEO of the HSE was aware that the statements made by Shell in the Press Releases in 2006 were totally false and misleading.

Bill Campbell, retired HSE Group Auditor of Shell International.

SELF-EXPLANATORY EMAIL TO SHELL:

From: John Donovan <john@shellnews.net>
Date: 4 March 2011 16:23:35 GMT
To: michiel.brandjes@shell.com
Cc: peter.p.voser@shell.com, malcolm.brinded@shell.com, Jorma.Ollila@shell.com, Cambellxxx.xxxxx.com
Subject: Fwd: Criminal Investigation uncovers lies and deceit and potential corruption

Dear Mr Brandjes

I have forwarded to you an email received from Mr. Bill Campbell. I have deleted part of the first sentence, which commences: “This is a shortened version…”

I have already published the short version of his statement.

Please see:
Shell Brent Bravo Deaths: Criminal Investigation uncovers lies, deceit and potential corruption

Shell is invited to supply for unedited publication within the brief version and for inclusion with the full version, when published, any comment/rebuttal you wish to make.

If Shell fails to do so, visitors to our website, including the mainstream news media, will be entitled to draw their own conclusions i.e. that Shell accepts the facts, as stated by Mr Campbell.

Best Regards
John Donovan

THERE HAS BEEN NO RESPONSE

A day earlier, on 3rd March, Royal Dutch Shell made a blanket denial in response to our account of Shell’s support and encouragement for Hitler and the Nazis based partly on evidence in “A History of Shell Dutch Shell” gathered by Shell’s paid historians. This time there is no denial of any kind.

THE FULL STATEMENT/ARTICLE BY BILL CAMPBELL

Information from Meeting Held with CPS on 18th February, 2011

Criminal Investigation uncovers lies, deceit and potential corruption

Introduction

This is a modern day story of new Shell.  New Shell is an organisation that you can’t be sure about anymore.  An organisation which in the dangerous and unforgiving North Sea, allowed over a prolonged period from1999 till 2003, a negative safety culture to develop offshore which flourished and was sustained within a hostile environment of extreme denial.  In this environment, the hideous Touch F-All policy led to the degradation of installation equipment through neglect of maintenance across the oil field.  When employees were killed as a result of all this, Shell Director(s), whose failures may have led to charges of corporate homicide against them, colluded with the Industry safety regulator to cover these failures up.  This cover-up has been aided and abetted up the organisational line to the CEO and non-executive Chairman of Royal Dutch Shell.  All this has been exposed by an ongoing investigation by Scottish authorities.

The investigation process

Some time ago the police in Aberdeen passed a report to the Procurator Fiscal (public prosecutor).  The report provided evidence alleging that the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), who regulate health and safety of persons at work in the UK, including offshore, may have been compromised, bribery and corruption, by Shell.  The allegations relate to a fatal accident offshore on Brent Bravo on 11^th September 2003 and the subsequent Fatal Accident Inquiry into the fatalities.  A criminal investigation commenced based on these allegations. The Procurator Fiscal are part of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), reference to the Crown is simply because UK has a monarchy.

The investigation has focussed to date on the role of HSE officials. These officials are UK Government employees.  Since the investigation is ongoing it is inappropriate to comment on what has, or has not been established with regards to HSE.  The CPS investigation to date however has confirmed that Shell repeatedly made false and misleading statements about its part in these affairs.

The Fatal Accident Inquiry into deaths on Brent Bravo

What has been established is that the HSE, whether in collusion with Shell or not, failed to pass vital evidence to the CPS in 2003 prior to the Fatal Accident Inquiry.  HSE had obtained this evidence directly from Shell only days after the fatalities.  This evidence given to HSE was from Greg Hill, the Production Director in Aberdeen, and was from his internal Technical Integrity Review implemented immediately after the deaths. Hill implemented the Review to ascertain whether Brent Bravo was an unfortunate, but isolated incident, or was there a general malaise offshore.  The Review found chronic weakness in management controls resulting in the deaths on Brent Bravo, for which Shell were prosecuted.  The Review confirmed that Brent Bravo was not an isolated incident as similar conditions were found on many of the Shell North Sea installations.

What were the consequences flowing from this?

My most recent meeting with CPS was on the 18^th February.  The CPS position is that if they had been in possession of the evidence given by Greg Hill to HSE in 2003, as they should have been, this would most likely have led to a more general Inquiry into how Shell had operated across the oilfield and over the prolonged period from 1999.  There was considerable public interest in the Brent Bravo fatalities, and this combined with the evidence of a negative safety culture, may have influenced the Lord Advocate (in US parlance an Attorney General) who heads up the CPS in Scotland, to order such Inquiry.

This Inquiry would have covered how technical and operations integrity of Shell facilities, not just Brent Bravo, had degraded over a prolonged period, and how this degradation had not been halted or reversed, despite many HSE enforcement actions being applied on Shell over this period.  From 1999 to 2003, enforcement notices were issued to counteract 33 serious breaches of legislation.  It appears that the Safety Case regime, put in place post Piper Alpha, had failed to ensure the health and safety of the many hundreds of Shell employees offshore over this prolonged period.

2006 – After the Fatal Accident Inquiry into Brent Bravo

When the Sheriff (a Judge) reported the results of his Inquiry there was significant public concern from Trade Unions and politicians, The Sheriff had determined how the deaths had taken place by after a 38 day Inquiry had made no recommendations.  He did however make the significant suggestion that factors he had not covered, because of the restrictions of the relevant Act concerning such Inquiries, could merit a more General Inquiry, but to date no such Inquiry has taken place.

BBC Scotland encapsulated the public concerns on a programme aired on 14^th June 2006.  Prior to the programme going on air BBC offered both Shell and HSE right of reply but they declined to comment despite the programme content being critical of both parties.  On the 16^th June 2006 significant media interest was stirred up by the oil industry Magazine Upstream articles.  Shell issued a rebuttal in the form of press releases by their Crisis Management Team which were also copied internally to its employees across the World.

The rebuttal stated that Safety is Shell’s foremost priority at all times and we absolutely reject any suggestion that we would compromise safety offshore. In 1999, Shell initiated the Platform Safety Management Review (PSMR), in which Mr Campbell was asked to participate, and responded vigorously to its findings. A follow up implementation audit conducted at the end of 2000 confirmed significant progress had been made on both asset integrity and management systems. This contributed to the continuous improvement in Shell’s safety performance that has been achieved since 1999 in the North Sea.

With the Press Releases the cover-up commenced

It was Greg Hill who led the Crisis Management Team and it was he who way back in 2003 had presented the evidence of the appalling conditions on many of his offshore installations to HSE.  The press release also ignored the findings of their own internal investigation completed in 2005, into the conduct of Directors in 1999.  This investigation concluded that the 1999 PSMR follow-up was ineffective.  The investigation was critical of Malcolm Brinded for dispensing with the services of the SIEP Lead Auditor of the PSMR in 1999 which effectively halted the PSMR in midstream.   Brinded was also criticised for not taking the immediate actions, as recommended by his Platform Safety Management Review (PSMR) in 1999, to reduce the risks on Brent Bravo, which was operating in a dangerous condition.

Why did Greg Hill lie?

Greg Hill was put in charge of the Crisis Management Team in June 2006 with instructions from above to sort this problem out or else!  As evidence of a hostile environment of extreme denial Hill was given no choice being intimidated to lie, and lie again, do anything that was needed to protect Shell from public ridicule and potential prosecution. Jacob Stausholm, the SIEP Chief Auditor who had led the 2005 internal investigation into the behaviour of Brinded and Finlayson at the time of the PSMR, was also threatened.  He was to bury his report and raise no objections to the press releases.  Within a few years both Hill and Stausholm had left Shell.   Hill went to the Hess Corporation to Head their EP division and Stausholm to Statoil Hydro as a non-executive Director.  Both these organisations raised no legal or other objections to the comments made about their employees.

Why did the HSE not respond to the Shell Press Releases?

One of the examples of collusion between Shell and HSE was that HSE were aware that the Press Releases by Shell were false.  From the feedback from the CPS investigation they confirmed that the CEO of the HSE was aware that the statements made by Shell in the Press Releases in 2006 were totally false and misleading.  His defence apparently was that the Shell statement put HSE in a difficult position as their Policy does not allow them to comment of the performance of individual organisations.  A pretty lame excuse.  So the CPS accept that the public statements made by Shell did not reflect the reality of the situation and that HSE allowed these comments to go unchallenged, all this still subject to investigation.

So what lies have been uncovered?

1.    It is not contentious that Shell neglected to inform HSE about the 1999 PSMR and its findings.  In 2006, Shell defended this by stating that the PSMR was just a Review and not an audit.  The facts established and accepted by the CPS is that the PSMR was conducted by Auditors, was based on seven offshore audits, the PSMR report was issued by the Internal Audit Manager and was ipso facto an audit.  Not to inform HSE and the offshore workers about the results of a health and safety Audit is an offence under Safety Case Regulations.  The PSMR produced many recommended actions, these were accepted by Shell Expro, but not effectively implemented.  This contributing to the deaths on Brent Bravo and to the chronic weaknesses in essential controls across the oilfield as witnessed in 2003

2.    It is not contentious that rather than a continuous improvement from 1999 till the deaths there had been continuous degradation of standards due to the imposed negative safety culture and the failure to implement the PSMR findings.  In the words of the Lord Advocate, it was clear from the conditions on Brent Bravo, that the deaths had resulted from ineffective management of Shell’s offshore operations over a prolonged period of time

3.    In 2006, under intense media pressure van der Veer responded to critical media comments, and separately in correspondence with me (held by the CPS), that there was no evidence that the performance results of ESD valves had been falsified in 1999.  Another blatant lie now uncovered

4.    Asked to investigate the role of van der Veer and Brinded by me, the RDS Chairman Jorma Ollila in writing replied that he was satisfied with the statements made in the 2006 Press Releases and the Shell position was supported by their internal investigation.  He now accepts that his statements were not factual.  Although he has been bestowed with nine badges of honour this does not stop him to lie at will to protect the Shell reputation.

In conclusion

It is hoped that this article will be seen and widely circulated by Shell employees.  New Shell is an organisation in decline with all the usual symptoms of an organisation where power corrupts.  Lies, deceit, potential corruption, hypocrisy, self-delusion with a loss of reality, criminal negligence and gross intimidation of its employees who must lie to cover up wrongdoing of Directors, or suffer the consequences.

Post the reserves scandal new Shell placed great emphasise in media releases that honesty and integrity were to be at the core of everything they did in the future.  The non-executive governance was to be beefed up along with improvements to the internal audit process, but we observe from the evidence a powerless and compliant Chairman, and an Internal Audit system that is a sham.

The principal learning point from this is that new Shell is an organisation that Society can not be sure of anymore and whose statements can not be trusted. It is an organisation prepared to condemn others to gain commercial advantage, as it did with BP over Deepwater Horizon well, whilst covering up its own criminal neglect.

RELATED AUGUST 2008 LETTER FROM THE HEALTH AND SAFETY EXECUTIVE