By BRETT CLANTON Copyright 2009 Houston Chronicle

(NOW WITH AN ADDED COMMENT FROM “JO BLOW”)

Dec. 15, 2009, 8:40PM

Shell shipping Houston jobs overseas

Royal Dutch Shell has publicly announced it will slash 5,000 jobs by year end—including “hundreds” in Houston—as part of a sweeping reorganization new CEO Peter Voser said is needed to make the company more competitive.

But under a separate program, the European oil giant has been quietly transferring additional office jobs from Houston and elsewhere to India and the Philippines to reduce costs, according to internal Shell documents obtained by the Chronicle and a person familiar with the plan.

The “migration” programs affect employees in finance and other support functions, which are being consolidated in what the oil company calls “shared service centers” in low-cost countries to fit the new company structure.

They are “part of a Shell-wide effort to streamline processes and improve efficiency” and “will enable us to deliver consistently world-class service at a competitive cost,” according to a Shell Powerpoint presentation for a portion of the company’s finance division.

It’s unclear how many of Shell’s 13,000 employees in the Houston area will be affected by the migration plans. Partly, that’s because company officials are still deciding which jobs will stay or go abroad, and are rolling out the plans in phases that run into next year. But at least a few divisions in Houston are preparing to be downsized dramatically.

“People are very concerned about their future,” said a Shell finance employee, who requested anonymity for fear of losing his job.

He said about a quarter of the jobs on his team will be relocated to India in coming months and that more will follow under a final phase next year.

The salaries for the foreign jobs are a small fraction of those for similar U.S. jobs and have fewer benefits, making it impractical for many American employees to make the move, the finance employee said.

Shell officials would not comment directly on the internal company documents, nor discuss potential job losses from migration programs. But they said shared service centers in Manila are part of a broader effort to make the company more efficient and competitive.

Major oil companies including Shell, ConocoPhillips and BP have been cutting jobs, capital spending budgets and other costs in response to the global economic downturn that has sapped demand for petroleum products like gasoline and diesel fuel.

And it’s nothing new for multinational companies to move U.S. jobs to lower-wage countries to save on labor costs.

But Shell’s migration programs could have broader implications for Houston. They suggest that yet another category of well-paying jobs in the oil and gas industry is leaving the city, perhaps forever, as energy companies try to get leaner to compete.

“We talk about Houston being the energy capital of the world, but it’s lost some of that edge, especially in the manufacturing sector,” said Barton Smith, director of the University of Houston’s Institute for Regional Forecasting. “But it remains the technological center of energy and it remains, to a large extent, the financial center.”

The exit of energy finance jobs from the city would be discouraging, especially as a shortage of engineering talent has already forced the oil industry to recruit overseas, said Amy Jaffe, a senior fellow in energy studies at Rice University’s Baker Institute.

But at the same time, Shell could add other jobs to the region over time as the company develops major projects in North and South America, she said.

In fact, the region should be a “disproportionately growing part of Shell” in coming years with new projects in deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico and Brazil, the Canadian oil sands and natural gas fields in the U.S. and Canada, said Marvin Odum, president of the company’s U.S. division, in a recent interview with the Chronicle.

For now, however, the company is still finding its footing amid uncertainty on many fronts.

Shell, which is based in The Hague, with U.S. headquarters in Houston, has been involved in a major downsizing since Voser replaced Jeroen van der Veer as CEO in July.

By year end, the company plans to cut 5,000 employees, or 10 percent of its global workforce, under a reorganization he calls Transition 2009.

The process — which merged the company’s three upstream businesses into two, expanded its downstream group and added a new projects and technology division —trimmed management ranks by 20 percent and has forced 15,000 Shell employees to re-apply for a smaller pool of jobs.

Shell officials said that reorganization will wrap up by the end of this month.

The company has been moving on a separate track with its migration programs.

The company recently told employees within its finance division that some of their jobs are being relocated from Houston and Calgary, Alberta, to “finance operations centers” in Manila and Chennai, India.

Spokesman Bill Tanner said foreign shared service centers are key to improving the finance unit’s competitiveness. “Currently, our finance operations are too complex and too costly and this is preventing the finance function from fully contributing value to the business,” he said.

brett.clanton@chron.com

Although you say “Shell officials said that reorganization will wrap up by the end of this month.” in fact Shell CEO Peter Voser has recently warned of a further unspecified number of job cuts at Shell next year.

Posted by John Donovan of http://royaldutchshellplc.com/

SOURCE ARTICLE

Jo Blow
on Dec 18th, 2009 at 3:27 pm

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration has delayed a decision on a request by Shell Oil Co. to drill for oil and gas in Alaska’s rugged Chukchi Sea. The delay came after the oil company asked for time to respond to criticism of its plan to drill in the icy sea, a prime habitat for threatened polar bears.

Shell President Marvin Odum said after a Senate hearing Thursday that he only knew what he “read in the papers” about the delay granted this week by the Interior Department, adding that Shell did not request it. But a letter from the Minerals Management Service, an arm of the Interior Department, says Shell requested the delay so it can respond to a deluge of public comments on the drilling proposal.

“There is some hypocrisy in locking these resources away while relying on resources produced in other countries,” said Marvin Odum, the President of Shell Oil Co., the U.S. unit of Royal Dutch Shell Plc.

the ONION

October 3, 2009: OAK HARBOR, WA—Executives from the Shell Oil Company blasted a floundering, oil-covered sea otter Monday, accusing the small aquatic mammal of grossly exaggerating the effects of last week’s hazardous petroleum spill.

According to Shell president Marvin Odum, the otter has been putting on “quite a show” in front of rescue workers and clean-up crews, and is making the 860,000-gallon, three-mile-wide toxic slick seem like a much bigger deal than it actually is.

“He’s fine,” said Odum, referring to the 40-pound sea creature, who was found washed ashore and appeared to be suffering from anaphylactic shock. “Trust me, before all of the cameras and reporters showed up, our little buddy here was having no problem at all cleaning himself off. Now, all of a sudden, it’s severe spastic convulsions this and complete kidney failure that.”

“Seriously, come on,” the Shell executive continued. “Talk about laying it on thick.”

Odum, who was alerted to the massive petroleum spill early Monday morning, claimed that the attention-seeking otter was not only overdoing it with his frantic and anguished squealing, but that his habit of gasping desperately for oxygen was “melodramatic.”

In addition, Odum claimed that the otter’s rapidly fluctuating body temperature and growing heart palpitations were nothing more than a sad attempt to curry favor with Coast Guard officials, Greenpeace volunteers, and anybody else not smart enough to see right through his “little ploy.”

Shell executives were disgusted by the flamboyant, over-the-top act put on by contaminated wildlife Monday.

“Give me a break,” Odum said as rescue crews tried to remove hazardous waste from the mammal’s pelt. “Clearly, this otter has some weird, personal vendetta against Shell and large corporations in general, and wants everyone to cry at his pathetic sob story.”

“Just look at him out there,” Odum added while volunteers tried to keep the sea creature from losing consciousness. “The sick bastard’s loving every minute of this.”

Odum also downplayed claims by rescue workers that the otter may not be able to handle the stress of the clean-off process, saying that the animal is “acting ridiculous” and is just doing an impression of what he thinks an otter affected by a massive oil spill is supposed to act like.

“The extreme shivering, the wheezing, the prolonged dehydration, it’s all part of the same gaudy burlesque,” Shell CEO Peter Voser said. “It’s simple: The otter gets some oil on his body, and he thinks that gives him carte blanche to play the victim. Don’t you people get it? This is exactly what he wants. You’re all playing right into his twisted little game.”

Voser even called into question the otter’s mental stability, citing the sea pup’s early attempts to drink the highly contaminated water around him as an example of just how far the publicity-hungry mammal was willing to go to make the Shell Oil Company look like “the bad guy.”

On Saturday, Shell chairman Jorma J. Ollila issued a statement accusing the sea mammal of being a master manipulator, and said that what the otter really needs to do is grow up.

Ollila went on to praise a number of petroleum-soaked seals, pelicans, and sea turtles in the contaminated area, commending them for remaining completely still and silent, and not “making a big production” out of the environmental disaster when rescue and camera crews arrived at the scene.

The one-page document, however, focused largely on the single otter, who as of press time was in critical condition.

“Rescue crews have to stop coddling him and giving him everything he wants,” Ollila said. “Because if they don’t, other otters are just going to pull the exact same crap the next time one of our tankers ruptures and we spill crude oil everywhere.”

The Onion is not intended for readers under 18 years of age.

© Copyright 2009 Onion Inc. All rights reserved

Whisper from a worried engineer:

We hear that the 3 musketeers Marvin, Matthias and Malcolm are unable to reach agreement on whether everyone in jobgroup 2 and above has to re-apply for a job in Shell.

Matthias as a good Swiss with a Teutonic streak wants to go for the ‘Endlösung’ and have it all over with soon by forcing a date for re-application to all jobs by end October.

But now for once the big brain of Malcolm, the mother of all micro managers, starts to feel nervous since he realises that HR cannot cope with the enormous load. Even HR can do overpromise-underdelivery!!!

So, the target of reaching 3.25 million boe/day in 2012 is becoming more unlikely by the day. Nobody is working on maintaining production, completing the projects or filling the funnel with new projects, everyone is fighting for survival and will spend all his/her time on looking good to whomever may decide whether he/she stays or goes.  Time is almost ripe for Exxon or a Chinese or Russian company to pounce and shred Shell to pieces.

Thank you Watts. Thank you Hofmeister. Thank you Brinded. Thank you van de Veer. Thank you Voser. Thank you all who have sold out Shell and are now speeding up the process of destroying it further.

More on Job Cuts

Royal Dutch Shell CEO Pete Voser first warned of job cuts months ago but has not been forthcoming on details.

The long delay has led to numerous press articles on the subject. The Times has reported that up to 10,000 jobs are expected to go.

This has all naturally led to speculation and rumor.

Here are some other rumors currently in circulation…

Some people apparently are whispering about cullings of 20-30% in Rijswijk and head office in The Hague…

EVERYONE in EP, with just a few exceptions, will have to reapply for their jobs…

OTHER RUMORS…

Motiva inside news, Motiva norco GM Ann-Marie has quit the company and going to work for another company outside of Shell. Maintenance Manager Tony Pastor going to convent.

Investigation said to have started at Shell Deer Park Refinery & Chemical Plant into people taking kickbacks from a contractor. We have the contractors name…

Received 25 Sept from a worker at Stanlow Refinery. “I attended a meeting this week organised by the operators union and decided I would join them to be protected at work. However I go into work today and all of us are told to go to meetings to be told by our supervision we should not join a union. I thought this was a illegal practice in the uk to be so anti union. I will still join the union but I will not let my boss know as I am scared it will go against me. There are many problems at Stanlow due to lack of investment and today we are told not to use the showers or drink the water or use safety showers as there is an employee in hospital seriously ill with legionaires disease.”

WARNING: These are rumors…

Attention Royal Dutch Shell Plc: If you confirm by email that any information printed under this headline is categorically untrue, it will be removed immediately.

By John Donovan of Royal Dutch Shell Plc .com

Printed below is a self-explanatory leaked email from Peter Voser, the incoming Chief Executive of Royal Dutch Shell Plc.

Energy journalists, kindly mention this website if you use material from the leaked information which reveals a host of important senior appointments around the globe. Recent contact with a number of you has resulted in a series of articles some published internationally, including for example, a front page lead article in the Financial Times. We draw your attention to the sudden explosion of postings on our Shell Blog facility by disgruntled employees which have arisen from the changes. 

THE LEAKED EMAIL FROM PETER VOSER

—–Original Message—–

From: Voser, Peter SI-GLOBAL 

Sent: Tuesday, June 16, 2009 5:08 AM

Subject: Message to all staff from Peter Voser: Appointments to Roles Reporting to the Executive Committee

Dear Colleagues 

I wrote to you on May 27 from the Shell Senior Executive Forum in Berlin to outline the changes we must make to speed up our journey to better performance.  

These changes will be structural, behavioural & cultural. 

I wrote to you again on June 8 confirming the next levels of structural change reporting to the Executive  Committee (EC-1).

To maintain momentum, I am now pleased to confirm that the Executive Committee have confirmed the appointments to the new EC-1 roles. You can now find these on Shell Online.  I would like to congratulate all those appointed to these roles.

Our next milestone is to design, consuIt, and announce appointments to EC-2 by end July as part of my commitment to move through this process as quickly as possible and to keep you informed on the journey.

Regards

Peter

Transition page 

Royal Dutch Shell has unveiled the most the radical restructuring of its operations for decades in a move that will impact over 24,000 jobs.

Up to a third of senior management under threat

By Sarah Arnott