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

I note from the Shell internal documents supplied to my son that Shell has engaged in some wishful thinking regarding my age (I am now almost 93). Unfortunately for Shell, I am still very much alive and kicking.

From: John Donovan <john@shellnews.net>
Date: 28 November 2009 10:16:41 GMT
To: gavin.white@shell.com
Subject: Re: Data Protection Act 1998 – SAR

Dear Mr White.

Thank you for your email dated 27 November.

I note that you ignored my question about what, in Shell’s view, constitutes a “reasonable interval” between SAR applications from the same applicant. A response on that matter will be made after I receive the delivery of the promised information on or before 1st December i.e. by next Wednesday.

I note that you have added another Shell lawyer – Maria Bowden – to the circulation list. Logic suggests she must have some relevant expertise, perhaps Shell buried secrets (nuclear or otherwise), defamation law, the Data Protection Act, or something connected with the company endorsed intimidatory conduct of Shell security guards at Shell Centre.

Best Regards

John Donovan

EMAIL FROM GAVIN WHITE TO JOHN DONOVAN

From: Gavin.White@shell.com
Date: 27 November 2009 10:41:27 GMT
To: john@shellnews.net
Cc: michiel.brandjes@SHELL.com, richard.wiseman@SHELL.com, Maria.Bowden@SHELL.com
Subject: RE: Data Protection Act 1998 – SAR

Dear Mr Donovan,

We have received your email dated 19 November, which makes reference to your previous request dated 10 November.

Although we appreciate your flexibility with regard to the period within which Shell has to comply with your subject access request (SAR) submitted on 4 September 2009, we believe it is not in either party’s ability to extend the prescribed period for responding to a SAR, nor to alter the statutory rules governing its submission and the subsequent response to it.

Accordingly, we confirm that as per our letter dated 16 November  we will respond to your SAR not later than 1 December 2009, in accordance with sections 7(8) and 7(10) of the Data Protection Act 1998 (Act). Our response will include the information constituting your personal data as held by Shell at the time when we received your SAR , pursuant to section 8(6) of the Act , but not any information produced or received by Shell after that time, such as the information requested in your email dated 10 November.

With regard to the documentation referred to in your email dated 15 November, to the extent that such documentation exists and constitutes personal data relating to you, then it will be disclosed to you as part of our response to your SAR dated 4 September 2009, in accordance with the Act and subject to any applicable statutory exemption.

Yours faithfully

Gavin White SI-LC-SFL
Company Secretarial Adviser
Corporate Secretariat, London
—————————————————————–
Phone: + 44 (0) 20 7934 3342
Fax: + 44 (0) 20 7934 5153
Email: gavin.white@shell.com
Postal address: 8th Floor, Shell Centre, London SE1 7NA, United Kingdom
Internet: http://www.shell.com

Shell International Limited is a company registered in England and
Wales. Its registered office address is Shell Centre, London, England,
SE1 7NA, United Kingdom. (Company number 3075807)

—–Original Message—–
From: John Donovan [mailto:john@shellnews.net]
Sent: 19 November 2009 21:16
To: White, Gavin SI-LC-SFL
Cc: Brandjes, Michiel CM RDS-LC; Wiseman, Richard RM SI-RDS-CCO
Subject: Data Protection Act 1998 – SAR

Dear Mr White

Thank you for your letter dated 16 November 2009.

My email dated 10 November requested any relevant documents/notes/ instructions relating to:

2. Shell statements about me issued recently to the Guardian newspaper  and the BBC.

You claim that seeking this information would involve significant disruption which could hamper efforts to meet the SAR deadline. This  conjures up an image of a team beavering away day and night gathering  the necessary information. I somehow doubt this is the case. Since  there has been no request for extra time to deal with what would amount to nothing more taxing than a few minutes work to avoid a  further SAR application, with all that apparently entails, it leaves a suspicion that Shell has something to hide and is trying to delay  disclosure. This impression is reinforced by the threat that you will  not respond to a further SAR application from me until an undefined “reasonable interval”. Is this months or years?

My email of 15 November relates solely to any relevant Shell correspondence concerning the supposedly decontaminated land at Earley  that Shell sold to a property developer for a housing estate. Any such correspondence took place before my SAR application. Consequently there is no possible excuse for it not being supplied. I know that it  exists.

You say that you won’t supply any addional documents and information produced after 22 October (whatever that means) but include with your letter two such items, thus acting in apparent breach of the rule you have just quoted.

I would like to make a constructive suggestion which would avoid the need for any further SAR application to Shell by me in the foreseeable future. The last gap was nearly three years and dependent on your response, I have no plans to shorten that interval. I am quite relaxed about waiting until say, 15 December for Shell to supply all of the requested information.

The ball is in your court.

Best Regards

John Donovan

10 YEARS ON AND NOTHINGS CHANGED

RIGGED SHELL CONTRACT TENDER

THE SHELL “SMART” HIGH COURT TRIAL

Shell offshore workers died as a result of a “Touch F*** All” safety regime

SEX, DRUGS & CORRUPTION SPONSORED BY SHELL

Domain name battle for Royal Dutch Shell Plc .com (guess who lost)

Date: 10 November 2009 20:33:38 GMT
To: gavin.white@shell.com
Cc: michiel.brandjes@shell.com
Subject: Data Protection Act 1998 – Subject Access Request

Attention of Mr Gavin White, Company Secretarial Department, Shell International Limited

Dear Mr White

You are of course aware of our SAR Application lodged on 4 September 2009 via Mr Brandjes and my subsequent correspondence with you on the matter.

Bearing in mind that no information has yet been supplied, could you please include within the current application, any relevant Shell documents/information/communications/notes/instructions etc right up to date, so that recent events are dealt with now, rather than having to submit a further SAR application.

The recent events include an alleged sustained campaign of intimidation by Shell security staff against people lawfully and peacefully issuing leaflets on our behalf to Shell employees on public property outside the Shell Centre. We are now recruiting a new team. I will be lodging a formal complaint with the authorities as it proved to be a complete waste of time bringing the bullyboy tactics to the attention of the RDS Plc Chief Ethics & Compliance Officer, Richard Wiseman. Predictably he endorsed and supported their actions from the outset, thereby encouraging what followed.

I would also like copies of ALL Shell statements issued to the media, including in connection with the half page article published by the Guardian on 26 October and the expanded Shell statement broadcast twice by BBC Essex Breakfast Show on Monday 9 November 2009.

Best Regards
John Donovan

John Donovan: Royal Dutch Shell Plc.com

LEAFLET GIVEN TO SHELL EMPLOYEES AT SHELL CENTRE, LONDON FROM MONDAY 2nd NOVEMBER 2009

LEAKED EMAILS LOST SHELL BILLIONS ON SAKHALIN-2

By John Donovan of royaldutchshellplc.com: Nov 2009

At first glance the headline appears to be a ridiculous claim. However, it happens to be supported with independent verifiable evidence from reputable sources and has been published, unchallenged by Shell, in magazine and newspaper articles, including half-page features in The Sunday Times and The Guardian.

The claim was also mentioned in a newsletter published in July 2007 by the One World Trust, an independent think tank and research organisation affiliated with the UK Houses of Parliament and the United Nations.

The article is in italics.

Accountability in Practice: Royaldutchshellplc.com–The power of a website

The website Royaldutchshellplc.com is a gripe site established by John Donovan and his father, Alfred, to stream information to the public about the Shell Group, a collection of oil, gas, and petrochemical companies. John Donovan’s use of the website to blow the whistle on Shell’s environmental abuses in the Sakhalin project exhibits the power an individual website can have in holding a global organisation to account.

A ‘gripe site’ is traditionally one “devoted to the critique and/or mockery of a person, place, politician, corporation, or institution.” However, with the right contacts, a gripe site can become much more than simply a soap box. As The Royal Dutch Shell plc website shows, a gripe site can have a profound impact on global organisations.

Donovan’s battle with Shell began over breaches of contract with regards to sales promotions campaigns he and his father devised that were used to attract customers to Shell petrol stations. Shell and the Donovans settled out of court. But it was after Shell apparently made disparaging remarks about the Donovans that John set up Royaldutchshellplc.com.

Donovan “wanted the site to become a magnet for people who had a problem with the company.” The site has not only cost Shell billions of dollars in Russia, but Prospect Magazine reports that the Ogoni tribe of Nigeria also use the website to spread information about Shell’s activities in the Niger Delta, and that even Shell insiders unhappy with the company use it.

Royaldutchshellplc.com is just one of many examples of how the Internet makes it possible for concerned individuals to initiate discussion about global organisations, post and share information about organisational actions and their impact, and provide a common forum for affected stakeholders. At the very least, ‘gripe sites’ such as this have a valuable watchdog function and remind global companies of the power of public opinion – thus forcing them to confront weaknesses in their own accountability. ENDS

Shell’s loss of its majority holding in the Sakhalin-2 project and consequential loss of revenues, resulted from internal Shell/SEIC documents and emails supplied to us by insider sources, that we passed on to the so-called “Kremlin attack dog”, Oleg Mitvol.

Mitvol used it as evidence to force Shell to surrender its majority stake in Sakhalin-2. He was unambiguous in identifying me as being the source of the only evidence on which he threatened litigation against Shell/SEIC.

EXTRACTS FROM ARGUS MEDIA INTERVIEW WITH OLEG MITVOL: 19 NOV 2006

Q: Who will take Sakhalin Energy to court?

A: I will take them. I have documents proving that the Sakhalin Energy management was aware that the company violated technical standards, but carried on trying to meet project deadlines and refused to stop work. I am confident of winning my case in Stockholm.

Q: What documents are these? Where are they from?

A: I have email correspondence between executives in Sakhalin Energy management from 2002. I received these letters from John Donovan, owner of the anti-Shell website www.royaldutchshellplc.com. I received them on 19 October and forwarded them to Sakhalin Energy with a request for an official reply. But I have not received any reply so far. I presume that they are in shock.

Q: How could you prove that these documents are genuine?

A: They appear genuine and we have special services working to prove this. Once they have been verified, we will have enough evidence to take Sakhalin Energy to court. If we win, the Sakhalin 2 consortium should pay compensation for all the environmental damages – which will come to over $10bn – as well as compensation to the state for loss of revenues caused by the additional delays.

The World Wildlife Fund subsequently submitted the same evidence to the UK House of Commons Environmental Audit Select Committee. The relevant minutes of evidence, including a link to the leaked documents and emails, was ordered by the Committee to be published under parliamentary copyright.

RDS losses from the forced sale to Gazprom of half of Shell’s interest in Sakhalin-2:

1). In the RDS Annual Report 2007, Shell declared: “The main impact on the Consolidated Balance Sheet was a decrease of $15.7 billion in property, plant and equipment and $6.7 billion in minority interest…” This was partly offset by an increase of $3.7 billion under equity accounted investments. This means there was a loss of over $18 billion under those headings alone.

2). We then have to add the reduction of proven reserves. Shell admitted in the same Annual Report (2007) a loss of “402 million boe of proven reserves” arising from the same transaction. An article published in The Observer newspaper on 16 March 2008 estimated the loss was actually 1.1 billion boe. At $80 per barrel, colossal sums are generated whichever figure for lost “proven reserves” is used in the calculation.

Hence the headline on this leaflet is fully justified. As recognised by the One World Trust, a gripe site can indeed have a profound impact on global organisations.

Following an approach from a U.S. government representative, we have more recently supplied Shell high-level confidential documents and emails to the U.S. investigators of the Gale Norton corruption scandal. They say we have been “a great help”.

BLOOMBERG ARTICLE: SHELL MAY CUT RESERVES AT LEAST 4 PERCENT ON SAKHALIN

LEAFLET BEING DISTRIBUTED AT SHELL CENTRE, LONDON, WEEK COMMENCING 26 OCTOBER 2009

Domain name battle for Royal Dutch Shell Plc .com (guess who lost)

By John Donovan of royaldutchshellplc.com: Oct 2009

Only Shell could end up in the humiliating position of its arch critics owning the dotcom domain name for the unified parent company Royal Dutch Shell Plc.

Richard Wiseman, currently RDS Chief Ethics & Compliance Officer, has publicly boasted that he was the conductor of the legal orchestra responsible for creating the unified company from the ashes of the Shell Transport/Royal Dutch structure destroyed by the reserves fraud.

Unfortunately, he forgot to ensure that the top-level domain name for the new company was secured before the name of Royal Dutch Shell Plc was publicly revealed. Imagine the shock and horror when Shell executive directors discovered the identity of the party who had beaten them to the precise dotcom domain name for the company: my father, Alfred Donovan (now 92 yrs old).

Shell International Petroleum Company Ltd quickly issued proceedings against him in 2005 believing Shell was automatically entitled to the dotcom domain name for its own company. How could Shell possibility lose? Shell also attempted to seize two other domain names – royaldutchshellgroup .com and tellshell.org.

From Shell’s submission:

“The disputed names www.royaldutchshellplc.com and www.royaldutchshellgroup.com registered by the Respondent are, to all intents and purposes, identical to the company name “Royal Dutch Shell plc” and the collective name “Royal Dutch/Shell Group”.  ”The Complainant contends that the disputed names are names which rightfully belong to the Group.”

Shell claimed in the proceedings that their “Tell Shell Forum” was “one of the few genuine corporate forums”.  It was however later “suspended” (permanently) after Wiseman admitted Shell had engaged in censorship of critical postings on what had been falsely touted as an uncensored forum for open and lively debate. Some of the censorship was carried out secretly in the hope no one would notice. Another mistake. Another humiliation.

Shell also mentioned the Smart settlement, stating: “No payment was made by Shell in relation to the claim itself, although for reasons which are not relevant to this Complaint, a contribution was made to the legal expenses of John Donovan.” More Shell smoke and mirrors’. In fact, I received a secret payment and Shell paid ALL legal costs. The settlement terms were deemed so sensitive that Shell withheld them from the trial Judge who made closing comments under the mistaken impression of a stalemate result, when in fact Shell had settled the claim on its second attempt to do so during the trial.

The proceedings predictably caught the imagination of the international press as a classic David v Goliath battle with an oil giant on one side and a then 88 year old 2nd World War veteran on the other.

Selection of extracts…

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL 2 June 2005:

“Shell Wages Legal Fight Over Web Domain Name”: Just after Shell unveiled the name of the new entity last October, Mr. Donovan — who has had frequent legal battles with Shell — snapped up the rights to the Web site.”

“The two Donovans are well-known to Shell. They have waged a long-running anti-Shell campaign dating to the 1990s revolving around disputes over the rights to Shell gasoline-station promotions.”

“In their complaint with the World Intellectual Property Organization, Shell attorneys argued that although there is no litigation outstanding between the two sides, the company believes the elder Mr. Donovan acquired the Web site “as a means of increasing his capability to disparage Shell at some time in the future.”

(Shell was right on that score)

THE NEW YORK TIMES 25 June 2005:

“Another dampener on Shell’s biggest corporate overhaul since the two holding firms tied up in 1907, is a spat over the rights to the web domain “royaldutchshellplc.com.” Disgruntled shareholder Alfred Donovan beat Shell to register the domain name. Shell has sued Donovan for the rights to the domain but while the matter plays out, Donovan uses the site to lambaste Shell management.”

THE OUTCOME

THE TIMES 16 August 2005:

“AN ATTEMPT by Royal Dutch Shell to claim the website royaldutchshellplc.com from an 88-year-old veteran who uses it to publish material that criticises the oil giant has failed. The Geneva-based WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Centre has ruled in favour of Alfred Donovan, who has said that he will not relinquish the site until the company gets rid of all the management he deems responsible for its various recent woes, notably the reserves scandal.”

Shell lost the action on all three of the domain names, partly because the relevant websites are all entirely non-commercial. So Shell is stuck with the public humiliation of a website using the precise dotcom domain name of the world’s largest company – Royal Dutch Shell Plc – to ridicule, criticise and expose the oil giant.

And worse still for Shell, we regularly receive and process email meant for the company, including job applications, business proposals and other confidential communications. This is the highly embarrassing and bizarre predicament in which the multinational oil giant Shell currently finds itself.

LEAFLET BEING DISTRIBUTED AT SHELL CENTRE, LONDON, WEEK COMMENCING 26 OCTOBER 2009.

SEX, DRUGS & CORRUPTION SPONSORED BY SHELL

By John Donovan of royaldutchshellplc.com: October 2009

Shell senior management pretends that it stands resolutely behind the anti-corruption pledges in the Shell General Business Principles.

I have already revealed that the hypocrites at the top of Shell, including executive director Malcolm “TFA” Brinded and the rule bending Chief Ethics and Compliance Officer, Richard Wiseman, encourage and support corrupt practices. Wiseman’s behind the scenes support is directly at odds with an anti-corruption speech he delivered in June 2008 at the Asia Anti-Corruption Conference.

The stink of corruption associated with Shell is pervasive and impossible to contain. In the hard commercial world, Shell senior management is prepared to do whatever it takes to meet its objectives, whether it is turning a blind eye to corrupt practices in the UK, bribery and corruption in Russia (the Sakhalin2 project) or in Nigeria, where Shell has also paid militants carrying out attacks on Shell employees and property. It is unclear whether the murky payments, reported in the FT, were to stop or promote the attacks, which have driven up the price of oil.

We mentioned in a recent leaflet the criminal investigation currently in progress in Scotland involving Shell, Malcolm Brinded, the HSE and alleged corruption.

We now have the criminal investigation by the U.S. Justice Department into former U.S. Interior Secretary Gale Norton and the award of potentially highly lucrative oil shale leases to Shell Oil, which subsequently became her employer.

One moment Norton was the head of a U.S. government department negotiating multibillion-dollar agreements with Shell, the next (just months later) she was working for Shell Oil as General Counsel in the division dealing with oil shale. This was blatantly improper, undoubtedly against the public interest and probably illegal. It smells to high heaven.

In this connection, we are aware of speculation that we have supplied Shell internal documents and correspondence to the U.S. investigators. The speculation is understandable bearing in mind our international reputation as a purveyor of Shell confidential internal information. One example was our key role in the Sakhalin2 project resulting in Shell’s loss of its ownership stake and the forced resignation, in embarrassing circumstances, of the project director, General David Greer.

I have been writing about Gale Norton for over a year. Not just out of concern over her joining Shell in highly dubious circumstances, but also because of a corruption scandal involving her staff. This scandal had it all; bribes, drugs, sex and oil. Shell was a prime sponsor of the immoral and illegal activities, which also breached Shell’s claimed ethical code.

Further proof that Shell General Business Principles are a complete fraud.

The Minerals Management Service (MMS) of the U.S. Department of The Interior and the Office of Inspector General initiated an investigation in 2006 after receiving allegations from a confidential source that improprieties were occurring within the Royalty in Kind Program (RIK). The following extracts in italics, not necessarily in original order, are taken directly from the official report.

In e-mails we retrieved from computer hard drives and network servers, we found numerous indications that many of the events that RIK employees attended with industry officials were purely social. For instance, e-mail from Shell Pipeline Company representative to RIK employee Crystel Edler, regarding attending “tailgating festivities” at a Houston Texans game, stated, ”You’re invited have you and the girls meet at my place at 6am for bubble baths and final prep. Just kidding…”

The Shell Pipeline Company representative’s previous e-mail inviting people to the event was laden with sexual innuendo such as, “We’ve always provided the patrons with beer on demand, but the ever-depleting supplies have dwindled beer storage to dangerously low volumes on occasion…. Although it’s a given that the horsemen will indeed ‘bring the meat to the table.’

In 2004, Shell provided Leyshon with lodging and paid for her ski costs in Keystone, CO. She also admitted to having a “one-night stand” with a Shell employee. She stated that this employee did not prepare Shell’s RIK bids. Leyshon told investigators that she ”had a hit every once in a while in reference to her use of marijuana but noted that this never occurred at the MMS office.

When interviewed, Michael Faulise, Director of Marketing for Shell Exploration and Production Company (Shell E&P), stated that he had worked for Shell since 2000… When asked, Faulise stated that he was unable to recall Leyshon ever paying for any lodging or meals provided by Shell.

We interviewed a senior crude oil trader for Shell Oil Trading Company regarding his relationship with Stacy Leyshon pursuant to a DOJ proffer agreement. The senior trader said he had heard Leyshon and Edler referred to by other Shell employees as the “MMS Chicks” who often drank too much and conducted themselves in an unprofessional manner.

In addition, our investigation disclosed that in 2004, Greg Smith became concerned that an RIK employee might have released confidential pipeline transportation rates to Shell. Apparently, a company official from Poseidon Oil had called Smith to complain that Shell had learned of the confidential transportation rate that Poseidon had negotiated with RIK. We also discovered emails sent among RIK Staff where Edler admitted to talking to “Mike” (Faulise) about the Poseidon deal. On May 6, 2004, Smith sent an e-mail to several RIK marketers including Edler that stated, “I have heard the details of our agreement with Poseidon … including the actual rate we agreed to … was communicated to Shell. If true, this ran counter to our promise to Poseidon to keep this information confidential.”

Edler admitted that she had used cocaine “in the past,” most recently in 2005. However, she claimed that she never used cocaine during business hours and that she never used cocaine with any MMS employees or industry representatives.

We interviewed Mike Faulise, Barbara Layer, and Alan Raymond of Shell, who all confirmed that Edler was an RIK employee they dealt with on both a professional and social basis. Both Faulise and Layer remembered her attending the annual Shell outings. During Faulise’s interview, we showed him a February 2004 e-mail he wrote to Edler stating, “Nobody will say anything about you being here for the night. As far as I’m concerned, you were in a hotel.” Edler responded, “Mikey:..you are sooo wonderful You know how much I totally adore you.”

Shell managers used immoral tactics directed against employees of a U.S. government department to seek commercial advantage. This included obtaining confidential, commercially valuable information belonging to a third party. Déjà Vue All Over Again.

LEAFLET ENDS

RELATED PESN.com Article

Sex, Drugs, and Rockin’ Oil

Are we surprised to find out that the U.S. government employees who oversee offshore oil drilling turn out to be literally and figuratively ‘in bed’ with the oil industry?  A compilation of news stories about this scandal.

by Sterling D. Allan
Pure Energy Systems News

None of us in the renewable energy sector are surprised by the scandal that was announced Wednesday involving sex and drug favors to the U.S. Department of Interior personnel overseeing offshore oil drilling.

This embarrassing illustration of the cozy relationship between the Bush administration and the oil industry is now paraded before the world.  This unveiling of the wizard behind the curtain can be a positive thing for the quest to move toward renewable energy sources.

The day prior to the report’s release, President Bush had a private lunch with Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne, the man in charge of the agency at the heart of the scandal.  To be a fly on the wall during that meeting . . .

The allegations of scandalous behavior involve a dozen or so government employees in Denver and Washington.  Their task is to sell U.S. mineral rights to oil companies — contracts worth eight billion annually, providing one of the government’s biggest sources of revenue besides taxes.

According to the inspector general, they rigged contracts, and engaged in illegal moonlighting, drugs, sex and gift-taking from oil company representatives.

The report allegations include:

* An employee who attended a so-called “treasure hunt” in the desert with all expenses paid by an oil producer.

* A former supervisor who bought cocaine from a colleague, then boosted her performance award, had sex with subordinates and steered government contracts to an outside business where he also worked.

CBS News reported that “no one – from the oil companies to the workers allegedly involved – provided a response today other than to say they cooperated with the investigation, or appropriate action will be taken.”

Rise of the gripe site

Extracts from Prospect Magazine Article “Rise of the gripe site”: February 2007
By Derek Brower, senior correspondent Petroleum Economist

How two men and a website in Colchester humbled one of the oil industry giants

It is not the kind of place you would expect to find at the centre of a global energy war. John Donovan’s office is in a modest house in a suburb of Colchester. No electronic maps of Europe adorn his walls, as they do the walls of Gazprom’s Moscow control room. And nor are there any butlers bringing cups of tea and expensive biscuits, as you find at Shell’s head office on the Thames. There is just Donovan’s 89-year-old father, Alfred, in the room next door.

But it is the home of www.royaldutchshellplc.com. a website which can claim to have cost Shell billions of dollars-and helped Vladimir Putin score another victory over western energy interests. This is how.

At the end of December, the Kremlin’s politically driven campaign to win control of a liquefied natural gas project on Sakhalin Island came to its predictable climax. The deal signed in Moscow between Shell and Gazprom saw the Russian company take 50 per cent plus one share of Sakhalin Energy, the consortium developing the project.

It was an offer that Shell and its two Japanese partners on Sakhalin could not refuse. The project, on a remote island notorious for its harsh winters, is one of the largest ever attempted. Sakhalin Energy will produce 9.6m tonnes per year of liquefied natural gas and 180,000 barrels per day of oil when it comes on stream in 2008.

But Sakhalin ran into serious problems. The most important was its escalating costs. In the mid-1990s, when Shell signed the contract, the oil price was low and Russia was on its knees financially. Moscow needed the expertise Shell offered. But by the time Shell was announcing a doubling of costs on Sakhalin, President Putin was rather less respectful of foreign energy companies. The cost increase-which postponed, some said indefinitely, the moment when Russia would profit from the production of its own energy reserves-was too much for impatient officials in Moscow.

To get control of the project, the Kremlin … suddenly got green. It unleashed Rosprirodnadzor, the country’s environmental watchdog, on Sakhalin. The alleged environmental abuses of the project-including deforestation, disruption of marine life, and careless infrastructure across an earthquake-prone region-are so bad that they “threaten to make Exxon Valdez look small,” says one insider.

Oleg Mitvol-the deputy head of Rosprirodnadzor, who was entrusted with the job of bringing Sakhalin Energy to heel-had by last December accumulated sufficient evidence of Shell’s and its partners’ abuses to lay charges against the consortium amounting to $30bn. There were also threats that the licence to develop the project could be removed.

With the green gun at its head, Shell allowed Gazprom to take control of the project-giving Russia an immediate share of profits and oversight of costs.

Taking the role of the humiliated man seriously, Shell’s head Jeroen van der Veer thanked Putin for helping to resolve the conflict.

What most astonished Shell was the detailed inside knowledge Mitvol had accumulated about the company’s abuses. Some in the company suspected industrial espionage. But it was actually information that the Donovans of Colchester were passing to Mitvol. The two men had received detailed material about Shell’s ecological abuses on Sakhalin: a catalogue of corner-cutting, mismanagement and efforts to cover up damaging evidence.

They say they got this information from Shell insiders. Mitvol clearly trusted the material, and in December he admitted for the first time publicly that his deep throat on Sakhalin was John Donovan.

The Donovan website has become an open wound for Shell. The Anglo-Dutch giant has tried to shut it down on the grounds that it uses the company name. However, as www.royaldutchshellplc.com makes no money, this hasn’t worked.

“We wanted it to become a magnet for people who had a problem with the company,” Donovan told me when I visited him recently. It has. The Ogoni tribe of Nigeria uses the website to spread information about Shell’s activities in the Niger delta. And unhappy Shell insiders frequently post on the site’s live chat facility.

“I’ve also heard that Athabasca Sands in Canada has some serious cost problems developing,” wrote one anonymous contributor in December. “Anyone know if that is true or not? If so, Shell is really on the ropes, with Canada & Sakhalin over-budget, reserves shrinking & Nigeria production being lost by the day.”

The site had around 1.7m hits in November. Its role in Shell’s embarrassment on Sakhalin has raised its profile. Understandably, the company is worried about the information that leaks on to the website: Donovan says that it has taken out injunctions to stop at least one of its disgruntled geologists from posting on the site. He also says that his site and its whistleblowing insiders were well ahead of the pack on Shell’s reserves scandal of 2003-04, when the company inflated its oil and gas reserves by some 20 per cent.

The source of John Donovan’s grudge … centres on the accusation that Shell stole intellectual property belonging to him and his father. They had been in the garage business since the 1950s and began selling ideas for promotions to attract customers to petrol stations. A typical scheme would involve a tie-in to a popular film. Shell liked the ideas that Don Marketing, the Donovans’ company, sold to them, says Donovan, and sales increased by 30 per cent on the back of some of the campaigns.

Then, says Donovan, in the early 1990s, a new manager in Shell’s promotions division started stealing the ideas. The men complained to the company’s senior management but were ignored. Offended that a company with which they had worked for so long should treat them this way, the Donovans began their guerrilla war.

After various legal actions, Shell agreed to settle out of court, paying the Donovans a sum “in the thousands” as part of a “peace treaty” stipulating that neither party speak about the matter in future. The Donovans were disappointed by the sum-their claim had been for around £1m- but accepted “under duress.” That was in 1999. But, says Donovan, Shell later broke the “peace treaty” by making disparaging remarks about them.

So Donovan launched his website-which costs only around £1 a week to run. And thanks to the ecological problems on Sakhalin, Shell’s poor record for bringing projects on stream on time and on budget and the power of the web, the Donovan grudge against Shell came to a spectacular climax in December.

Donovan is not worried that his site became an instrument in the Russian government’s ambition to become an energy superpower.

“Shell is not the worst oil company in the world,” says Donovan, “but we feel they mistreated us very badly.” Shell could have settled with the two men for £1m in 1998. Instead, Shell settled with the Russian government in December, with $30bn in fines hanging over the company’s head.

Leaflet published in October 2009 by John Donovan of royaldutchshellplc.com

LEAFLET CURRENTLY BEING GIVEN TO SHELL EMPLOYEES OUTSIDE SHELL CENTRE

Shell offshore workers died as a result of Brinded’s “Touch F*** All” safety regime

Published by John Donovan of royaldutchshellplc.com Oct 2009

A criminal investigation is currently underway in Scotland relating to alleged corruption allegations involving Shell and officials of the Health & Safety Executive. The investigation follows an email a retired former HSE Group Auditor of Shell International sent to over 600 UK Members of Parliament.

Bill Campbell explained in his email (reprinted below) how the lives of Shell employees working on the Brent Bravo oil platform in the North Sea were lost after Shell senior management put production and profits before safely.

Senior officials at Royal Dutch Shell Plc had sight of Campbell’s email before it was sent. Campbell received cross-party support for his calls for an investigation.

THE BILL CAMPBELL EMAIL TO UK MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT

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 (EMAIL ENDS)

Internal correspondence we obtained from Shell under the Data Protection Act revealed that Shell had set up a countermeasures team to combat our joint campaign with Bill Campbell for Shell offshore employee safety. It was clear from the internal emails that Shell had been panic stricken by the prospect of a Campbell/Donovan campaign. Shell EP General Counsel Keith Ruddock wrote to Campbell’s solicitors desperately doing his best to kill the prospective alliance. A stated aim in the internal emails was to “detach” Campbell from the Donovans. The revelations generated newspaper headlines: “Shell on back foot as ‘gripe’ site’ alleges safety concerns” (Daily Mail) and “Pressure on Shell over safety of platforms” (Daily Telegraph).

Jeroen van der Veer was later quoted in a Guardian article in August 2007 as being “hurt” by our criticism over Shell’s safety record. Yet on 1 Feb 08, Channel 4 News led its broadcast with a 7-minute package: “Shell North Sea Safety Concerns”. On 23 Feb 08, Shell pleaded guilty at Chester Crown Court to safety offences’ arising from a potential “near disaster” at Stanlow Refinery arising from a lethal gas leak. In March 08, an UpstreamOnline article revealed that Shell had received more HSE legal notices than any other operator working in the UK North Sea. It also reported that two Brent field lifeboats, one on Brent Bravo, had to be removed from service because they were in a dangerous condition. In early October 09, an HSE Prohibition Notice was served on Shell after a potentially deadly gas leak on Shell Brent Charlie platform.

We are therefore forced to conclude that despite a Shell “safety czar” (Kieron McFadyen) being appointed, it was just another example of empty Shell PR propaganda. In reality, nothing has changed. A reckless attitude to safety issues remains the key feature of the unscrupulous reign of Shell EP / Upstream International Executive director, Malcolm “TFA” Brinded.