LONDON (Dow Jones)–Royal Dutch Shell PLC (RDSA.LN) Monday agreed to sell a majority stake in much of its African downstream to Vitol Holding BV and Helios Investment Partners for around $1 billion, as it trims non-core assets.

Oil-products businesses are generally considered of less importance to oil majors than oil and gas exploration and production assets.

The Anglo-Dutch oil giant will sell 80% in fuels and lubricants assets in 14 African countries to oil trading giant Vitol and Africa-focused private investment firm Helios and keep the remaining 20%.

A separate company, which will be 50% owned by Shell and 50% by Vitol and Helios, will own and operate Shell’s existing lubricants blending plants in seven countries.

Shell said Vitol and Helios will now concentrate on securing necessary regulatory approvals and integration planning, ahead of a phased completion of the proposed deal during 2011 and the first half of 2012.

By Benoit Faucon and Zechariah Hemans, Dow Jones Newswires; +44-20-7842-9266; benoit.faucon@dowjones.com

SOURCE ARTICLE

Feb 19, 2011 2:07 PM GMT+0000

AMSTERDAM (AP) — Royal Dutch Shell PLC has entered into a $1 billion agreement to sell a majority share of most of its downstream businesses in 14 African countries to the Vitol trading company and Helios, an African investment company.

The announcement by the three companies says two joint new ventures will be created. One, to be 80 percent owned by Helios and the Netherlands-based Vitol, will continue supplying the Shell brand of fuels and lubricants in the 14 countries, with five more nations possibly joining later.

A separate company, 50 percent owned by Shell, will operate Shell’s existing lubricants blending plants in seven countries and will manage distributor relationships.

The companies said Saturday the deal is to be completed in phases by the first half of 2012.

Copyright © 2010 Associated Press. All rights reserved.

SOURCE ARTICLE

PROTEST BY SHELL EMPLOYEES IN MOROCCO OVER SHELL PLANS TO EXIT 21 AFRICAN COUNTRIES WITHOUT SEVERANCE OR COMPENSATION PAYMENTS

Business Daily (Nairobi)

Benson Wambugu 2 July 2010

More than 180 employees of Kenya Shell have successfully blocked the oil marketer from selling its business to Oil Libya Holding Company until their statutory dues are settled.

Oilibya is said to have made a Sh160 billion offer for the downstream African operations of the Anglo-Dutch transnational.

An injunction was on Thursday issued by the Industrial Court restraining the oil giant from selling or transferring its assets to Oilibya before receiving written consent that the employees were agreeable to the transition.

Alternatively, the employees want Shell to declare them redundant and settle all their redundancy benefits and accruing claims before it exits.

The court also blocked Shell from applying for any change of ownership in its shares or altering its status with the Registrar of Companies pending the determination of the dispute.

The employees were also granted orders stopping the company from continuing to conduct business in Kenya under any other name, form or arrangement, other than the Royal Dutch Shell-its Hague-based parent company.

The group has announced its exit from 21 African countries to shed downstream operations of the Anglo-Dutch transnational assets and focus on more lucrative oil and gas production.

Constructive dismissal

Through the law firm of Okoth and Kiplagat, the 184 employees submitted in court that Shell intended to divest from Kenya and transfer it business and ownership to a third party.

In their application, the staffers argued that the transfer of the business of Shell to Oilibya “amounts to a constructive dismissal of all the claimants without due regard to the provisions of the applicable statues.”

A sworn statement by Mr Joseph Kahuko Mwangi on behalf of 183 employees, termed the company’s actions as discriminative adding that unless prohibition orders were made on the oil firm, it would exit without paying the staffers their statutory dues.

Before moving to court, the employees claimed the company kept secret its intended divestiture and has declined to provide any official communication and “we only came to know about the intended sale through the media.”

While seeking to know their fate, the employee’s says Shell indicated to them that they had no right to know or decide on whether or not to transit to the new owner.

The staffers argued that the divestiture to a party unknown to them and the re-branding of the business operations amounted to their dismissal.

The employees have also termed the purported sale of the company as a going concern a “legal fiction” saying the new owner would neither carry on business under the Shell brand nor uphold the firm’s standards but will superimpose the buyer’s peculiar culture and values.

Lawyer, Ken Kiplagat, for the employees told the court that the action by Shell to divest in the manner contemplated amounted to the alteration of the implied contractual and equitable obligations owed by the company to its staffers.

Disposable servitudes

The lawyer further submitted that the “going-concern” deception had previously been laid bare by Shell’s own treatment to former employees of Agip Kenya Ltd when it took over its assets.

Court papers indicates that soon after Shell acquired Agip (K) Ltd, it declared more that 90 per cent of the employees redundant even after having been promised continued employment in the new structure.

“Shell employees are likely to be treated and considered as mere disposable servitudes,” submitted Mr Kiplagat, citing the Agip (K) Ltd precedence.

The employees also complained that Standard Chartered Bank had suspended offering unsecured personal loans and demanded additional guarantees from both the company and the employees.

Mr Kiplagat said the staff recognise and accept Shell is at liberty to sell its local business on a going concern, but the transaction would result in rationalisation and redundancies.

“The intended divestiture amounts to constructive redundancies entitling our clients to activate the necessary and applicable statutory safeguards,” said the lawyer.

Shell’s employees want an exit offer that affords them an option to transit to the new owner or a buy-out of employment contracts.

It is based on the argument that workers had not contemplated their continued future employment could be with another party.

SOURCE ARTICLE

A Shell Petrol Station along Nyerere Avenue, Mombasa. Photo/ ABDULRAHMAN SHERIFF

SUNDAY NATION

Sunday June 20, 2010
By MUNA WAHOME and KENNEDY SENELWA
Posted Saturday, June 19 2010 at 19:51

Shell’s intended exit from 21 African countries appears headed into headwinds in Kenya where employees are plotting to block the departure in court.

The employees may as well rain on Shell’s parade here and not inconceivably elsewhere though. Multinationals that have previously left Kenya include Caltex, BP, Esso, Agip and Mobil.

SOURCE ARTICLE

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MAY DAY PROTEST BY SHELL EMPLOYEES IN MOROCCO OVER SHELL PLANS TO EXIT FROM 21 AFRICAN COUNTRIES WITHOUT SEVERANCE OR COMPENSATION PAYMENTS TO SHELL STAFF

We kindly invite you to visit the following group: SHELL PEOPLE ARE NOT FOR SALE, on facebook…

Dear Mr Alfred,

On behalf of all Shell staff from Africa, I am writing to you to seek your support and guidance to our cause. As you might know from the newspapers, Shell has decided, as part of its new strategy, to exit from All countries in Africa, except South Africa, while maintaining its Upstream business in many countries (Egypt, Nigeria, Libya, and lately Tunisia…).

Many of us are mobilized to stop this discrimination, and we are hoping we can get some support from overseas to help us with our cause.

We kindly invite you to visit the following group: SHELL PEOPLE ARE NOT FOR SALE, on facebook to get an idea of the things that have been happening at the level of each OU within Africa.

We thank you so very much for the attention you will give to this SOS message, and hope we can you use your expertise and experience in dealing with such corporate devils.

We thank you from the bottom of our hearts, God bless you and your beloved ones.

Kindest regards.

Shell Africa Staff

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Angola’s Oil Exploration/Production Blocks January 2005

For big state-owned and private oil companies, Africa has played an outsized role. It is responsible for adding nearly a quarter of the globe’s total increase in reserves over the past decade. That has been a boon for companies such as Royal Dutch Shell PLC, Exxon MobilCorp. and Total SA, all of which have struggled to replace reserves on their books

By 2015, America will buy one quarter of all its oil from Africa, compared with about 15 per cent from Saudi Arabia, and the continent will become the superpower’s largest single supplier, with the sole exception of Canada.

All around the world, in a multitude of ways, the soaring price of oil is hurting rich and poor alike. For the lucky ones, it is simply a matter of changing their lifestyle. But those most vulnerable to the price of oil have been driven on to the streets in angry protests, which raise a fundamental question: what can we do to survive in a world where a barrel of oil costs $127 (£64)?