Posts Tagged ‘Bill Campbell’

“The drip, drip, drip of negative information has been every bit as corrosive to the company’s reputation as the oil leaking from its pipe. It was not until a week after the oil was first spotted that the company apologised.”

By John Donovan

We have printed below extensive articles published over three pages of The Sunday Times on 21 August 2011.

It was this development which sparked a number of other major news stories published the following day.

The Sunday Times approached us for our help, which we were pleased to provide over a number of days. We put the newspaper into contact with our Shell related sources, including Bill Campbell. We provided a considerable volume of information from our extensive files. We also supplied documents referred to in the article, including the letter the HSE offshore division sent to Shell on 18 July 2011, which we now put into the public domain. This was kindly supplied to us by the HSE press office.

This is what a retired Shell North Sea Platform expert said about the HSE letter:

After reading the 18th July 2011 HSE letter to Shell regarding Brent C I am totally shocked at the content.  The cumulative number of denials of a slack safety regime are issued almost every week for one misdemeanour or another somewhere within Shell operations over many years.  Notwithstanding the assurances given that safety is always the number one priority, always the first consideration in anything done, total commitment to safety,  we learn from our mistakes  etc etc.  The HSE finally put the boot in,  great, now what about the other platforms.

What a shambles!

As regular visitors to this website will be aware, Mr Campbell has previously expressed his concern about the relationship between Shell and some HSE officials. In this connection, it is relevant to note that an investigation in the USA found that Shell had a corrupt relationship with federal oversight officials. We later supplied a US government department at its request with Shell internal documents leaked to us by our insider sources in relation to another corruption investigation. 

The Sunday Times Scotland Front-page lead story: 21 August 2011

Shell had oil rig safety warning

Mark Macaskill

AN internal investigation by Shell eight years ago raised serious concerns about safety in the Gannet oilfield, where the company has been battling to contain the worst spill in British waters for a decade.

Documents obtained by The Sunday Times reveal that dozens’ of unapproved repairs were carried out on Shell’s Gannet Alpha platform. The audit in 2003 also showed 317 fire and gas sensors were unreliable.

The concerns were gathered by Shell after the Brent Bravo tragedy that year killed two oil workers. Issues relating to that platform and Shell’s other North Sea installations, including Gannet Alpha, were notified to Scottish authorities investigating the tragedy.

Details of the audit are contained in papers held by Bill Campbell, a former senior Shell employee, who has raised concerns about the company’s health and safety record.

Last night, Shell said efforts to turn off a valve that had been leaking oil over the past 10 days had been successful. The cause of the leak 300ft below the surface was not known. The section of pipeline had been inspected in October last year. An estimated 214 tons of oil escaped.

The incident has dealt a blow to British companies keen to expand the industry by drill off Greenland, despite protests from environmentalists.

Charles Hendry, the energy minister, has said such operations are “entirely legitimate” as long as they adhere to Britain’s “robust’” safety regulations.

Shell has been at the forefront of plans to drill in the Arctic’s Beaufort and Chukchi seas. Since January the company’s North Sea operations have been hit by the death of a maintenance worker, a series of gas leaks, equipment collapsing off a platform into the sea and a 15,000-hour repair backlog.

Shell is also under pressure to deal with safety issues on another of its North Sea platforms, Brent Charlie. A Health and Safety Executive (HSE) inspection in May found parts of the installation were “suffering from severe corrosion·”

The agency warned Shell last month there was a risk of injury from plant equipment. It also found that the redundant plant equipment “did not appear to be inspected or maintained”. Shell was given until last Thursday to respond with a plan.

The latest spill is the largest in British waters since 2000, when about 344 tons of oil escaped in Conoco’s North Sea Hutton field.

Last week, Campbell said more leaks and equipment failures are likely as platforms, many from the 1970s, get older. “In my view, Shell hasn’t invested enough money over the last 10 years in maintaining its facilities,” he said. “More has been done recently but it’s too little, too late.”

Richard Lochhead, the rural affairs and environment minister, has written to Chris Huhne, the UK government’s climate change secretary, calling for greater transparency in the reporting of oil incidents.

The HSE recently warned that only one in 30 of Britain’s North Sea oil platforms was in good condition and expressed concern that companies were neglecting workers safety.

(Continued on page 2)

More than 96% of installations in the North Sea were found to require improvements during inspections over the past three years, with 20% showing “major failings”.

Ministers have pledged to hold an inquiry into the Gannet spill but environmental bodies said the remit should be expanded. “It is important that the inquiry examines the management of the incident both by Shell and the various public agencies, said Stuart Housden, from RSPB Scotland.

He added: “The inquiry should also investigate the readiness of UK and Scottish agencies to predict, monitor and minimise any environmental impacts.”

Conservationists have warned that the oil leak poses a threat to seabirds, including kittiwakes, puffins, guillemots and razorbills. An operation to lay concrete mats on the pipeline where the leak occurred in order to secure it to the seabed is continuing.

Shell said safety was a “foremost priority” and that the company had invested more than £600m in recent years to upgrade North Sea facilities.

A company spokesman said: “We constantly inspect, monitor and review all our assets. At present we do not know what caused the leak from the Gannet Alpha flowline. This will be the subject of a full investigation, together with the authorities. “Work continues to progress on the Brent Charlie platform about which Shell is in regular liaison with the regulatory authorities, including the HSE.”

The Gannet Alpha leak was spotted during a routine North Sea helicopter flight.

Page 17 (Whole page)

ON THE BRINK

Gannet leaked hundreds of tons of oil into the environment. So how serious is the North. Sea drilling industry about updating its rigs- and how long before another disaster, ask Gillian Bowditch and Mark Macaskill

It was a routine flight from Aberdeen, but as the Bristow helicopter ferried oil workers across the North Sea, one passenger noticed something unusual. On the surface of the water, just a few miles from the Gannet Alpha platform, was a large oily sheen.

The alarm was raised with air-traffic control. Within the hour, Shell, the rig’s owner, warned the Department of Environment and Climate Change that a leak had been detected more than 100 miles off Scotland’s northeast coast.

Ministers were not unduly concerned – Shell was confident that it was just another one of the hundreds of minor spills that are reported in the North Sea every year. It gave assurances that the situation was under control. Within days, however, it became apparent that the spill was far more serious than Shell wanted to publicly admit.

Privately, department officials were forced to concede that the leak was “substantial”, as Shell sought to minimise negative coverage by strangling the flow of information to the national media and environmental bodies.

Last night, Shell confirmed that, 10 days after it was first detected, the leak had been completely stopped. The company’s problems, however, will not stop with the release of oil into the North Sea.

The incident, the worst leak in British waters since 2000, is a huge embarrassment for the company not least because, despite millions of pounds of investment in its North Sea operations, it failed to spot the leak. Alex Salmond, the first minister, has been criticised for playing down the significance of the spill and accused of being too close to the oil industry.

Ever since BP’s Deepwater Horizon spill in April last year, which killed 11 and resulted in 4.9m barrels of oil flooding into the Gulf of Mexico – the biggest disaster in the history of the industry — environmental campaigners have stepped up their targeting of the oil sector. In the aftermath of Deepwater, Shell’s chief executive Peter Voser claimed the BP blowout could never have happened to his company.

“The risk-management practices of some companies in the Gulf of Mexico do lag behind the standards set by other companies,” Voser told analysts in February. ‘We at Shell have been applying the best of the North Sea standards to our worldwide operations for many years.” It is a quote that may come back to haunt him.

The company estimates that during the Gannet leak, 1,600 barrels of oil or 218 tons – more than triple the amount of oil discharged into UK waters in the whole of 2009 – has spilled into the North Sea from a pipe 300ft below the surface.

The leak could not have come at a worse time for Shell, as it attempts to persuade regulators to allow it to carry out drilling in the sensitive waters around the Arctic.

But the questions it raises go far beyond Shell and, the safety of its drilling activities. Conservationists want to ask how safe is the North Sea oil industry? Is a large scale environmental disaster lurking around the corner and is the SNP government too close to the industry for Scotland’s good?

IT was only on Friday August 12, after the oil industry journal Upstream ran a short article on the leak based on its own sources that Shell issued a press release stating that it had stemmed the leak “significantly”. Even then, the company was unable to provide information on the size and cause of the leak. Early last week, a second leak was discovered.

It wasn’t until Friday, nine days after oil was first found, that Shell was finally able to close off the vital valves. The task of removing the residual 660 tons of oil in the depressurised flow-line would take some time the company said.

The drip, drip, drip of negative information has been every bit as corrosive to the company’s reputation as the oil leaking from its pipe. It was not until a week after the oil was first spotted that the company apologised.

Glen Cayley, a technical director of Shell’s exploration and production activities in Europe, said: “This is a significant spill in the context of annual amounts of oil spilled in the North Sea. We care about the environment and we regret that the spill happened. We have taken it very seriously and responded promptly to it.”

The oil sector is arguably Scotland’s most important industry’. Tax revenues from oil and gas production were £9.3 billion in 2010/11 and are expected to rise to £13.4 billion this year.

About 196,000 people are employed by oil and gas companies in Scotland, 45% of the UK total, and the industry satisfies about two-thirds of the UK’s primary energy demand. But UK oil production is in decline. The North sea produces about 2.3m barrels a day, half of what it produced at its peak 12 years ago, and the industry is waging a constant battle over the economics of extracting the North Sea’s remaining “blackgold”.

Although four-fifths of North Sea production is controlled by 14 companies, traditional, global oil and gas companies, such as Shell, which made profits of £5 billion in the past quarter, are gradually reducing their presence and investments in the region. The big companies see their futures in the larger fields of Russia, the Middle East and North Africa. In their place, smaller, lesser-known firms are exploiting the remaining North Sea resources.

“It used to be a good field if it was 100m barrels,” says one oil industry expert. “Now 25m barrels is considered a significant field, and even smaller fields are being developed. There is a constant battle to keep platforms profitable in the face of declining asset integrity.”

As a result, many North Sea oil platforms are working way beyond their envisaged lifespan.

When they were built, most were expected to last 20 years, but according to figures from the oil specialist Det Norske Veritas and the Energy Department, 44 North Sea platforms – more than 15% of the total – are more than 4O years old. According to the Health and safety Executive (HSE), it is “evident that this proportion is steadily increasing, particularly as the rates of platform decommissioning and new installations are relatively low.’”

John Bradbury, of the specialist publication Petroleum Review, says: “For operators today, keeping corrosion at bay – or at least within safe limits – while continuing to eke out tail-end production at an economically viable level is a constant battle. Corrosion control and monitoring is made harder still in an environment where cost is paramount and resources are limited.”

Despite its size and profitability, Shell’s safety record is by no means exemplary. The North Sea spill came just weeks after the company admitted liability for a massive oil spillage in Ogoniland, Nigeria. Shell says the vast majority of spills in the Niger Delta are due to sabotage, but it faces substantial legal claims.

Closer to home, Shell’s North Sea Brent field platforms – Alpha, Bravo, Charlie and Delta – were temporarily shut down in January after “metal fatigue” led to a chunk of protective railing falling into the sea.

Just days before the Gannet spill, leaked HSE documents showed that the government agency feared “catastrophic consequences” on Shell’s ageing Brent Charlie platform. The scale of along-running series of gas leaks meant that ignition was “almost inevitable,” according to the document, leading to fears of another disaster on the scale of Occidental’s Piper Alpha, when 168 men were killed in an explosion in 1988.

One report, dated July 18, revealed that Shell was facing a 15,000-hour maintenance backlog on technical equipment. This is on top of extensive work being carried out to overcome leaks of hydro- carbon gas and hydrogen sulphide, known as glugs, that have led to the shutdown of Brent Charlie and the loss of the output of 30,000 barrels of oil a day.

According to Upstream, the July 18 document, sent by the HSE to Shell after an inspection on May 30 and 31, also reveals that inspectors found that areas of the platform were corroding.

Corrosion is a sensitive issue for Shell. A 2006 report into the deaths of two workers after a gas leak on Brent Bravo in 2003 ruled that the deaths could have been avoided if Shell had repaired a corroded pipe properly.

Bill Campbell, a former senior manager with Shell, told BBC Scotland’s investigative programme Frontline Scotland at the time that the company faked safety reports and ignored vital maintenance to allow it to carry on producing oil at all costs, an allegation Shell denies.

Shell is working towards reopening 35-year-old Brent Charlie early next year, but has pledged that production will not resume until all necessary work is complete. At a press conference earlier this year, Voser said: “Do we make mistakes? Yes, we do make mistakes, but we learn from and we avoid them in the future.”

Yesterday, a spokesman for Shell said safety was the company’s “fore-most priority at all times”. Shell also insists that the Gannet spill does not undermine its efforts to drill in Arctic waters, where environmentalists warn it will be virtually impossible to contain a large spill in winter.

“We have taken significant steps to make sure we can operate safely and responsibly in the Arctic. We recognise oil-spill prevention and response capability as a critical element of all plans to develop oil and gas resources in the Arctic and we have developed advanced technology to locate, contain and remove oil in various ice conditions which we test regularly.”

Oil company insiders believe environmental activists have overstated the impact of the Gannet leak, which, while significant in UK terms, is tiny compared with Deepwater Horizon or even the 85,000 tonnes of crude oil that leaked into the sea off Shetland in 1993, when the oil tanker, Braer, ran aground.

Richard Lochhead, Holyrood’s environment minister, said little tangible damage has been done to wildlife from the Gannet spill. But there are fears that the SNP’s love affair with oil – a key plank in its independence campaign – may mean it is too§ close to the industry.

Alex Salmond is quick to throw his tuppence-worth into stories where there is no discernible direct Scottish interest,” says Murdo Fraser, deputy leader of the Scottish Conservatives. “He was quick to comment on the riots the other week and yet here we have a major situation occurring in Scotland, which potentially has serious consequences, and the first minister has been remarkably reluctant to make any public comment on the matter.”

The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds wants a full inquiry.

Stuart Housden, its director, believes an inquiry should look beyond the causes and the ability of government agencies to predict, monitor and minimise the environmental impact to the “question of whether our North Sea Oil infrastructure is sufficiently robust to meet the high standards required” and whether maintenance is adequate.

THE SUNDAY TIMES

It has also emerged over the weekend that an internal investigation into Shell’s Gannet plaforms in 2003 had raised concerns over unapproved repairs and unreliable fire sensors. This is clear from papers held by Bill Campbell, a former senior Shell employee, who has questioned the company’s environmental and safety record.

22 August 2011

Shell says according to its estimates a leak at one of its platforms, 110 miles east of Aberdeen, Scotland had spewed 1,300 barrels of oil. The leak was detected on 10 August.

As they prepare to launch an investigation into the spill, officials would this week meet Scotland’s procurator fiscal (a public prosecutor in Scotland) who would finally decide whether to prosecute, to identify the initial scope of the inquiry.

SOURCE ARTICLE

Bill Campbell, whom The Daily Telegraph described as a “former senior Shell employee” questioned the company’s performance at Gannet as claims from 2003 surfaced over the platform’s maintenance record, the newspaper in London reports.

Published: Aug. 22, 2011 at 8:52 AM

LONDON, Aug. 22 (UPI) — Internal documents and British safety records indicate there were problems with North Sea oil production after Shell announced it closed its oil leak last week.

Royal Dutch Shell said that divers shut a relief valve and stopped an oil spill from its Gannet platform. At the height of the spill, reported Aug. 10, around 1,500 barrels of oil was dumping into the North Sea.

Bill Campbell, whom The Daily Telegraph described as a “former senior Shell employee” questioned the company’s performance at Gannet as claims from 2003 surfaced over the platform’s maintenance record, the newspaper in London reports.

The company racked up roughly 15,000 hours in a backlog of repairs, equipment collapses and the death of a maintenance worker since January. Several of its other platforms in the North Sea were shut because of problems associated with rig infrastructure.

Glen Cayley, technical director of European operations for Shell said his company regrets the spill and takes its responsibility in the North Sea “very seriously.”

Nevertheless, the Telegraph adds, London health officials warned that only 5 percent of the oil rigs in the North Sea were in good condition and almost all of them were found to need some form of repair in the last three years.

UPDATED

Posted by John Donovan (john@shellnews.net)

Comment from an expert source that technically the Shell North Sea oil leak is an uncontrolled blowout. Fortunately on a much smaller scale that the BP disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.

COMMENT FROM A 100% RELIABLE EXPERT SOURCE

If the leak at Gannet is coming from the flowline between the well and the platform, it should be a very simple matter to shut it in – but after 5 days, the flow continues.

According to Shell’s news releases, the leaking flowline connects a subsea well to to the Gannet platform. A subsea well has a Christmas tree on the wellhead at the seabed to control flow from the well into the flowline, so if the leak is from the flowline it is a very simple matter to close in the line and depressurize it – and the leak would stop immediately.

As the flowline continues to leak, it appears that either the valves on the Christmas tree have failed or the leak is from another source, possibly the well itself. In either case, the correct term for Shell’s “leak” is a “blowout” – which is defined as uncontrolled flow of fluids from a well.

COMMENT FROM ANOTHER HIGHLY QUALIFIED EXPERT SOURCE, BILL CAMPBELL, RETIRED HSE GROUP AUDITOR, SHELL INTERNATIONAL

Only on a technicality that blowout is a term reserved for an uncontrolled release from a well during drilling operations.

For what its worth my slant would be yet again on how a Company which states openness, transparency, honesty and integrity as its business principles, acts like a secret society and when failure occurs hesitates not only to tell society as a whole, but its employees who are in many cases at risk

A Company with these intrinsic qualities which also is hypocritical enough to damn others for their mistakes suggesting that with its utopian standards such mistakes would not occur because you can be sure of Shell.

Its current CEO thinks its an acceptable operating strategy to be able to react to elevated risks immediately but not to prevent risks being elevated in the first instance

An example would be the facts obtained by UK press under FoI that Shell has more gas leaks than any other operator and in the years following Brent Bravo it had more prohibition and improvement notices issued than any other operator and after spending $1.6 billion since Brent Bravo, has still had its four major Brent installations shutdown for many months – corroded fenders etc

The most dramatic failure would be the repeated releases from Brent C which had a prohibition Notice imposed on it as early as 2009 but again after other failures, was shutdown on January this year with risks that the Regulator themselves have described as potentially catastrophic.  Perhaps in collusion with the non independent Regulator the 2009 Notice does not appear where it should appear in the public database, but can only be got by a search elsewhere ….. So Safety Cases and formal regulation does not reduce risks in the Shell North Sea operations so how will the risks be controlled in the US?

http://www.hse.gov.uk/search/results.htm?q=Brent+C+&sa=Search&cof=FORID%3A11&cx=015848178315289032903%3Akous-jano68#1039

etc etc

You get the gist

COMMENT FROM A THIRD EXPERT (RETIRED SHELL NORTH SEA PLATFORM MANAGER)

I don’t believe it is a relief valve. If it is a relief valve then it has failed completely, doubtful. Tonights Scottish News showed a subsea  grating with relatively small amounts of leaking oil bubbling up from below.  I assume that this grating is covering some sort of manifold or wellhead. Oil is ether leaking from another corroded line or a failed joint or a combination, even a vent has been opened somewhere.  The Public do not have enough information to make any sort of credible judgement.  Perhaps Shell are also in the embarrassing position of not having enough information to make any valid statements?

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 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

Introduction by John Donovan

I have published below a self-explanatory statement by Bill Campbell (right), the retired HSE Group Auditor of Shell International. I will email this statement and a more detailed version to Michiel Brandjes, the Company Secretary of Royal Dutch Shell Plc and forward the same information to the senior Shell executives and the non Executive Chairman, Jorma Ollila, named in the statement.

The more detailed version will be published on this website after Shell has had an opportunity to comment and/or take legal action. Shell issued threats of legal action against us yesterday and may wish to add this matter if briefing Counsel.

STATEMENT BY BILL CAMPBELL, RETIRED HSE GROUP AUDITOR OF SHELL INTERNATIONAL

Some time ago the police in Aberdeen passed a report to the Procurator Fiscal (public prosecutor).  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 the UK has a monarchy.

The investigation has focused 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 18th February 2011.  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.

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 14th 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 16th 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.

How did Shell respond to the critical media coverage?

Their Press Releases on 16 June 2006 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),  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 as President of their EP division and Stausholm joined 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?

Lie 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.  As previously stated if the full facts had been known by the CPS at the time it is likely that a more general Inquiry would have been held.

Lie 2

It is not contentious that rather than a continuos improvement from 1999 till the deaths there had been continuos 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.

Lie 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.

Lie 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 Shell 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 by various agencies this did not stop dispensing with the truth to protect the Shell reputation.

STATEMENT ENDS

THE EVIDENCE ASSEMBLED BY BILL CAMPBELL: READ

SELECTION OF ARTICLES RELATING TO BRENT BRAVO FATALITIES: READ

RELATED EMAIL/LETTER SENT TO MEMBERS OF THE UK HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT: READ

THE FULL FILE OF BRENT BRAVO ARTICLES

…huge potential for a large fire, explosion, or sending toxic H2S gas to atmosphere. Shell management knowingly operated like this, not wanting to sacrifice production for process safety…

Recent Problems for Shell in Central Alberta Region of Canada

BY A SHELL CANADA INSIDER

Some background on me: I used to work at the Caroline Gas Plant as an operator.

I read your online articles with great interest, as I am always interested in the corporate behavior of the company I work for, mainly in terms of HSE performance, which is something I have passion for.  I believe that there is greater potential to create change from within an organization, which is one of many reasons that I work for a petroleum company while being an environmentalist and conservationist at heart.  I have quit working for other companies which placed little regard in this area, based on what I experienced.  Shell is NOT the worst offender in this neck of the woods, but their performance COULD be better.  More recently, their performance in the region has declined as a result of cost cutting, neglect, and not practicing what they preach.

For example, the Caroline Gas Plant’s primary “A-Pool” reservoir is in pretty steep decline in recent years.  The operating facilities are evolving, as new sources of gas are brought in to the plant and being processed. New sources of gas are drier, contain more CO2, and less H2S.  The Caroline plant was built to process very sour gas (30-40% H2S inlet raw gas stream) and is now being optimized to run the less sour, drier (significantly lower volumes of natural gas condensate) gas. Less hydrocarbon liquids mean significantly less money being generated by the facility, and the lower sulphur content challenges the facility in terms of providing less heat (steam) in the sulphur recovery plant, which has had to co-fire significantly higher in recent years with supplemental fuel gas in order to maintain the required steam to operate the facility.  Management has been mostly concerned with cutting costs and phasing out plant equipment as it is no longer required.  Most of this was scheduled to happen over the course of the past year and into 2012, when it is planned to shut down one sulphur recovery train, which may have a significant effect on operational reliability, as it will become a single train operation. Plant upsets will have a much greater likelihood of creating short term flaring events in which H2S is burned at the flare stack (0% recovery: becomes emissions), instead of in the sulphur recovery unit (99% recovery, most is recovered as sulphur, which is processed and sold at market prices.)  Recent culture has been of the “don’t touch F_ck all” variety, in terms of putting money into maintaining the plant equipment, especially those units which are to be decommissioned in the next year or so.

Before I quit working there, I was appalled by how often we ran our plant equipment limping along with various instrumentation protective functions (IPF) and measurement points not operational, for longer periods of time.  Some operation this way is unavoidable, as performing maintenance in a running facility requires a processing facility to run without certain instrumentation at times when it needs to be repaired, maintained, or calibrated. As such, it is important to strive to retain high reliability and minimize the risks created by running in an impaired state.  The Baker Report (BP disaster) has shown us this, along with all of the other collective industry experiences and learnings.  They (Shell management) know this, yet the risk assessment models and processes are frequently manipulated and given “window dressing treatment” to justify to employees how they can continue to operate the facility in this impaired fashion, rather than fixing known problems in a TIMELY manner. They fully intend to perform the necessary repairs sometime, but always seem to justify why these matters do not get treated as high priority items, including shutting down equipment to repair as needed.  They seem more concerned with overall reliability and staying running.  This isn’t a completely bad thing, as it is important to keep a facility like this running.  Shutdowns are costly, both in terms of lost revenue, as well as riskier operations in starting up and shutting down, with greater risk likelihood of environmental exceedances occurring.

We operated two consecutive liquid hydrocarbon processing portions of the plant with the level indications faulty, unreliable, or non-operational for several months, relying on one IPF function as a barrier to passing high pressure sour gas to the condensate storage tanks which would create huge potential for a large fire, explosion, or sending toxic H2S gas to atmosphere. Shell management knowingly operated like this, not wanting to sacrifice production for process safety, and instead relied on their skilled control room and unit operators to limp the facility along.  During this time, there were several small flaring events, process upsets and large potential for equipment damage and greater magnitude process upsets. Our (Operations workers) wished to get these problems fixed.  It went largely ignored for quite a while, but we continued to make it hard for management to ignore, by reporting ALL incidents related to this unit and mentioning the root cause in reports for the related process upsets caused by impaired instrumentation.  Eventually they had no choice but to perform some stop-gap repairs, but they continued to operate for a while longer until the unit was shut down for repairs, which they cut corners on.  They decided to get rid of several tower trays when several damaged top ones became inconvenient to repair.  They gambled and got away with it.  Mostly.

In spite of the creation of SPOG: Sundre Petroleum Operators Group. which was mostly window dressing and was actually Shell Operations people (in the Caroline Plant control room) doing the job that the ERCB (Alberta Energy Resources Conservation Board), Shell was only interested in APPEARING to be a good neighbor to the area residents.  Other companies in the area have the same flawed mentality.  (Make it look good, and make some token efforts and donations here and there, but when it comes to the hard decisions, it is business first, environment and safety second.)

Another series of events highlighted Shell’s disregard for the public occurred when we continued to operate while creating a large odor in the area as fugitive emissions drifted from our condensate storage tanks. We had some operational issues (remember those trays they didn’t think they needed in the towers, along with the level indications not working, as well as fouled heat exchangers due to poor planning and scheduling of maintenance?)  Shell told us (Operations) that the tank odors were because of the stabilizer tower operational difficulties. A few people did not believe this was the case and told them so.  They ignored it as usual (they were much smarter than us) and continued to operate the stabilizer for many weeks while complaints rolled in from the public about the bad smells in the area from the aromatics and other volatile components still contained in the finished Caroline Condensate product, which were venting from the tank.  Shell told the government watchdog a sob story about their process unit being in sick shape, but that every effort was being made to remedy the situation ASAP.  The ERCB relented and told them we didn’t have to follow the usual protocol of phoning in every time there was a new odor complaint, due to the increased volume of calls related to this subject.  We filled out the paperwork for each complaint, but did not have to phone the ERCB every time.  The calls continued to come in for weeks, and the complaints stacked up, while Shell abused the slack that they were given by the watchdog agency.  Eventually the ERCB caught on to this and they sort of hit the roof when they found out JUST how many people had complained and for how long.  I think the ERCB would have forced them to earlier action, had they been getting the reports all along.  The Alberta Government was asleep at the switch again, and the public suffered for it as usual.  Eventually all other possibilities were exhausted, and Shell was forced to recognize what a few of us said all along; that IT WAS THE TANK (FLOATING ROOF) SEALS ALL ALONG that were to blame.  They confirmed this (an employee broke an LSR during activity; still kept his job.  Shell only seems to like firing contractors over LSR violations, but that is another story….)  This tank repair would be costly and inconvenient, so the tanks would be largely bypassed, sending product straight to pipeline as much as practical.

By now, I was pretty disgusted with Shell’s conduct.  The management was largely made up of good old boys who said “yes” and were lap dogs to their former boss (CAB region supervisor and former plant manager, Keith Eslinger, who left a wake of neglected plants and lots of useless “window dressing” for good PR.) With each set of new promotions, it was demonstrated that crap does float, as most of the best and brightest chose to leave or were cast from Shell when their talents and expertise were ignored and the incompetents and back-stabbing hypocrites continued to get rewarded and promoted.  Rules were changed to pave the way for promoting those who “played the game” and nepotism flourished.  They seemed to promote family values almost as often as they hired and promoted family members.  Some of these people were very good employees, but that is not the point.  Incident reports were sometimes whitewashed to the point that one fellow employee commented that “I wasn’t even sure if I was there, after reading the report.”  Management insisted also on having employees choose to live in certain locations, and invested heavily in Sundre real estate while forcing some employees to live there (for business reasons.)  Unethical?  For sure.

I felt that we were headed for another TOP EVENT, such as the one that occurred in the past with the pipeline blow-out in the , or the produced water storage tank that was neglected and eventually blew up before its issued could be resolved.  I chose to work somewhere else, because I felt that there was too much corruption and neglect to overcome, and I had watched my facility (when I started there it really wasn’t a bad place to work at all)  become quite neglected and the work environment was really headed downhill at an alarming rate.

So, we’ve recently seen the following happen:

Billion-dollar gas plant shut down at Caroline: Red Deer Advocate 7 January 2011

Massive fire at Shell Shantz plant: Mountain View Gazette 7 December 2010

Shell Shantz fire related to glycol leak, say officials: Mountain View Gazette 14 December 2010

Here is some background information on the facility.  They HAVE done some good things here, but have had a lot of issues, too: http://www.kirbymedia.ca/shellcabregion/pg2-3_caroline.html

Below is a report from the pipeline that leaked into the:

Caroline Pipeline Failure: Findings On Corrosion Mechanisms In Wet Sour Gas Systems Containing Significant Co2

To give credit to Shell, they have chosen not to produce that well using the river pipeline, and has remained shut in ever since the incident.  The wellsite is dormant, but not abandoned.

In closing, I feel to share that it is my opinion that we the public in Alberta are too focused on working hard and making money, or choose to ignore or care because many of us would rather not jeopardize our decent standard of living and employment in the petroleum industry.  The Alberta Government has not been very accountable for a LONG TIME because of too many parties splitting the vote.  The Conservatives remain in power and are extremely corrupt with big business calling the shots. Corporations such as Shell have the government officials in their back pocket.  A little whining every now and again when the government tries to take a bigger royalty cut or make them more accountable to the environment seems to work.  They tell the same old sob story about how tough it is to make money doing what they are doing and that toughening the rules will drive a lot of business away (or under), leading to dire economic consequences for the province.  This province needs to wake up and be leaders. We need stewardship and to not squander these resources we have been blessed with.  We need to take care of our environment, our citizens health, and diversify our economy. The oil sands ARE a blight on the landscape, but a necessary one, so we need to be realistic and find better ways to do things. I feel cautiously optimistic about the future, as companies are VOLUNTARILY sharing tailings management technology and research, and are striving to improve and change public opinion on how they do their business up north.  Not because they have to or want to, but because they are worried that it will cost them too much money if they don’t. They might be right.

I believe (and know for a fact) that there are a lot of citizens who whine and point the finger at the oil companies for all of their health and farming woes.  The “squeaky wheel gets the grease”; a lot of times the oil companies will pay money to these individuals or do them favors, just to shut them up.  I’ve seen and heard about it.  So some people continue to try to take advantage of this.  This greed unfortunately makes a lot of genuine complaints from honest people lack credibility, due to the amount of  false allegations floating around.  Your recent story about Donna Getz has some ring of truth to it, but I wonder a bit about the credibility of the “specialist” that Donna saw (her story sounds a little bit fishy on some levels, but perhaps it is just the way she communicates.)  “Specialists” can be found to support a great many arguments, many of which are spin stories to try to get money from the oil companies. Not that Shell and other corporations don’t resort to similar sinister practices; they do, but often the truth lies somewhere in the middle of the two stories.

That being said, I firmly believe that there are some serious long term effects that are being ignored in terms of air quality and the petroleum industry.  The public that live in Sherwood Park, and other municipalities that lie downwind of Edmonton and Fort Saskatchewan’s refineries and petroleum plants are paying a price for living so close to industry.  There is an alarmingly high occurrence of respiratory issues in this area. I am one of these people, with allergies and asthma like symptoms which I need to take medication for. It seems like just about everyone has some sort of breathing issue around there. Some days, you can smell it and see it in the air, as inversions or prevailing winds push the pollution down on nearby citizens.

Keep up the good work with the website. Keep it honest and do not get let astray in rumors. Great job so far.

We can make a difference, with our actions.

ARTICLE ENDS

Royal Dutch Shell Plc has had advance sight of this article by a Shell Canada insider and the opportunity to provide comment for publication on an unedited basis. If we receive any such response, it will be added to the article. The article was supplied without any highlighting in bold print. That has been added by us, not the insider who has provided a balanced view. Some of the information is likely to be of particular interest to Bill Campbell, the retired HSE Group Auditor of Shell International, who with his audit team, discovered the “Touch F*** All” safety culture on the Brent Bravo oil platform prior to the explosion resulting in the deaths of Shell offshore workers. Safety records were falsified with management approval.

Comment from Donna Getz

I would like to bring up lots of points such as: he chose to work in the gas field and loose his lung function, My family and I were just minding our own business on the ranch.  We didn’t choose what happened to us.  As for being greedy and wanting money, I believe we would choose to have our health and horses back. Money cannot buy this. As for specialists, none of them really know how to deal with H2S injuries. The remedy we were told was to move out of the gas field to where there is fresh air and pine trees. There isn’t anything we can take for our lungs.

All a person has to do is drive down from Pink Mountain to Fort Saint John, BC and you can see, smell and feel that the gas companies do not care what they are putting into the air. We are sick for over a week after going to town. We are living on a pine ridge on one of the highest points right now but there is going to be a well drilled right above us on the highest point not even a km from us. On a clear day ( if you can find one) there is a covering over the whole country.  A few years ago this wasn’t here.

We know we were hurt and need to go where the air is more fresher, but how does a person get there? It is hard to get a job when you are coughing stuff up most of the time and don’t have the lung capacity to do some jobs. They really want you in a restaurant!

Every night, we listen to our lungs, feel the stuff oozing out of our lungs and have to cough stuff up. All day long we cough stuff up. We did not choose to have this happen to us. How many more are like this? Lots of people don’t even know what is wrong with them and the doctors sure can’t tell them. Medication does not help.

REPLY FROM THE AUTHOR OF THE ARTICLE

Thank you for printing my article.  I would appreciate the chance to comment back to Donna Getz response.

I am still a little concerned about negative consequences for speaking out as an insider, but a person should be allowed to exercise their right to free speech as a concerned member of society, and I tried to keep it as factual as possible.

I respect Donna Getz response, and apologize if it sounded like I was personally trying to discredit her.  That is not the case.  I should have chosen my words a little more carefully and not speculate.  I guess I was just commenting that there were a couple points in her article that sounded a bit odd to me (flushing the lungs and coughing up foam); but I am NOT a medical expert and do not know much about treating severe exposures. Exposure can result in pulmonary edema, if memory serves me correct.  I re-read the article and it sounds to me like her case was a very concentrated and acute exposure, based on the information about what happened to her truck. If that’s what it did to her truck, what kind of serious damage does it do to someone’s lungs? I was simply wondering if her “expert’s” opinion came from a medical professional, based on some wording of the article that sounded odd to my ears.  In any case, I sympathize for her being in such an awful situation and for the way she was treated. I’m sure ANYONE would rather be healthy than have money and not be able to enjoy quality of life.

She is 100% correct in stating that my lung issues could have been caused by my choice to work in industry. It is just so hard to prove that is the case. How much honest research has really been done on LOW level chronic exposures? Not much, I’m afraid.  I guess the point I was trying to make is that there are plenty of residents who complain looking for handouts.  It sometimes makes it difficult in telling fact from fiction. Some of them even move into the area willingly and knowing full well that they are going to be located very close to an industrial facility, then expect their new industrial neighbor to drastically change the way they operate.

Perhaps respiratory issues such as mine have much to do with environmental factors such as industry nearby. Or perhaps it is a result of living in a modern home with many manufactured products that leach chemicals into the air around us. Or perhaps from my hobbies. I will probably never know for sure. It is so hard to prove when there are so many possible factors, and it is one of the many reasons why long term research is difficult.

I certainly do NOT condone or support eco-terrorism such as the events that have happened primarily to Encana up in the NW corner of Alberta, but I think I understand the frustration that drives ordinary citizens over the edge when their concerns are not addressed and there is no one willing to fight for their cause.

There is a growing contingent of people who are fed up with their well being coming up second to development. See the events in the proposed Alta-Link 500KV line to the Heartland Substation as an example.  The government watchdog embarrassed the heck out of their bosses in the Alberta government when they chose to spy on their own citizens opposed to the project. No wonder it is so hard to trust the government being balanced in the application and hearing process.

Hello again:

I just wanted to make a small fact correction to the article that was printed.  The photo at the top of the article is of the Shell Shantz sulphur facility.  It is in fact located some distance (about 40 Km) from the Shell Caroline facility.

Thought I had better set the record straight, since anyone who lives or has driven through the area would immediately know the difference by looking at the photo.

Thanks.

THE MENTIONED MEDICAL REPORTS

GetzOleMedicalReport20Apri2004 Medical Report dated 30 April 2004 written by Professor Jeremy Beach

GetzDonnaMedicalReport20Apr04 Medical Report dated 30 April 2004 written by Professor Jeremy Beach

Dr. Jeremy Beach – Diagnosis and Management of Occupational Asthma

Jeremy Beach trained in Medicine at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, qualifying MBBS in 1983. He subsequently worked in General Internal Medicine and Respiratory Medicine gaining his MRCP (UK), and then moved to a research position leading a project studying occupational asthma in shipyard welders which provided the basis of his doctorate. He went on from this to train as a specialist in Occupational Medicine gaining his MFOM and specialist accreditation in the UK 1996. In his work in Occupational Medicine he has combined work in academia at the University of Birmingham and Monash University in Australia; work in industry, becoming Senior Medical Officer with a major multinational engineering company; and the health service, working as a specialist in occupational medicine and occupational lung disease in hospitals in Birmingham and Bradford, UK. He was awarded FRCP in 1999 and FFOM in 2000. He moved to Canada in 2002 to take up the position as Associate Professor and Director of the Occupational Medicine Residency Program at the University of Alberta.

He is past editor of the journal ‘Occupational Medicine’, adopted journal of the Occupational and Environmental Medical Association of Canada (OEMAC), and remains the assistant editor for Canada. He was elected President of the Occupational Medicine Section of the Alberta Medical Association in February 2004, and of the President of the Occupational and Environmental Medicine Association of Canada in September 2004. In addition to both undergraduate and graduate teaching at the University of Alberta he is actively involved in a number of research projects, and sees patients in the occupational medicine clinic at the University hospital. His major interests are in occupational lung disease, particularly occupational asthma, the health effects of pesticides, and health surveillance.

Under the heading of “Learning from Accidents:”, page 231 of the Final Report published by the U.S. National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling

Extract from Chapter 8, page 233

Shell’s safety response. Shell, a long-time leader in Gulf of Mexico operations (before BP surpassed it, as described in Chapter 2), has had its own safety problems. Two men died in a gas leak on the company’s Brent Bravo platform in 2003; former Shell senior manager Bill Campbell, who had earlier led a safety review, said after the accident that his 1999 warnings had been ignored by the company.99 Shell denied that it operated at high levels of risk.100

Shell subsequently tightened and simplified its safety rules.101 Shell also has promoted the use of the “safety case” worldwide (a risk-management approach to regulation described in Chapter 3).102 It has adopted the safety-case approach even in the United States, where it is not required to do so, and has promoted it for the industry more broadly.103 Marvin Odum, president of Shell Oil Company and director of Shell’s Upstream Americas business, told the Commission’s November 9 hearing that “the safety case in deepwater drilling shows how we identify and assess the hazards on a rig; how we establish the barriers to prevent and control those hazards; how we assign the critical activities needed to maintain the integrity of these barriers.”104

Odum said that Shell also encourages workers to call for work to stop when they suspect that something is proceeding improperly, and gives awards to these “Goal Zero Heroes” (referring to the corporate goal of zero accidents).105 He added that audits are key to system safety and that “in 2009, DuPont administered its safety and culture survey in our drilling organization, comparing us to the world’s best across a range of industries. While we ranked world-class overall, improvement areas were identified.”106

http://www.oilspillcommission.gov/final-report

(No mention of Shell’s “Touch Fuc* All” safety culture?