Posts Tagged ‘David Greer’

Purported leaked email with video link received from an anonymous source with the covering message:

“Potential for another Shell director playing *General Patton…listen to the video…”

THE INTERNAL EMAIL

On behalf of Bob Turner,

All,
We have just posted the latest video clip on the IPO website. In this clip I talk about Gas to Offshore and our preparations and some issues around our culture which I call “NO” will no longer be the low risk option”.

Please have a look. I hope you find it informative and topical. My previous clips will be archived in the Library folder.

As always I welcome your feedback.

Have a safe day

Bob.

Bob Turner Video

ENDS

*From Wikipedia article “List of plagiarism controversies“

On 6 June 2007, the Financial Times published a front page article under the headline: “‘Pipeliners All!’ Shell’s memo to Sakhalin”^[24]

The article was about a leaked motivational memo in the form of an email from David Greer, the deputy chief executive of Sakhalin Energy circulated to Sakhalin-2 staff. Some keen eyed readers noticed that inspirational passages were appropriated from a famous speech given by the legendary U.S. General George S. Patton, on 5 June 1944 on the eve of D-Day the Sixth of June. On 7 June 2007, a quarter page follow-up article was published in the Financial Times newspaper and on the FT.com website, under the headline: “Sakhalin motivational memo borrows heavily from Patton”^{[25][citation needed]}

On Monday 11 June 2007, the Financial Times published another article at^[26] on the subject, this time headlined: “Motivational memos must make their message clear”. One of the opening paragraphs stated: “The memo (www.ft.com/shell) is crass, poorly punctuated and most of it wasn’t even written by its author, David Greer, deputy chief executive of Royal Dutch Shell‘s Sakhalin Energy Investment Company. He had lifted the words of General George S. Patton with no attribution, and clumsily adapted them to spur on his team of recalcitrant pipeline engineers”.^{[citation needed]}

On 9 June 2007, The Moscow Times published a front page article on the controversy headlined: Sakhalin Pep Talk From ‘Old Blood and Guts’.

On Friday 22 June 2007, The Moscow Times published a front page story with the headline: “Sakhalin Energy’s Greer Steps Down”. The newspaper reported that “David Greer, the Sakhalin Energy deputy CEO running the giant Sakhalin-2 oil and gas project, has left the company unexpectedly just weeks after a leaked e-mail he wrote revealed the pressure that managers working there were facing”. The article said that Greer had been a 27-year Shell veteran, and was leaving to pursue other business interests.

David J. Greer I have recently moved on to another exciting challenge and have been appointed as CEO of SIS, the flagship company of the Al-Suwaidi Group, providing professional project management, construction and maintenance services to major industries and is one of the most respected and reputable contractors in Saudi Arabia.

In this regard, I am very interested in hiring experienced construction managers and supervisors, contract engineers, estimators, quantity surveyors, planners and project accountants who I have had the pleasure of working with in past projects.

Interested? Please get in touch asap

RELATED MOSCOW TIMES ARTICLE

AP: David Greer

Friday, June 22, 2007. Issue 3683. Page 5.
By Max Delany
Staff Writer

David Greer, the Sakhalin Energy deputy CEO running the giant Sakhalin-2 oil and gas project, has left the company unexpectedly just weeks after a leaked e-mail he wrote revealed the pressure that managers working there were facing.

Greer’s departure comes as Shell is adjusting to ceding control of the $20 billion project to Gazprom after sustained state pressure.

“I can confirm that David Greer has left the company to pursue other business interests,” Sakhalin Energy spokesman Ivan Chernyakhovsky said Thursday. He did not elaborate on Greer’s future plans.

“He decided to leave the company and left the company,” Chernyakovsky said. “We wish him well in his future after working at Sakhalin Energy for 3 1/2 years.”

Chernyakovsky said any suggestion that the departure of Greer, a 27-year Shell veteran, was connected to the leaked e-mail was “pure speculation.”

Shell spokesman Maxim Shub could not say when Greer had offered his resignation, saying only that the announcement was made Thursday.

Greer could not be reached by cell phone Thursday evening.

Sakhalin Energy’s technical director, Jaap Huijskes, has been appointed as the new project director for the remainder of the Phase-2 development, a source inside Shell confirmed.

A motivational e-mail written by Greer to staff working on the project, originally leaked to an anti-Shell web site, Royaldutchshellplc.com, was the subject of a front-page story in the Financial Times earlier this month.

It also emerged that Greer had borrowed heavily in the e-mail from a speech made by U.S. General George Patton on the eve of the D-Day landings in World War II, with phrases such as “Lead me, follow me or get out of my way.”

Greer’s memo, written shortly after Gazprom officially took control of the Sakhalin-2 project this spring, took the form of a bombastic pep talk.

Citing bad body language and comments at a biannual meeting, the e-mail said that senior managers at Sakhalin Energy were running “the risk of becoming a team that doesn’t want to fight and lacks confidence in its own ability.”

Last December, Shell and its Japanese partners ceded majority control of the project, Russia’s first to process and export liquefied natural gas, to Gazprom after a sustained 1 1/2-year campaign of state pressure over purported environmental violations.

Ian Craig, head of Sakhalin Energy, the project operator, is due to be replaced by a Gazprom manager once the project comes on line. LNG shipments to Asia are due to begin next year.

(Comment by John Donovan: While Mr Greer attracted criticism by some SIEC employees, he also appeared to have many avid supporters and we wish him well)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Revision as of 19:16, 24 December 2007

By Eduard Gismatullin – Sep 30, 2010

There is nothing more enjoyable than seeing bosses fall not on their own swords but on their own words. David Greer, a Shell executive, gave a lot of pleasure to a lot of people with his leaked e-mail that ordered his underlings to “lead me, follow me or get out of my way”.

In February, David Greer, chief executive, said he expected the loan documentation to be finalised within six weeks. However, on Wednesday he said: “We chose to suspend talks with Macquarie because of the heavy obligations and onerous conditions that were being proposed.

Mr Greer added: “Nobody in this company has received any letter from Shell of the type reported in the newspapers . . . The only letter I have received from Shell is my pension statement.”

Mr Greer’s exhortations that his staff should “lead me, follow me or get out of my way” bore a striking resemblance to a famous speech given by the American general George Patton to troops during the Second World War. Widely ridiculed, Mr Greer, every inch the grizzled oilman, resigned.

In a formal statement released this morning, Regal said they had not received an offer. But the denial did not convince the market that a bid offer is out of the question, as Regal shares were holding their early gains by late morning.

Shell spokeswoman Olga Gorodilina declined to comment on the report.