EXTRACTS FROM “ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST” BY LORNA SIGGINS

FROM THE FOREWORD (BY FINTAN O’TOOLE)

Though theoretically citizens in a liberal democracy, those who have stood in the way of the exploitation of the Corrib gas field by a consortium led by Shell found themselves with very little protection from their own government. Instead of seeking to negotiate a settlement on behalf of these citizens, Irish governments aligned themselves to an overwhelming extent with Shell, putting the resources of the state behind the acquisition of land and, when locals objected, mounting a policing operation that at one point included the deployment of the navy.

FROM PAGES 126 &127 (“Ahern” is a reference to Bertie Ahern, a corrupt Irish government minister who became Taoiseach)

When the issue arose again in the Dail, the following month, Ahern insisted there was nothing unethical about his discussion in September with the senior Shell executives. There were ‘no deals or arrangements’ with Shell, he insisted, adding that ‘other countries have ways and means of treating large companies, which I do not agree with. I have had a fair few meetings over the years that might border on the unethical, but I am not guilty of it in this case.’

Four years later, in November 2007, the RoyalDutchShellplc.com website run by Alfred and John Donovan – long-time critics of the multinational – published details of minutes of a meeting of Shell group managing directors on 22 and 23 July 2002. Planning refusal for the Ballinaboy gas terminal in north Mayo was discussed, according to the website, which quoted from the minutes: ‘The committee queried whether the group had sufficiently well placed contacts with the Irish government and regulators. Paul Skinner undertook to explore this issue further in consultation with the country chairman in Ireland.’

ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST can be purchased on Amazon

Book Review The Mayo News 5 October 2010

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By John Donovan

It seems that Shell’s Gannet Alpha platform has had another close call.

On Monday workers were evacuated and production shut down after natural gas began seeping out from under the platform.

All of the ingredients for a disastrous explosion, of the kind that occurred in the Gulf of Mexico, which almost brought about the demise of BP and the explosion on Shell Brent Bravo, resulting from Shell management (Malcolm Brinded) failing to take adequate action after a safety audit exposed a “Touch F*** All” safety culture and falsification of safety records.

Printed below is a comment from a Shell North Sea Platform Safety & Maintenance Expert on the recent oil spill near the Gannet Alpha Platform.

…another example of reactive maintenance regime, i.e. allowing, through neglect, equipment to fail and then reacting to the failure rather than, as the Safety Case for Gannet prescribes, preventing failure in the first instance by application of appropriate maintenance, inspection and monitoring.

(Expert in question may be available to the media for comment)

It seems that not much has changed. Production, profits and FAT CAT bonuses take priority over the safety of offshore workers.

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I doubt that Mr. Voser will emulate Network Rail bosses in the face of a widespread public backlash against Fat Cat bonuses and waive his Fat Cat bonus, as they have, to improve safety? Fat chance.

By John Donovan

According to a report filed on Monday with the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission, Peter Voser, the Swiss Chief Executive of Royal Dutch Shell Plc received €6.75 million in salary for 2011 plus a bonus of €3.5 million, a combined total of over €10 million.

Voser wants half of his bonus (€1.75 million) paid in shares. The full details of the bonuses at the top of Shell will not be known until publication of the annual report of the company.

Peter Voser was in 2010 the highest paid director of any Dutch listed company.

This is the gentleman who as part of his Vosification plan, asked hundreds of senior Shell managers to reapply for their own jobs.

I doubt that Mr. Voser will emulate Network Rail bosses in the face of a widespread public backlash against Fat Cat bonuses and waive his Fat Cat bonus, as they have, to improve safety? Fat chance.

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Peter Voser’s message to Shell staff presages a gloomy future for all of Shell’s employees and stakeholders

Shell insiders toxic reaction to Vosification job cuts

Introduction by John Donovan

It seems timely, in view of recent postings on our Shell Blog, to republish an article about Shell CEO Peter Voser authored by retired Royal Dutch Shell Executive, Paddy Briggs (right). It was first published on 27 July 2009. Paddy is currently a Member Nominated Trustee of the Shell Contributory Pension Fund.

On a Swiss roll…

By Paddy Briggs

Here’s the story. You are a Swiss accountant with a proven record of ruthlessness and synthetic business acumen. You are comfortable with numbers – that’s what you do – but you know little about the minutiae of the oil business. How can you be – you are not an “oil man” you are a “dollars man”. By guile, good fortune and the Peter Principle you find yourself at the helm of one of the world’s biggest oil and gas companies. You know that you will struggle with the difficult things – like creating an organisation that finds, develops, transports, refines and markets hydrocarbons. You know nothing at all about the oil and gas chain from exploration to consumption. You’ve never really worked in it – other than seeing spreadsheets which show you how much it costs. But you are now in charge. So what you do is retreat to the familiar world of numbers. That world where there is certainty – where something that costs “$100m” is only supportable if an adequate ROACE is assured. And where, even though future earnings are always, by definition, unpredictable you find a way of getting bogus certainty where there is none. By appointing more accountants and listening to them.

And then there is the term over which you plan to steer the business. Everyone knows that the genetics of the oil business are very long term. To find oil (which costs money) and to develop that oil (which costs more) is within the special competences of Shell – always has been. But to harvest the oil and the gas and to generate the income streams you have to be patient. But how can you be patient if you want to show how macho and “profit-focused” you are? Cut, cut, cut. It’s what I do. And immediately the bottom line benefits. Never mind that in five or ten years we won’t have any new discoveries. Never mind that in a decade or so the reserves cupboard will be bare. I’ll be on a seven figure pension by then like Mark and Phil and Jeroen before me. Ha!

POSTING ON SHELL BLOG 2 FEBRUARY 2012 BY ” AN OBSERVER OF SHELL”

Is Voser now also being jinxed by the famous Brinded spell?

This decent and down to earth Swiss financeman is trying to tell the world that Shell will increase production from North Sea fields by extending the life of these fields (Sky Sunrise interview).

I am taking bets with some friends this will not happen. All observable actions by Shell is that they are retrenching from the North Sea. Voser emphasised that there will be a lot of job creation in the UK….. Now, where have we heard this before????

And he says (Bloomberg story):
‘Shell will increase production to about 4 million barrels of oil equivalent a day in 2017-2018. Last March, it said daily output would rise to 3.5 million barrels this year and 3.7 million barrels by 2014′.

Promises, promises, promises. This translates into bonuses and a bit later in ‘new insights’ or other factors that could not be foreseen. I give it to him he is not as audacious as Brinded who predicted 7-8 years ago that Shell would be doing close to 6 mln bbl/d around now.

I am not calling the man a liar. I would not dare to with his army of lawyers in Shell. But how should we call someone who ‘not speaketh the truth’?

Shall we keep it as ‘tarred with the same brush as Brinded?”

BLOG POSTING ENDS

Note added by John Donovan

Malcolm Brinded is the former Managing Director of Shell UK’s offshore oil and gas operations and is closely associated with the Shell “TFA” safety culture, which resulted in an explosion and deaths on the Brent Bravo platform. He is currently Executive Director Exploration and Production for Royal Dutch Shell plc.

By John Donovan

A regular contributor to our “Shell Blog” recently criticized the mix of postings on this website.

“LondonLad” said:

I am afraid that there clearly is very little news (i.e. aspects of Shell’s work) for the Donovan’s to rant on about recently. A great deal is re-printed as though it’s new but is merely old stories and anti-Shell propoganda that is old history.

Since we have over many years built an archive of over 28,000 articles, documents and advertising relating to Shell stretching back to the 1920′s, including Shell internal documents and communications, we have a wealth of information to draw on in providing related historical context to current news events.

Seems to be a winning formula given the increased traffic – 2,545,430 million hits and 1,513,016 million page views in January 2012.

ALL Royal Dutch Shell news, positive and negative, is accessible on this website.

The advertisement displayed was published in The Scotsman on 31 December 1923.

By John Donovan

Royal Dutch Shell CEO Peter Voser is reluctantly considering how best to wean Shell off the supply of blood tainted Iranian oil. Shell is one of the biggest consumers of Iranian oil – see article below.

The relationship between Shell and Iran has continued unabated for many years, while the fanatical Iranian regime has been busy using the funds generated to supply roadside bombs to kill and maim Nato soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan and fund its Nuclear Bomb program. The oil revenue is crucial to Iran. Hence the sanctions and sanctions busting by Shell.

Trying to avoid the odium of its association with the mad mullahs, Shell resorted to subterfuge to disguise its shipments of Iranian crude.

There is speculation that Peter Voser has asked Khalid al Falih, head of Saudi Arabia state oil company Saudi Aramco, to supply oil to replace lost Iranian barrels. Mr Voser is quoted as saying: “We have a great partnership with Saudi Aramco worldwide.”

What he does not mention is that the Saudi regime is another brutal dictatorship, which just a few years ago blackmailed the UK into abandoning a criminal investigation into corruption surrounding the Saudi Royal family. Shell was a key player in the AL-Yamamah oil for arms scandal.

Royal Dutch sees EU Iran sanctions pushing up oil prices

Royal Dutch Shell will implement the terms of a European Union embargo on Iranian crude but will need some time to study details of the sanctions which are likely to push oil prices higher.

Mr Peter Voser CEO of Royal Dutch said that “We are a European company and therefore we are affected by the sanctions and we will obviously oblige and implement the sanctions. I need to study all the details in order to see how it goes forward in the next few months.”

Mr Voser said that “From a pure commercial prospective, the losers are consumers because at the end of the day it gives us more volatility and upwards pressure on the oil price.”

Industry sources said that Shell is one of the biggest consumers of Iranian crude oil taking around 100,000 barrels per day into Europe and about the same quantity into Asia under a deal with Japanese company Showa Shell that expires in March.

Mr Voser said that he had ‘spent quite a bit of time with Mr Khalid al Falih head of state oil company Saudi Aramco at the meeting of political and business leaders in Switzerland but declined to say if he had asked Saudi Arabia to supply more oil to replace lost Iranian barrels. We have a great partnership with Saudi Aramco worldwide.

(Sourced from Reuters)

SOURCE ARTICLE

POSTING ON SHELL BLOG BY “LONDONLAD” SAT 28 JAN 2012

I am afraid that there clearly is very little news (i.e. aspects of Shell’s work) for the Donovan’s to rant on about recently. A great deal is re-printed as though it’s new but is merely old stories and anti-Shell propoganda that is old history. Yes, we learn from history but we don’t have to regurgitate it repeatedly. The lead story today linking Shell with Jewish skin lamp shades is really gutter press and totally deplorable nonsense from the Donovan’s.

(John Donovan reply is posted on Shell Blog)

The Sun newspaper published an article horrifically confirming, following a DNA test, that a lampshade bought at a New Orleans car boot sale is made from human skin. A gruesome relic from Nazi crimes against humanity in the 2nd World War. As the main financier of the Nazis, does Royal Dutch Shell bear any moral (or legal) responsibility for the crimes of Hitler and his equally evil henchmen?

By John Donovan

Yesterday, after 70 years, Norway apologized for the deportation of 773 Jews from Nazi occupied Norway during World War 2.  The majority were shipped to concentration camps and only 34 survived. See news report below.

Royal Dutch Shell has much more to apologize for about its Nazi past.

Shell and its Nazi leader Sir Henri Deterding, conspired directly with Hitler, financed Nazi Germany, was anti-Semitic and sold out its own Dutch Jewish employees to the Nazis.

In March 2011, the chief corporate lawyer at Royal Dutch Shell threatened us with legal proceedings in relationship to this sensitive subject.  We are still waiting for Shell to take any action.

The world is still waiting for an apology from Shell.

RELATED INFORMATION

Shell boasted about the money it pumped into Nazi Germany

Royal Dutch Shell and the lampshades made from HUMAN SKIN

Royal Dutch Shell four day meeting directly with Hitler: 7 March 2011

Adolf Hitler thanks Sir Henri Deterding for donation of a million reichs-marks

Royal Dutch Shell founder Deterding backed Nazi Stormtroopers

Sir Henri Deterding of Shell donated millions of dollars in food to Nazi Germany

Evidence that Royal Dutch Shell financed fascist death squads

A History of Royal Dutch Shell Volume 1 (38 pages) HD 600 dpi

A History of Royal Dutch Shell Volume 2 (29 pages) HD 600 dpi

Norway apologizes to Jews

AFP January 28, 2012 3:14 AM