News and information on Royal Dutch Shell Plc.
By Sheila McNulty in Houston
Published: March 19 2010 22:33
Royal Dutch Shell has announced a “significant new oil discovery” in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico that has the potential to be a hub.
The discovery, located in the Appomattox prospect in 2,200 metres of water, follows three notable discoveries by Shell in the Gulf last year.
Shell is operator of the prospect, holding an 80 per cent interest, with partner Nexen holding 20 per cent.
LONDON, March 19 (Reuters) – Royal Dutch Shell (RDSa.L) and Canadian oil explorer Nexen Inc (NXY.TO) said they had made a “significant” discovery in the Gulf of Mexico, the latest in a string of big finds in the Gulf in the past year.
The companies said in statements on Friday that they had made the discovery at the Appomattox prospect in Mississippi Canyon blocks 391 and 392.
The companies added that the find lifted confidence in other unexplored sites in the area.
“The Appomattox discovery confirms our confidence in the play and provides a strong basis to evaluate the remainder of our significant acreage position in the Eastern Gulf of Mexico,” Nexen Chief Executive Marvin Romanow said.
Shell owns an 80 percent interest in Appomattox and Nexen owns 20 percent.
The Gulf of Mexico, one of the world’s most mature oil provinces, continues to be key to Western oil companies’s portfolios as new technology has opened ever deeper water to exploration.
(Reporting by Tom Bergin; editing by Simon Jessop)
Associated Press, 03.19.10, 08:03 AM EDT 
AMSTERDAM — Royal Dutch Shell PLC says it has made a significant discovery of oil 25,000 feet below the surface in the Gulf of Mexico.
The company says the deposits were found at the Appotmattox prospect in the Mississippi Canyon of the gulf, an area where other rich deposits were discovered last year.
Shell said in a statement Friday it found oil at 25,077 feet (7,217 meters), then drilled an appraisal sidetrack and found more at 25,950 feet (7,910 meters).
Shell operates and holds an 80 percent working interest in the prospect, with the Canadian-based Nexen Inc. ( NXY – news – people ) holding the remaining 20 percent.
Copyright 2009 Associated Press.
By Deborah Hyde | 07:47:24 | 18 March 2010
Oil major Royal Dutch Shell’s management says the group’s transformation over the next couple of years will be significant and it can begin to lift its dividend again from next year.
CEO Peter Voser said: ‘These are exciting times for Shell. We are poised to deliver a new wave of financial and production growth.’
He said the group is making substantial investments in new projects to drive Shell’s financial performance going forward.
‘Shell should be in a surplus cash flow position in 2012, after capital investment and dividend payments, assuming $60 oil prices and a more normal environment for natural gas prices and downstream.’
That is a big promise from the group which has traditionally been more dependent on higher oil prices than many of its peers.
Shell has underperformed in recent years (up only 13.5% versus 22.5% at BP over two years) as BP began its transformation much earlier and has been able to grow its dividend despite lower oil prices.
Speaking at a strategy meeting this week, Shell’s management made a convincing case that it can do what it takes to turn its business around, prompting Soc Gen analysts to lift their price target to £22.30 and even the less optimistic UBS team lifted its target to £19.
With analysts pretty evenly split between those advising investors to buy the shares and those who remain more cautious, the key now is whether Voser and his team can deliver on these ambitious plans.
‘The underlying story for Royal Dutch Shell from 2012 is compelling,’ said Richard Griffith analyst at Evolution Securities.
But he has a ’reduce’ recommendation on the shares since the recovery means Shell needs to complete a number of key projects in order to turn its finances around.
‘In other words Shell is dependent on a positive macroeconomic environment to keep short term gearing under control before the underlying performance can assert itself in 2012 and beyond,’ said Griffith.
Given the erosion of dividends on the FTSE 100, income investors will also be cheered by the group’s plan to lift its dividend – in dollar terms at least – from next year.
But Lucy Haskins at Barclays Capital and Alistair Syme at Nomura remain worried by the fact that in the near-term at least Shell will continue to finance the dividend from debt.
Syme said he doesn’t think Shell is mis-priced based on its own profitability outlook and doesn’t see any reason why investors should take the risk on a business that has:
Haskins believes Shell is being overly optimistic about the outlook for refining margins and that a mistake here could see the cashflow come in below Shell’s guidance.
But even she is lifting her price target to £20.50 to reflect the higher cash generation forecasts.
And the top rated analysts – based on the accuracy of their forecasts - at Citigroup and Goldman Sachs are much more upbeat. Both Mark A Fletcher and Michele della Vigna have ‘buy’ views on the shares. They see good upside potential of 13.3% and 42% respectively.
Vigna said Shell’s presentation included a very detailed plan on how the group expects to achieve 11% production growth and 50% cash flow growth by 2012 even if the oil price remains at current levels.
At $80 per barrel, cash flow would climb to $43 billion from $24 billion in 2009, Shell said.
‘This would be the strongest cash flow growth story amongst big oils (excluding the emerging market names), with a clear path to delivery, as all the major projects underpinning this growth appear to be within 12 months of completion,’ said Vigna, adding that would bring Shell from sub-sector to sector leading profitability.
‘This is likely to be a driver of re-rating over the coming 12-months, as the market becomes more confident over the delivery of these projects,’ Vigna said.
Given Vigna’s estimates for Shell earnings are 25% above consensus for 2011, he believes positive earnings revisions will be another important performance driver for Shell.
Fletcher’s optimism also reflects Shell’s plan to lift production by 2-3% per annum and the planned reserve replacement rate of more than 200% which he said is more than adequate to fuel growth.
Like Vigna he believes the market has misunderstood the potential at Shell.
‘Visibility on the trajectory of growth, capex and cash flow remains low, but we believe that it will improve over the next 12 months as project delivery provides the impetus to unlock material upside.’ he said.
He said the underlying story that emerges should be a powerful mix of growth, declining capital expenditure and free cash accretion.
‘We believe that the market is not pricing-in this potential, with the current share price discounting an inconsistent combination of declining volumes, but persistently high capex,’ he said.
By David Lee Smith
March 18, 2010
In the hierarchy of Big Oil, I don’t have to work up a sweat to place ExxonMobil (NYSE: XOM) overall in first place — both qualitatively and quantitatively — while for several years now, Royal Dutch Shell (NYSE: RDS-A) has brought up the rear.
BP leads the way
That’s not to say, however, that the companies can’t change positions, much like NASCAR participants, passing one another when things are going especially well, or falling behind when bad luck hinders them. Take BP (NYSE: BP) for instance. It wasn’t long ago that the company was simultaneously trying to fend off the ramifications of a lethal explosion at a Texas refinery that killed 15 and injured scores of others, all while dealing with leaks in its Alaska pipelines. At about the same time its Indiana refinery was shut down by a fire, and an abrupt top management change all seemed to leave the company even further behind the eight-ball.
But in just the past couple of years, CEO Tony Hayward and the team he’s assembled have BP roaring back. In fact, the company is as clear-cut a demonstration as I can conjure up of the real value of quality management to corporate success. And now it appears that Shell, which until recently couldn’t find oil in a Jiffy Lube, may be following in the footsteps of its European rival.
And here comes Shell
If, as this week’s version of the company’s annual strategy session appeared to indicate, Shell is shedding its ineptitude, still new CEO Peter Voser will have performed a miraculous feat. After all, this is the same company that in 2004 admitted to overstating its reserves by 20%, or about 3.9 billion barrels. The result for the company was a fine of more than $350 million, plus administrative costs and other charges, along with the termination of several top executives.
And then there’s been the company’s geologic incompetence. As you know, one of the keys to judging an oil and gas producer involves the percentage of its production it’s able to replace each year. For instance, Exxon replaced 133% of its production in 2009, departing the year with more reserves than it started off with. From Shell’s perspective, as recently as 2007, the company replaced a shameful 17% of its production. In 2008, it replaced just 98% of its output.
Like a new company
Then came 2009 and surprise stardom for Shell. Believe it or not the company’s reserve-replacement ratio reached a whopping 288%, the highest in the industry. And while that ratio hasn’t yet manifested itself in Shell’s financials, in my opinion, Mr. Voser and his team have set the stage for some solid results going forward. For instance, next year two huge projects in Qatar — the Pearl Gas-to-Liquids project and Qatargas 4, a massive liquefied natural gas project — will come on stream. Also an expansion of the Canadian oil sands project that it shares with Chevron (NYSE: CVX) and Marathon (NYSE: MRO) will likely start up in the next couple of years. As Mr. Voser told the assembled analysts, the result could be an impressive 11% increase in barrels of oil equivalent production by 2012.
And it wasn’t just the discovery of 2.4 billion barrels of oil equivalent, its top performance of the past decade, that made 2009 the company’s turnaround story so strong. In addition, cost cutting received plenty of attention. By laying off 5,000, or 5%, of its employees, along with taking other measures, Shell was able to save $2 billion in expenses during the year. Further, it appears that the company is far from through in the fat-trimming department. Indeed, Mr. Voser stated during the session that another 2,000 Shell hands will be laid off by the end of next year.
Wanna buy a refinery?
Beyond that, there obviously will be asset sales as well. A month ago, rumors were rampant that the company was looking to dispose of about $10 billion worth of its properties, potentially including oilfields in the North Sea, three refineries in Europe, onshore acreage in Nigeria, and retail outlets in Africa. Whether or not that target number is accurate, the company made it clear on Tuesday that there will be refineries and retail facilities on the block.
Clearly this is not the ideal time to be in the refinery business, and, with margins having withered in that sector, all the integrated companies, from ExxonMobil on down, are struggling with their downstream operations. In fact, companies like France’s Total (NYSE: TOT), along with several other members of the Big Oil fraternity appear intent on cutting refinery capacity, and ConocoPhillips (NYSE: COP) may sell some small units.
So all in all, it’s not solely because spring is arriving that I recommend that Fools do some “Shelling.” There could be some money to be made in this clear-cut turnaround situation.
Ian Lyall, Daily Mail
16 March 2010, 9:52pm
He said he was ‘energised’ and up for the fight. But as he stood at the podium to deliver the company’s annual strategy review, Shell boss Peter Voser (right) looked anything but.
His audience of a hundred or so British and foreign journalists listened with an air of resignation rather than in rapt attention.
Voser isn’t a natural orator. His clipped Swiss accent and the dry delivery may work well around the boardroom table, but his style is hardly inspirational.
Which is a pity. Because his message was an uplifting one for Shell investors, and addressed the concerns of the critics who dismiss the Anglo-Dutch giant as low growth, bureaucratic and bloated.
Voser’s trick was to come up with a fairly punchy production target and spice it with a subtle change of direction and emphasis.
And it seemed to work, with the company’s London-listed A shares rising 27.5p to close the day at 2920p.
The briefing re- capped the impact Voser has made in his short tenure. Since becoming chief executive in the summer of last year, he has spearheaded an impressive $2bn cost cutting drive that has seen the loss off 5,000 jobs, mostly mid-ranking managerial posts.
An extension to that programme was unveiled yesterday. It will save another $1bn by cutting a further 1,000 roles, though the workforce still numbers more than 100,000.
But what grabbed the analysts’ attention was his plans to have Shell pumping around 3.5m barrels of oil a day by 2012.
This implies an annual growth rate of 3.5%, which is well ahead of the rather pedestrian performance of rival BP at around 1.5%.
Shell even seems to have raised its game in finding new oil and gas fields, with its reserve replacement rate running at a healthy 288%.
Voser showed he recognised the lingering misgivings of investors, though he was careful to couch the message in diplomatic terms that wouldn’t offend his colleagues and predecessor.
‘When I became chief executive in the middle of last year, I did think the organisation of the company was working against us,’ he told the meeting at a central London hotel.
‘Shell had become too complicated, and slower than I’d like, and working on too many areas and options.’
The simplification of Shell, which has many moving parts, is borne out of necessity.
With the oil price hovering at, or close to, $80 a barrel, more investment is going into exploration and production.
For recession-hit refining, in the middle of the worst slump in 20 years, the pendulum has swung the other way. Capacity is set to be cut by around 15%, with plants sold or even shut down.
And the marketing operation, which owns the company’s filling stations and also sells motor oil and jet fuel, is also undergoing a shake-up. It is focusing on fewer markets to improve profitability.
Only one of the laggards seems to have been spared the Voser treatment: Shell’s gas business.
It has been hit by the downturn but is deemed to be a fundamentally sound business.
Voser trumpeted a series of exploration success stories that tell a tale of a growing conservatism, so we heard about the company’s strikes in the Gulf of Mexico, Australia and North America.
Relatively expensive regions in which to work, they do have the upside of being politically stable and incredibly easy places to do business.
Air-brushed from the literature were the likes of Nigeria and Russia.
It was only when prodded that Voser commented on the war-torn African nation, where the oil reserves are plentiful, but the region is a mess of infighting and instability: ‘In the past, as I have said many times, Shell has depended a lot on the growth of Nigeria. In today’s situation, we still have the same growth potential in Nigeria. But we have seeded plenty of projects in other parts of the world where we also can achieve growth.’
Hardly a ringing endorsement of the country’s prospects.
Some analysts, such as Collins Stewart’s Gordon Grey, see Voser’s latest strategy pronouncement as ‘an important turning point operationally’ for Shell.
The respected and experienced Richard Griffith of Evolution has been following the company for far too long to be totally convinced: ‘It’s a positive statement, but there is still plenty to be delivered.’
Daily Telegraph: Royal Dutch Shell has unveiled the most dramatic overhaul of its business in recent memory, outlining plans to exit more than a third of its 90 retail markets, slash refining capacity and return to growth after seven years of falling output.By Garry White
Published: 10:10PM GMT 16 Mar 2010
Peter Voser, chief executive, unveiled a further 1,000 jobs cuts in addition to the 6,000 already announced as he vowed to “sharpen up” Shell in the next three years by boosting output by 11pc.
“Shell has been disadvantaged recently, due to our higher exposure to refining and natural gas, where margins are hard-wired to the economy,” Mr Voser said.
“The priorities are for a more competitive performance, for growth, and for sharper delivery of strategy. We have more to do to drive out cost and improve the operating performance in the company.”
Shell plans to exit 35pc of its petrol station markets and reduce refining capacity by 15pc to help it make cost saving of $1bn (£658m) this year. It also said it would sell non-core assets worth $1bn-$3bn a year, including its refineries in Gothenburg, Los Angeles and New Zealand.
Monday is the deadline for bids for the company’s liquified petroleum gas distribution arm, which could raise £1.1bn. Those understood to be tabling offers include Brazilian chemicals group Ultrapar, Centrica spin-off DCC and French listed Rubis, as well as a number of private equity groups.
“Upstream, we have built up strong foundations in activities like gas-to-liquids, oil sands and liquefied natural gas,” Mr Voser said. “Looking out to 2020, I expect Shell’s exploration to underpin new upstream growth, especially in North America and Australia, with additional barrels from development-led projects.”
The news came on the day that Shell released its annual report, which showed that Mr Voser earned less than Tony Hayward, chief executive of rival BP, in 2009. Mr Voser earned a total salary and bonus of £2.8m compared with Mr Hayward’s £4m.
Shell has said it would freeze management salaries until 2011 after shareholders objected last year when executives were awarded bonuses even after performance targets were missed.
Linda Cook, who resigned as head of Shell’s gas and power business in May last year, was paid a salary and bonus of £2.1m as well as a severance payment of almost €5.5m (£5m). She leaves with a total pension pot of just under $25m. Mr Voser’s predecessor, Jeroen van der Veer, left with a pension pot worth $34.2m.
Shell predicts oil will trade between $50 and $90 a barrel over the next few years and is targeting output of 3.5m barrels of oil equivalent per day in 2012. This compares to 3.15m in 2009, the equivalent to an annual growth rate of 3.5pc, or 11pc in total over three years
Mr Voser said the company should be in a surplus cash flow position in 2012, after capital investment and dividend payments – assuming $60 oil prices and a more normal environment for natural gas prices and downstream. In order to achieve this it will have to invest between $25bn and $27 a year in its operations.
The Anglo Dutch group also said that it replaced 288pc of its oil and gas output with new discoveries in 2009, or 3.42bn barrels of oil equivalent.
RELATED TELEGRAPH ARTICLES
March 17, 2010: Robin Pagnamenta Energy Editor
Royal Dutch Shell will sell full or part-stakes in as many as 9,000 petrol stations worldwide and cut a further 1,000 jobs as it intensifies its global cost-cutting.
The announcement came as Shell appeared to be edging closer to a deal with Arrow Energy to bolster the group’s position in Australia’s fast-growing industry supplying coal-seam gas to China and South-East Asia.
Peter Voser, the chief executive, said that Shell intends to leave about 30 of the 90 countries in which it operates petrol stations. The move, which is already under way, is part of a focus on more profitable markets and on exploration and production.
“We are leaving retail markets where we have low volumes,” Mr Voser told Shell’s annual strategy briefing in London. These would include Greece, Sweden, Vietnam and New Zealand.
Globally, Shell holds interests in about 45,000 petrol stations, of which just under 30,000 are operated directly by the company. Yesterday it indicated that by 2012 it would sell about 2,000 sites outright and cut the number that it operated directly by almost 7,000.
Sites no longer operated directly would follow a model that Shell has pioneered in America, where its retail sites retain the Shell brand and are supplied wholesale by the company but are operated by third parties.
Shell is selling fuel stations in Spain and Portugal. In France, it will leave many of its smaller, regional stations but plans to retain its more profitable, high-volume motorway network.
Britain, where Shell operates about 900 fuel stations and is the biggest player by volume in the retail market, is not expected to bear the brunt of the sales.
Richard Savage, of Mirabaud Securities, said that the move reflected an effort “to release capital to spend more on production”.
The announcement came as Mr Voser said that Shell expected to boost crude oil production by 11 per cent to 3.5 million barrels a day by 2012, up from 3.15 million — reversing seven years of consecutive declines. “All this is underpinned by a new wave of project start-ups,” Mr Voser said. “Beyond that we have an upstream portfolio that can grow to at least 2020.”
He also announced a further 1,000 job cuts, raising the total expected to 7,000 during 2009-11. Shell employed about 102,000 people before Mr Voser revealed the first phase of his reorganisation last July.
He called for “more focus and more urgency”, adding that most of the cuts would be in refining and marketing — which is struggling in the face of the worst industry downturn in 20 years — and in middle management. “The company had become too complicated and slower to respond than we’d like, so we are sharpening up,” he said.
The chief executive’s remarks came as Arrow Energy said that it was in “active discussions” with Shell and Petrochina over their joint $3 billion takeover offer.
Shell, which confirmed the talks but declined to comment, also announced positive news on the discovery of new supplies of oil and gas. The company said that 2009 was the “best year for exploration in a decade”, after finds in Australia and the Gulf of Mexico gave it new reserves equal to almost three times the amount of oil and gas that it produced.
Shell’s reserves at present production rates had increased from ten years at the end of 2008 to 11.9 years at the end of 2009.
THE WALL STREET JOURNALBy Lananh Nguyen Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES MARCH 16, 2010, 12:33 P.M. ET
LONDON (Dow Jones)–India’s Essar Oil Ltd.’s (500134.BY) potential London listing could stall the company’s negotiations to buy three European refineries from Royal Dutch Shell PLC (RDSB), Shell’s Chief Financial Officer Simon Henry said Tuesday.
“While those negotiations [for an initial public offering] are going on, it’s very difficult for them to go forward,” with the purchase of the Heide and Harburg refineries in Germany and the Stanlow plant in the U.K., but the companies are still in talks, Henry said at a Shell strategy update in London.
Shell plans to sell 15% of its global refining capacity, or about 600,000 barrels a day of capacity, and 35% of its retail business on expectations that the downstream industry will be over supplied “for some time,” said Shell’s Chief Executive Peter Voser in a statement.
Henry said it wouldn’t carry out a “fire sale” of its plants at cheap prices. Instead, if refinery sales weren’t completed, Shell would consider the closure of plants or conversion to storage terminals.
Shell hopes to develop its business in growth markets like China. Shell is studying the prospect of building an integrated refinery and petrochemical complex with Qatar and PetroChina Co. (PTR), said downstream director Mark Williams.
-By Lananh Nguyen, Dow Jones Newswires; +44 (0)20-7842-9479; lananh.nguyen@dowjones.com
Tue Mar 16, 2010 8:20am GMT
LONDON (Reuters) – Royal Dutch Shell Plc (RDSa.L) said it was planning a return to robust growth in oil and gas production after years of decline, as it unveiled strong reserves additions that would underpin longer term growth. Europe’s largest oil company by market value said it is targeting output of 3.5 million barrels of oil equivalent per day (boepd) in 2012, up from 3.15 million in 2009 — equivalent to an annual growth rate of 3.5 percent.
The Hague-based company has seen its production fall each year for the last seven years.
Shell also predicted growth beyond 2012, underpinned by a new focus on exploration.
The company said it added 3.4 billion barrels in reserves in 2009 — equivalent to almost three times the amount of oil and gas it pumped.
(Reporting by Tom Bergin and Lorraine Turner; Editing by David Holmes)
© Thomson Reuters 2010 All rights reserved.
: Dear IMBer, or IBMer, or whatever - if you can explain to me the difference between the two quoted press release examples of geophysical applications in reasoned scientific terms, I shall be more than happy to admit to being a amateur geophysicist (not geologist). Perhaps it is you who is confused. Geophysics and Geology are not the same - close bed fellows, yes - but not the same. If so, then it is you who should get out your needles, wool and get on with "one plain, two purl" rather than embarking on such a commentary.
: Shellwaarbenjijnu has no clue what he/she is talking about. Probably some amateur geologist who wants to be important on the blog. Try to stick to your knitting!
: Paying over 7 mln $ to get rid of this monster of a woman shows how deeply Shell has sunk. She was a stealer of ideas. She was the ultimate token woman, a disgrace to her gender and it has put off many high quality women to pursue a career in Shell. Her disgusting behaviour of being the slave of Watts was evident to all. This latest scandal makes it clear she should never have been promoted to were she ended up. Another costly mistake of Shell. And the top echelon? They know no shame anymore and carry on with more spin stories as usual.
: Perhaps Voser will pull the same trick on Brinded as Watts did on v.d.Vijver. Watts announced that reserves would grow by 5% and that Walter would explain how.... The rest is history. I can only hope that history will repeat itself and Brinded finally gets fired for his gross underperformance and sustained bullshit. Perhaps I have said so before: never trust a man with facial hair.... I shall be watching the announcements how they will increase production with great interest.
: THE ARTICLE "Donovan email to Gavin White, Shell International Limited: 10 March 2010" has been updated with a self-explanatory email reply received on 11 March from Richard Wiseman, Chief Ethics & Compliance Officer, Royal Dutch Shell Plc.
: The Forbes article implies that by stopping sales of gasoline to Iran, Shell is complying with US sanctions. Shell's investments in the upstream sector in Iran are not mentioned, even though these are of far greater significance for both Shell and the Iranians.
: Amnesty International has been an informed and courageous critic of Human Rights abuses around the world for many decades and they are certainly not adverse to criticising governments in Nigeria, Burma, Zimbabwe and all around the world. The point about international companies like Shell is that they have a choice. They are not obliged to operate anywhere if they find that the local conditions are in conflict with their principles. Amnesty’s recent criticisms of Shell have certainly been strong and I am aware that in Shell there is a feeling that they have been unfair and to some extent uninformed. So a dialogue between Amnesty and Shell is very much to be welcomed. Amnesty is a highly respected organisation – indeed a former top executive of Shell, Sir Geoffrey Chandler, was a senior officer of Amnesty in his post Shell years.
: Same old, same old. Amnesty International and their human rights again go for the soft underbelly of the international companies rather than the real problem in Nigeia which is their corrupt Government. Good on Shell for attending and agrreing to being questioned. BUT, surprise, surprise nobody from the Nigerian Government (perhaps they didn't get enough of a bribe to appear or perhaps Amnesty knew they would get nowhere with them). Pollution in the Niger Delta remains a problem, albeit that conditions are slowly improving. Living conditions, infrastructure and most other normal day-to-day things should be the responsibility of the corrupt Government not international oil companies. These evil governments such as Nigeria, Zimbabwe and Burma need to be bought down by the UN so that their people might have a better chance of a reasonable life.
: Very polite correspondence between Wiseman and the Donovans. I estimate Wiseman's hourly internal tariff at around 500 U$ per hour (his salary plus support plus extensive overheads). Over the years Shell must have spent a fortune discussing the Donovans, putting the most expensive lawyers on the case, and developing policy how to battle them. It becomes Churchillian: 'we will fight them on the web, and in the courtrooms, and in their own offices and on the streets. But we wil NEVER surrender. With unlimited funds this maybe so, but it is wasting shareholders money and it solves nothing. I do not see the Donovans give up anytime soon. So perhaps a new paradigm needs to be developed? Any ordinary man or woman at the coalface would solve this problem within minutes and for less money than what is being burned now. But the Shell kings are no ordinary people, they live in cloud cuckoo land. I will keep following with great interest how all this develops, it is even better than the daily Dilbert!!!
: W.E. Pratt knew it already a hundred years ago when he said "Oil is found in the minds of men" But he was one of the founders of the Standard Oil company, whereas the people who try to make us believe that IBM can come to the rescue of Shell appear to be only good at getting rid of their most experienced minds.
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