Posts Tagged ‘Shell’

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — U.S. Sen. Mark Begich on Monday compared the regulatory atmosphere for offshore drilling in the Arctic Ocean to a whack-a-mole arcade game, where the player uses a mallet to smack down moles as they pop out of the ground.

In the Beaufort and Chukchi seas, under the Alaska Democrat’s scenario, oil companies are the players and federal agencies are the moles.

“Each time we have one mole beat down, another one pops up and derails the process,” Begich said.

Standing with representatives of Alaska oil companies who want to drill, including Shell Oil and ConocoPhillips, Begich said the answer is a federal coordinator for Arctic outer continental shelf drilling who could smooth applications through the bureaucracy.

“For too long, well before the current administration, federal agencies have erected roadblocks to that development,” Begich said.

He has introduced a bill to create an offshore drilling coordinator’s office, and said the $2 million price tag is would be than worth it if Alaska’s vast resources are tapped.

“This office would have the authority to work across agencies causing Alaska so much heartburn today — the EPA, the Army Corps of Engineers, and the Interior Department,” Begich said.

The measure would also have an effect on permit appeals. Short of the U.S. Supreme Court, the bill would require expedited rulings to challenges of permits and move jurisdiction to the federal district court in Washington, D.C.

Shell Alaska Vice President Pete Slaiby endorsed the measure.

“The legislation that the senator is proposing today could go a long way to address some of the regulatory challenges facing responsible offshore development in Alaska,” Slaiby said.

America needs energy from Alaska waters and Alaskans need the jobs from offshore petroleum development, Begich said. Federal regulators estimate Arctic waters hold 26 million barrels of recoverable oil and 130 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.

“For too long, well before the current administration, federal agencies have erected roadblocks to that development,” Begich said.

What Begich called roadblocks, others have called precautions.

Environmental and Alaska Native groups contend the oil industry has not demonstrated the ability to clean up an oil spill in ice-choked waters.

Drilling critics say too little is known about the species that live there, which already are being affected by global warming and less summer sea ice, or how seismic tests and other drilling activity will affect them.

Even in the window of ice-free months, conditions can be brutal off Alaska’s northeast and northern shore. The nearest Coast Guard base is more than 1,000 miles away from lease areas and the northern Alaska coast lacks deep-water ports and major runways near most drilling sites.

In the aftermath of the Gulf of Mexico spill, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said the department would use “utmost caution” in future drilling lease sales in Arctic Ocean waters.

Begich said the current system is not working. Shell has spent more than $3 billion for the opportunity to drill, he said.

“Just when it appeared the development had a green light a few weeks ago, an internal EPA environmental appeals board sent the air quality back to the drawing board,” he said.

Begich said the offshore oil and gas industry grew up in the Gulf of Mexico.

“The process there with the same oil companies and the same agencies works much better,” he said.

His legislation, he said, would allow permit appeals.

“It does recognize America needs this energy and the issues surrounding it should be resolved quickly,” he said.

SOURCE ARTICLE

Received from the “OmanOil 4us Campaign”

We are group of Omani youth, engineers and others who have started a campaign to demand the nationalization of PDO and therefore to cancel the PSA agreement between PDO (& hence SHELL) and the government of OMAN.

Our goals are:

-Nationalization, take back the 40% currently owned the private shareholders through legal process
-Restructuring the company completely and thoroughly
-Dividing block 6 into smaller concession areas; easy ones which can be solely operated by national resources and more difficult ones which require sophisticated technologies and high capital investment which can be offered for PSA’s

We would be grateful if we can help us to get:
-any insight of SHELL position in OMAN,
-any information of the renewed sharing agreement of 2004,
-any correspondences related to the subject,
-any confidential documents,
-any information of how the Omani government approached Shell regarding the overbooked reserves prior to 2004?
-your own view of the subject would be highly appreciated

Regards,
The Coordination Committee of The Campaign to Nationalize PDO

RELATED ARTICLE

Unrest Spreading to Petroleum Development Oman

POSTING BY AN OUTSPOKEN FORMER EMPLOYEE OF SHELL OIL USA

Saw your article on Enron and Shell.

FYI Enron was populated by a host of former Shell USA managers who were let go by Shell in the early 1990′s as part of Shell USA’s reorganization and downsizing program (Shell USA had finally managed to manage the company into a serious financial problem with a host of bad decisions).

So, it comes as no surprise to anyone familiar with the two organizations that RD Shell had it own financial scandal a few years later. The reserves scandal at Shell was a long time in coming but the ‘problem’ was known about internally for many, many years. Shell USA knew it had a credibility issue with its reserve bookings in the mid-1980′s.

Senior level Shell management simply hid it for as long as they could. Nobody wanted to be the ‘Grinch that stole Christmas’, so the reserves fraud continued from one succession of senior management to another. Finally, the chickens came home to roost.

This issue does, of course, point to the fact that RD Shell has a serious ‘corporate culture’ problem, i.e., it is fundamentally corrupt. Management was and is not only lying to investors and securities regulators, they were and are lying to themselves. Maybe that is why RD Shell is no longer on the list of ‘most sustainable’ companies.

Published: Monday, March 21, 2011, 2:02 PM

By Jonathan Tilove, The Times-Picayune

A study paid for by Shell Oil and released this week used federal estimates that the Beaufort and Chukchi seas hold 27 billion barrels of oil and 132 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.

The Associated Press February 26, 2011, 4:25AM ET

By DAN JOLING: ANCHORAGE, Alaska

Alaska drilling advocates on Friday night dominated a federal public hearing seeking comment on a proposed five-year plan for offshore oil and gas lease sales that includes the Beaufort and Chukchi seas.

More than 100 people signed up to testify at the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management scoping session covering 2012-2017 but fewer than half had time to make comments during the three-hour session.

Pro-drilling forces offered pizza and soft drinks to encourage supporters to arrive early and sign up to testify. The agency took them in order and drilling opponents, including those who arrived more than an hour early, finally got their chance near the end of the session.

State Department of Natural Resources Commissioner Dan Sullivan led off testimony and said Gov. Sean Parnell advocates additional lease sales in the Arctic Ocean.

“I strongly believe that the vast, vast majority of Alaskans in all walks of life share this position,” he said.

Alaska’s No. 1 industry is petroleum and upward of 90 percent of state general fund income comes from the oil industry. However, the trans-Alaska pipeline is operating at less than one-third capacity and state officials fear it could shut down without additional sources.

“OCS development will be a very important part of stemming the TAPS decline,” Sullivan said. “It will also have a huge impact in terms of jobs and federal revenue and state revenue.”

He also said Alaskans feel enormous frustration with federal government as a partner in resource development projects.

“To put it bluntly, you are missing in action,” he said. The federal government, Sullivan said, has shifted from a policy of promoting environmental protection to shutting down resource development through misuse of endangered species law and wilderness designations. That pushes U.S. oil purchases to other countries, he said.

“Those countries don’t have near the environmental stringent requirements that we do,” he said.

Several dozen other drilling advocates followed and spelled out how the state economy and the country need the oil and gas Alaska has to offer.

Carl Portman of the Resource Development Council said drillng can be done safely. About 30 wells have been drilled in the Beaufort and five in the Chukchi, all using older technology and all without a blowout, he said.

A study paid for by Shell Oil and released this week used federal estimates that the Beaufort and Chukchi seas hold 27 billion barrels of oil and 132 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.

By the time 30 people had testified, the meeting was interrupted by Leslie Cornick, a marine biology teacher at Alaska Pacific University, who asked if the agency intended to listen to anyone on the other side. She finally got her chance to speak with 15 minutes remaining.

She took issue with Alaskans saying they did not want the federal government telling them how they should develop their resources.

“Unless you’re an Alaska Native, we all came from somewhere else, and we have been telling the Alaska Natives what do to with their resources ever since we got here,” she said.

Drilling, she said, threatens the ocean bounty that Arctic coastal communities rely on.

“Oil and gas are not the only resources in this state,” she said. “And they are not the resources on which the Alaska Natives primarily depend.”

History has plenty of examples of the downside of drilling, from the Exxon Valdez to Deepwater Horizon to a tanker that spilled oil last week in a Norwegian marine national park. The technology does not exist to clean spills in ice, she said.

The remote northern coast of Alaska lacks infrastructure needed to respond to a spill, she said.

“I am opposed, vehemently, to these leases going forward in the current period because we aren’t ready,” Cornick said. “The Arctic is not ready.”

SOURCE ARTICLE

BY A FORMER EMPLOYEE OF SHELL OIL USA

When I worked for Shell USA years ago we had an incident with one of our major supplies of oil field services. As it happened the VP of marketing complained to our Shell VP in New Orleans about the fact that their service reps kept handing out free tickets to ball games, took the engineers out to dinner, etc., but that they weren’t ‘getting any’ business. This particular vendor marketing VP thought that Shell’s engineering staff were taking advantage of them (which they were) and they wanted some business in return for all the ‘favors’, etc., they had done for the staff.

Well, that particular VP at Shell was rather incensed at being ‘shaken down’ for business like that so he banned the acceptance of vendor ‘gifts and gratuities’ except under special circumstance. That ban lasted only until he was transferred about six months later. After that the vendor gift ‘shake down’ went on as usual.

In the field, on drilling rigs, it was not uncommon for the vendors to hand out hunting rifles, color TV’s, stereos, etc., to the company foreman in return for a site well services contract. We even had a case where one fellow was given a vintage Ford Mustang convertible. Senior management thought that was a bit much and after much consideration reluctantly fired that fellow, but less expensive gifts were still allowed.

When I worked overseas Shell Pecten in country management (Shell USA’s overseas division) always complained about not being allowed to ‘grease the palms’ of the necessary local authorities ‘sufficiently’ to get things done in a timely fashion. Some of the internal Shell memos were extremely interesting in this regard.

I even had some idiot vendor send me a 30 lb Alaska King salmon packed in ice one time. It was left on my front door step in Houston,TX one hot August day. I was gone out of town for a week. When I came back the stench that I was greeted with from that maggot ridden fish was utterly incredible. Needless to say the retarded fool that sent it to me, hoping to ‘curry favor’ for a big well services contract, got the a** chewing of a life time. As did his supervisor and his supervisor’s supervisor. These people were rather unhappy with my attitude. It is the thought that counts, right? Needless to say, their clumsy efforts proved futile, and this made them even unhappier.

‘Graft and corruption’, G&C as it is called, was and undoubtedly is still a way of life at Shell. From my experience at Shell I can tell you that Shell was and clearly still is a company that suffers from corruption at virtually every level.

RELATED ARTICLE: SEX, DRUGS & CORRUPTION IN USA SPONSORED BY SHELL

ORIGINAL ENGLISH VERSION (BY JOHN DONOVAN)

PLEASE BE ADVISED THAT THIS IS NOT A ROYAL DUTCH SHELL WEBSITE. ALL PROPOSALS, OFFERS, INVITATIONS & JOB APPLICATIONS MEANT FOR SHELL SHOULD BE SENT DIRECTLY TO SHELL. CONTACT DETAILS ARE AVAILABLE ON THE SHELL WEBSITE: shell.com

THIS NOTICE IS POSTED BECAUSE OF THE VOLUME OF COMMUNICATIONS RECEIVED, PARTICULARLY PROPOSALS FROM CHINA, INCLUDING WHAT APPEARS TO BE AN INVITATION TO VISIT BEIJING.

WE ARE NO LONGER PASSING ON SUCH INFORMATION TO SHELL MANAGEMENT AS WE ARE NO LONGER ON SPEAKING TERMS. HAVE NO IDEA WHAT CAUSED THE UPSET.

SO PLEASE CONTACT SHELL DIRECT.

(THE CHINESE SEEM TO BE UNDER THE IMPRESSION THAT ALFRED DONOVAN IS THE GREAT LEADER OF SHELL)

Click on image to enlarge it.

In 1933, the German subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell, Rhenania, launched a series of motorist touring maps, which boasted that Shell was pumping money into the German economy i.e. into the coffers of the evil Hitler/Nazi regime.

(Relevant text shown underlined in red)

Die SHELL-Organisation in Deutschland stellt sich gleichzeitig in den Dienst richtig verstandener Nationalwirtschaft. Sie bemuht sich um weitere ErschlieBung deutscher Erdölvorkommen unter Ausnutzung der in weltumfassender Tatigkeit gesammelten Erfahrungen

The map is displayed on page 470 of “A History of Royal Dutch Shell” Vol 1: “From Challenger to Joint Industry Leader 1890 -1939” by Joost Jonker & Luiten van Zanden published in the UK in 2007 by Oxford University Press.

Header above map says:

Late in 1933 Rhenania set up an information office for motorist and launched a large series of motorists’ touring maps, emphasizing – despite some political doubts from The Hague – the importance of Shell as a contributor to the German economy.

We assume the maps provided clear directions to the Polish border.

NOT IN THE WIKIPEDIA ARTICLE: WHAT IS REFERRED TO AS “A THIRD LAW SUIT” WAS IN FACT THE FOURTH. SHELL PAID ALL LEGAL COSTS AND JOHN DONOVAN RECEIVED A SECRET PAYMENT AS PART OF THE SETTLEMENT WHICH WAS NOT DISCLOSED TO THE TRIAL JUDGE. THE PAYMENT MADE BY SHELL TO THE SOLICITORS ACTING FOR JOHN DONOVAN WAS APPROVED BY SHELL CHAIRMAN, MARK MOODY-STUART, THE HUSBAND OF JUDY MOODY-STUART, WHO HAD PERSONALLY INTERVENED IN THE SAGA. SHELL SETTLED SEVEN COURT ACTIONS INCLUDING TWO FOR LIBEL BROUGHT BY THE DONOVANS. SHELL ALSO LOST THE WIPO ACTION BROUGHT AGAINST ALFRED DONOVAN BY SHELL INTERNATIONAL. SHELL HAS NOT WON A SINGLE CASE AGAINST THE DONOVANS