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Latest on Tue, 09:09 pm: This is amazing. This story is getting exactly zero coverage in the mainstream press of the United States. While I am not exactly surprised it is just one more incidence of keeping Americans ignorant of the true nature of the oil world. Thanks for your efforts to inform and educate. All the best. (ASSUME THIS COMMENT BY SAMOU RELATES TO THE SHELL TOX STORY)
: Executive pay. Dear Anon, I happen to have been around when Linda Cook was the token woman in Shell. Let me tell you one more time: she did NOT make any clever decisions. She behaved like a czarina. Her meetings were something to be seen, she had more testosterone and hate in herself than most other male directors. Her presentations where completely pre-cooked. Never seen so many yellow stickers on the plastic viewgraphs. She did all the management things that she read in a management book: walking up and down in front of the audience. Smiling all the time. Not wanting to be interrupted with questions since this would disturb the flow. And every question was answered with ' that is a very good question but unfortunately I cannot answer it now since I did not read the plan (or some other lame excuse). And when she got stuck, up popped Lew Watts or another slave of hers and answered it eloquently. And then the time was up and she had to leave. Busy, busy, busy. I would not be surprised if she shagged Phil Watts, they were never more than a few meters apart and adored each other. I asked many americans who knew her career in the US what was so special. There has been zero response, they simply did not know. She did make a promise (which was broken of course) that exploration costs would remain low forever and EP would grow forever. This is what Phil Watts (sorry, SIR Philip) wanted to hear. She was simply a social climber, making full use of the fact that Shell wanted some token women. All clever work was done by others, she just did not have the brain to do it. And nice projects you mention, both came in 4-6x the projected cost and are only saved by the high oilprice..... Good riddance of her, bonus for the guys who decided she had to go.
: Marvin Odum has consistently had one of the worst safety records in Shell. How does he continue to get by ? Firing your Health, Safety and Environment Managers does not fix the safety culture, nor does "making a scene" when folks do not use handrails on the way to the cafeteria. Good safety practices should be followed EVERYWHERE !
: One year on and I wonder how much longer Marvin will wait for his safety record to improve. Will Denise follow Libby?
: The oil companies are right to flare off gas - it's very cheap to do so. Apparently because it's cheap makes it right for them to right? A dictator was right to commit mass murder and plunder the economy because it was easy for him to? (I will resist all temptations to name you appropriately for making such a nonsensical argument). I find your line of reasoning absurd: The people of the Niger delta asked for it by welcoming Alamaesigha in their number? What has that got to do with anything? I agree that the people of the Niger Delta are responsible mostly for what is going on now. The major misfortune of the Niger Delta is the failure of its present leaders and those of it's recent past. Here are some things to consider: They were conveniently ignored during the decades of Scholarships Abroad from FG (believe me, there were a multitude of school cert holders who were willing but who had to make do with little jobs in Lagos). The culture of Looking out for your tribal brother didn't help the idea of federalism. What I am trying to say is that the level of illiteracy in the Niger delta hasn't been entirely without cause. Try to think Here is really the question I want to ask: Is it the responsibility of the Niger Delta citizens to negotiate with oil companies issues about pollution, environmental regulations? Does the government not owe that duty of care? Isn't it the government's duty to insist on cleaner technology? If the Niger delta is expected to take care of itself in this sense, shouldn't it as well be self governing? I know fully well that The Federal Government will rather have the oil companies pay the fat penalty for not meeting up to standard, which also is cheaper for the company which would rather not invest in costly cleaner technology. Lastly: There are no affirmation actions or free rides to Federal universities for people of the Niger delta. No such things exist. Scholarships are being claimed and used. And the universities there are flooded with students, as badly maintained as they may be.I wish we had time for facts, numbers, so we are more empirical instead of all the unnecessary emotion. I am not denying the senselessness of the Niger delta politician (thieves all of them). Or that illiteracy is rife and poverty too. Nice breeding ground for crime, gangs etc. Niger delta people need to get off their lazy asses and stop crying victim. Yar'adua needs to know what he is doing. And you need to try to understand first. We all the need to ask the right questions before we can get right answers. Else we all end up with wayward results. Plus Ken Saro-Wiwa was something of a literary giant and intellectual. Many young people of the Niger Delta will join that list. You watch and see.
: i want to thank everyone of you who has been iettresend in this our struggle with shell.i want to say it here that we are not only demanding these that is already on the news but i want to personally see that shell nigeria and international is brought to an international court to bring shell to justice and make them pay for the destruction of our ecosystem.gas flaring,Oil spills and every other environment pollution due to their oil exploration and exploitation we need help and all the links to take shell to court especial a court in the USA..as shell has been made to pay the ogonis so i did want shell to pay us .your support and links will help us to take shell to court in a foreign..shell dont obey court rulings in nigeria this is why we desire to have them prosecuted in a court in the US if you are willing to help us in this please feel free to contact me.PASTOR RANAMI AFAGHA.EMAIL:pastorranami@aol.com PHONE: +2348083743386, +2347061127571.THANKS
: It is totally uelvbienable that a world highly respected organisation such as the UNEP could collude with Shell and the Nigerian government to condemn the natural owners of the resources that has sustained the country for over 50 years. I think that Mr Mike Cowing should re-examine his position rather than planning to take more money from Shell and the Nigerian government to do the remediation work. The UNEP claim with destroy stakeholder trust instead of building good relationship with the communities that has been persecuted for their resources. The Ogoni people are calling on the international community and all people of goodwill to come to their aid to stop their being stigmatised as polluters of their own environment. Oil operation started in the Ogoni area in about 1956 and the campaign that Mr Ken Saro-Wiwa wages against oil pollution could not have been caused by Ogoni people. the so-called oil bunkering started only about 5 years ago and every investigation carried out by Ogonis and the authorities have revealed that these bunkerings are supported by the same cabal who have always being in-charge of spending or mis-managing the national resources.
: I doubt the letter is genuine. The excerpts that were published makes it sound as though it was written by an activist group. Shell employs thousands of people in Nigeria, and it is unlikely that the only people who know the truths as to what Shell is doing in Nigeria are a few activist groups, Shell’s brutal management elite, and nobody else.
: So the title of this somewhat misleading article (“Shell admits funding Niger Delta warlords”) was NOT made by you but by Ben Amunwa? REPLY BY JOHN: The headline came with the article. It was not made by me. Just click on "SOURCE".
: “Shell admits funding Niger Delta warlords” – yet again this is tabloid titillation Donovan and not what Sunmonu said!! All he states (in your reprinted article) is prefaced by “could have”. Yet again an expansion of the facts to suit the objective of this website. As an add on Donovan, I am sure you (and probably a large percentage of the UK population) have inadvertently contributed in some way to causes that are illegal, dodgy or unliked. By using the word “could have” the person is being honest and realistic. Your reporting at times with these tabloid add-ons is not honest. REPLY BY JOHN: You see to be getting over-excited again. I am not the author of the article in question. I have not changed a single word of what the author stated. I have not added a single word to the article. Only a link to a related article. The author is careful in what he has stated and provided links to a video containing what he describes as an "admission". Visitors are able to watch the video and draw their own conclusions.
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on May 22nd, 2012 at 21:09
This is amazing. This story is getting exactly zero coverage in the mainstream press of the United States. While I am not exactly surprised it is just one more incidence of keeping Americans ignorant of the true nature of the oil world. Thanks for your efforts to inform and educate. All the best. (ASSUME THIS COMMENT BY SAMOU RELATES TO THE SHELL TOX STORY)
on May 22nd, 2012 at 15:13
Executive pay. Dear Anon, I happen to have been around when Linda Cook was the token woman in Shell. Let me tell you one more time: she did NOT make any clever decisions. She behaved like a czarina. Her meetings were something to be seen, she had more testosterone and hate in herself than most other male directors. Her presentations where completely pre-cooked. Never seen so many yellow stickers on the plastic viewgraphs. She did all the management things that she read in a management book: walking up and down in front of the audience. Smiling all the time. Not wanting to be interrupted with questions since this would disturb the flow. And every question was answered with ‘ that is a very good question but unfortunately I cannot answer it now since I did not read the plan (or some other lame excuse). And when she got stuck, up popped Lew Watts or another slave of hers and answered it eloquently. And then the time was up and she had to leave. Busy, busy, busy. I would not be surprised if she shagged Phil Watts, they were never more than a few meters apart and adored each other.
I asked many americans who knew her career in the US what was so special. There has been zero response, they simply did not know. She did make a promise (which was broken of course) that exploration costs would remain low forever and EP would grow forever. This is what Phil Watts (sorry, SIR Philip) wanted to hear.
She was simply a social climber, making full use of the fact that Shell wanted some token women. All clever work was done by others, she just did not have the brain to do it. And nice projects you mention, both came in 4-6x the projected cost and are only saved by the high oilprice…..
Good riddance of her, bonus for the guys who decided she had to go.
on May 21st, 2012 at 16:41
Marvin Odum has consistently had one of the worst safety records in Shell. How does he continue to get by ? Firing your Health, Safety and Environment Managers does not fix the safety culture, nor does “making a scene” when folks do not use handrails on the way to the cafeteria. Good safety practices should be followed EVERYWHERE !
on May 17th, 2012 at 11:57
One year on and I wonder how much longer Marvin will wait for his safety record to improve.
Will Denise follow Libby?
on May 7th, 2012 at 05:31
The oil companies are right to flare off gas – it’s very cheap to do so. Apparently because it’s cheap makes it right for them to right? A dictator was right to commit mass murder and plunder the economy because it was easy for him to? (I will resist all temptations to name you appropriately for making such a nonsensical argument). I find your line of reasoning absurd: The people of the Niger delta asked for it by welcoming Alamaesigha in their number? What has that got to do with anything? I agree that the people of the Niger Delta are responsible mostly for what is going on now. The major misfortune of the Niger Delta is the failure of its present leaders and those of it’s recent past. Here are some things to consider: They were conveniently ignored during the decades of Scholarships Abroad from FG (believe me, there were a multitude of school cert holders who were willing but who had to make do with little jobs in Lagos). The culture of Looking out for your tribal brother didn’t help the idea of federalism. What I am trying to say is that the level of illiteracy in the Niger delta hasn’t been entirely without cause. Try to think Here is really the question I want to ask: Is it the responsibility of the Niger Delta citizens to negotiate with oil companies issues about pollution, environmental regulations? Does the government not owe that duty of care? Isn’t it the government’s duty to insist on cleaner technology? If the Niger delta is expected to take care of itself in this sense, shouldn’t it as well be self governing? I know fully well that The Federal Government will rather have the oil companies pay the fat penalty for not meeting up to standard, which also is cheaper for the company which would rather not invest in costly cleaner technology. Lastly: There are no affirmation actions or free rides to Federal universities for people of the Niger delta. No such things exist. Scholarships are being claimed and used. And the universities there are flooded with students, as badly maintained as they may be.I wish we had time for facts, numbers, so we are more empirical instead of all the unnecessary emotion. I am not denying the senselessness of the Niger delta politician (thieves all of them). Or that illiteracy is rife and poverty too. Nice breeding ground for crime, gangs etc. Niger delta people need to get off their lazy asses and stop crying victim. Yar’adua needs to know what he is doing. And you need to try to understand first. We all the need to ask the right questions before we can get right answers. Else we all end up with wayward results. Plus Ken Saro-Wiwa was something of a literary giant and intellectual. Many young people of the Niger Delta will join that list. You watch and see.
on May 7th, 2012 at 05:15
i want to thank everyone of you who has been iettresend in this our struggle with shell.i want to say it here that we are not only demanding these that is already on the news but i want to personally see that shell nigeria and international is brought to an international court to bring shell to justice and make them pay for the destruction of our ecosystem.gas flaring,Oil spills and every other environment pollution due to their oil exploration and exploitation we need help and all the links to take shell to court especial a court in the USA..as shell has been made to pay the ogonis so i did want shell to pay us .your support and links will help us to take shell to court in a foreign..shell dont obey court rulings in nigeria this is why we desire to have them prosecuted in a court in the US if you are willing to help us in this please feel free to contact me.PASTOR RANAMI AFAGHA.EMAIL:pastorranami@aol.com PHONE: +2348083743386, +2347061127571.THANKS
on May 6th, 2012 at 20:33
It is totally uelvbienable that a world highly respected organisation such as the UNEP could collude with Shell and the Nigerian government to condemn the natural owners of the resources that has sustained the country for over 50 years. I think that Mr Mike Cowing should re-examine his position rather than planning to take more money from Shell and the Nigerian government to do the remediation work. The UNEP claim with destroy stakeholder trust instead of building good relationship with the communities that has been persecuted for their resources. The Ogoni people are calling on the international community and all people of goodwill to come to their aid to stop their being stigmatised as polluters of their own environment. Oil operation started in the Ogoni area in about 1956 and the campaign that Mr Ken Saro-Wiwa wages against oil pollution could not have been caused by Ogoni people. the so-called oil bunkering started only about 5 years ago and every investigation carried out by Ogonis and the authorities have revealed that these bunkerings are supported by the same cabal who have always being in-charge of spending or mis-managing the national resources.
on May 6th, 2012 at 16:43
I doubt the letter is genuine. The excerpts that were published makes it sound as though it was written by an activist group. Shell employs thousands of people in Nigeria, and it is unlikely that the only people who know the truths as to what Shell is doing in Nigeria are a few activist groups, Shell’s brutal management elite, and nobody else.
on May 6th, 2012 at 11:55
So the title of this somewhat misleading article (“Shell admits funding Niger Delta warlords”) was NOT made by you but by Ben Amunwa? REPLY BY JOHN: The headline came with the article. It was not made by me. Just click on “SOURCE”.
on May 5th, 2012 at 17:11
“Shell admits funding Niger Delta warlords” – yet again this is tabloid titillation Donovan and not what Sunmonu said!! All he states (in your reprinted article) is prefaced by “could have”. Yet again an expansion of the facts to suit the objective of this website. As an add on Donovan, I am sure you (and probably a large percentage of the UK population) have inadvertently contributed in some way to causes that are illegal, dodgy or unliked. By using the word “could have” the person is being honest and realistic. Your reporting at times with these tabloid add-ons is not honest. REPLY BY JOHN: You see to be getting over-excited again. I am not the author of the article in question. I have not changed a single word of what the author stated. I have not added a single word to the article. Only a link to a related article. The author is careful in what he has stated and provided links to a video containing what he describes as an “admission”. Visitors are able to watch the video and draw their own conclusions.
on May 4th, 2012 at 16:52
On the IT reorganisation of 2004. It would be nice to hear from some insider whether the huge IT reorganisation (or was it change for the sake of change) in 2004 and beyond has achieved what it set out to do and if not, what lessons were learned? I have the suspicion that it all turned out much more costly and did not achieve its objectives. It did create a lot of pain with the IT staff involved and the benefits for the business were not too clear. I seem to remember there was a lot of management speak and the leading lights of that day presumably have looked after themselves and moved on, leaving a mess behind.
on May 3rd, 2012 at 16:36
Rumour has it that Shell Canada is planning to sell Retail unit
on Apr 20th, 2012 at 00:17
Nice John, just another attack – you stick your neck out the way you do and people will respond. Do you see us running a hate Donovan website ??- we certainly have enough reason and material too, but we do not. Enjoy your hatefull life, I can not imagine letting unjustified hate run my life. REPLY BY JOHN: Glad to see that you are still paying attention. If you set up a Hate Donovan website will it be presented in your own name, so that you take legal responsibly for what you publish, as I do, or will you still hide behind an alias? For the record, I don’t hate anyone or any company. I am simply campaigning for Royal Dutch Shell executives to act at all times in accordance with Shell General Business Principles which include the claimed core principles of honesty, integrity, openness and respect for people in all of Shell’s dealings. This is surely not an unreasonable ambition given that the principles were devised by Shell, are promoted by Shell and are supposedly current and binding on all Shell operations everywhere. In other words, we are only asking Shell executives to do what they already claim to be doing. The SGBP is being used as a PR tool to promote undeserved confidence in the scruples and honesty of Shell senior management. For example, the SGBP featured in the Form 20F Declarations filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission thereby generating confidence in the proven reserves volumes which had been inflated i.e. were false.
While Shell execs continue to make pledges of ethical trading which they flout, we will continue our humble efforts to expose their hypocrisy.
on Apr 19th, 2012 at 13:43
Hmmm. Seems like Donovan has accepted defeat and now doesn’t want me to make any further comments on this biased site. Heh ho his loss. REPLY BY JOHN: Visitors can read my responses to your recent postings and decide for themselves if I have conceded defeat as you claim. I have told you before that your postings are welcome because they provide some balance. The same applies to USCitizen, the other unofficial spokesperson for Shell. If you choose to make a personal attack on me, then I will point out that it is a cowardly act on your part when hiding behind an alias. Something I have never done. You said that I had tried to stick the murder of Neil Heywood onto Shell. That allegation was completely false and you are self-evidently not enough of a gentleman to withdraw the allegation. As to this site being biased, it certainly is towards pressing Shell management to act at all times in accordance with Shell’s own Statement of General Principles, pledging honesty, integrity, transparency ect in all of Shell’s dealings. If Shell management had done so, it would not have been responsible for so many scandals, including the reserves securities fraud when Shell was found guilty of market abuse and received massive fines from the US Securities & Exchange Commission and the UK Financial Services Authority.
on Apr 16th, 2012 at 07:57
Not hysterical or a troll just sometimes fed up with the tabloid “reporting” you make with innuendos, titilation and insertions with the word “Shell” highlighted to try and make the reader believe Shell are full-on involved. Why do people that disagree with such reporting have to be trolls? Seems that most of the hysteria on this site is generated by its owner!! REPLY BY JOHN: You make personal comments about me hiding behind an alias. Comments that you do not have the courage to make under your real name. With regards to this particular story involving corruption, I have never accused Shell of being implicated in the murder of Neil Heywood. I have had an acrimonious relationship with Shell for nearly two decades and have seen the dark side of the company. I do not believe that the current (or any recent) Shell management would have anything to do with murder. Shell does however have a track record of getting involved in corruption in host countries e.g. paying a $48m fine for corruption in Nigeria. Also sponsorship of sex, drugs, gifts fueled corruption of USA regulatory authority employees. It has a track record of close association with Hakluyt, the sometime employer of Neil Heywood. It has used Hakluyt for undercover operations on an International basis. Shell is still a client of Hakluyt. Shell’s global head of security returned to Hakluyt not long ago. Shell also has a track record of infiltrating agents into the governments of host countries e.g. Nigeria. Shell has done business with the China National Petroleum Corporation, which until this scandal broke, was under the control/influence of the faction mired in the corruption scandal. It seems likely therefore that it has done business with the faction accused of corruption. It does seem reasonable, given Shell’s track record of getting involved in intrigue and corruption in host counties to put the questions I have to Shell about any possible connection with the unfolding events in China. Remember Shell preaches openness, but for some reason is tight-lipped on this subject. Why? One final comment to LondonLad. You knew full-well that your comments would generate further focus on this “tabloid” story. My guess is that Shell management would prefer for you to refrain from comment on this subject.
on Apr 14th, 2012 at 18:36
Why don’t you start writing a new series for the X-Files for TV Donovan? With your ability at trying to stick all sorts of crime on Shell (e.g. the murder in China of Neil Heywood) fiction seems just right for you!! REPLY BY JOHN: LondonLad, you seem to be turning into a hysterical troll, making nasty comments and an outright false allegation all directed at me personally while hiding behind an alias. Please point out where I have alleged that Shell is implicated in the apparent murder of Neil Heywood? I put legitimate questions to Shell based on the background facts, as stated in the articles I published. If Shell had replied to my first email giving a categorical denial of any connection with Heywood/Hakluyt in relation to Shell’s activities/plans in China, that would have been an immediate end to the matter as far as I am concerned. I have no idea why Shell has treated this as a taboo subject instead of responding as it has many times in the past and did so on two other matters I raised in correspondence at about the same time, replying on one occasion when no response had been requested. One final important point: Shell’s name had already been brought into this matter by the news media before I published my first article.
on Apr 9th, 2012 at 05:35
motivawatcher: You’re absolutely right, the Motiva guys and gals that got the big fat bonuses were the happy bunch, especially those who were secretly approached by their manager and asked would they accept a severance package if one was offered before it officially came out. The severance program was not suppose to be a volunteer program, but some managers conveniently rated some people low or redundant so they could receive a severance package. This information was leaked out by several of the folks that received a severance package.
on Apr 8th, 2012 at 10:20
oldwhitemale: and what about all the Motiva guys and gals that got big fat bonuses?? Seem to be a happy bunch but nobody mentions that.
on Apr 5th, 2012 at 02:56
sure will be interesting to see how far a lawsuit against Shell for age discrimination goes! i say: not gonna happen.
on Mar 26th, 2012 at 05:12
Motivawatcher, I recently read on this website about the employee at Motiva Port Arthur who has a pending lawsuit against Motiva Port Arthur for age discrimination. I
on Mar 25th, 2012 at 09:50
Motiva staff (at least some) seem to a bunch of whingers. Get a life and do some decent work for a change.
on Mar 23rd, 2012 at 16:51
Oldwhitemale,
Actually spoke to this person last week about the lawsuit. Motiva tried to get it thrown out but they were not that lucky. A trial date has been set by the court for sometimes at the end of the year, and he is not backing down. From what he was telling me the company does not have a leg to stand on. Joey D did so many crooked things that I would not be surprised if more lawsuits start appearing.
on Mar 23rd, 2012 at 08:20
To Outsider: these eco-activists are not the public opinion, they try to influence the public opinion to their side. That is exactly what happened with Brent Spar – if Greenpeace would have gotten their facts right and understood upfront that the proposed solution was the best one for the environment overall, they would not have created a fuss and Shell would not have been in the horrible situation they were in… The eco-activists, but also all other types of such movements (anti-globalists etc.) sell 1 product – fear & distrust. And if a couple of truths have to be killed to achieve this, then that is “just” collateral damage. I do not say that Shell or any other large corporation is better than this, but what insults my brain is that these eco-warriors claim the moral high ground while in reality they are at best just the same as the corporations…
on Mar 22nd, 2012 at 23:17
I agree that Carol Pierson needs to check her facts – for an environmentalist she seems remarkably ill informed. However, even if the environmental activists may not have all of their facts 100% correct, they are no less guilty of spinning the news and holding politicians to ransom than Shell. Shell may have been right about Brent Spar from a purely technical/economic perspective, but they were horribly wrong in their assessment of the public’s reaction to the idea of simply dumping the platform in mid Atlantic. The environmentalists knew exactly what they were doing, and in contrast to Shell were completely in tune with public sentiment.
on Mar 22nd, 2012 at 16:49
This latest article from Carol Pierson again clearly exposes how the treehugging community does not base its actions on facts nor does the effort to get a good understanding of them first… Some examples: 1) there are no penguins in the Artic, they only live on/close to Antarctica. 2) there was no Shell CEO named James Smith – if I recall correct there was someone with that name in Shell holding the position of UK Countrychair. 3). Shell is not suing anyone, as far as I understand they are asking the court for confirmation that due process was followed and that people/organisations that dispute have to come forward now and not at the last minute – of course the treehuggers are upset that they apparently are outsmarted and the legal system is used so they can’t abuse it… 4) reference is made to the Brent Spar case but nowhere is mentioned that Greenpeace in the end had to admit that the initial Shell-proposed solution was the best – technically and environmentally. but as was proven not from public opinion point of view.
I am not here to blindly defend Shell, although I work for the company in a technical position outside the USA. My post has nothing to do to defend whether or not Shell should be allowed to drill (I have my opinion on that one though), but to expose the sneaky way the treehugging community is waging their war (they call it relentless activism..). Even during my student days several years ago I got upset with this way of influencing the public opinion with lies/cheats/half-truths by the treehugging community. I was active in one for some years in my highschool time and I can tell that they are just a business as Shell is. They don’t do it for the betterment of all, as they claim constantly, but just to proof their existence and ability to keep themselves employed with salaries paid from the donations they get… Michael Crichton wrote a book about this “business” – he is not far from the truth how he portrays.
on Mar 22nd, 2012 at 12:02
If anyone is counting, power outage #3 in the past few weeks happened again for the motiva port arthur facility. Tom, why aren’t you adressing this? or are you too busy with getting feed in to the new refinery so you can get off the clock? It’s a shame that we are starting this new refinery up with a flat tire. Hilton, are you counting how many times we are in the flare?
on Mar 19th, 2012 at 16:04
“You self-evidently decided against commenting and have only done so now after being cornered. If you have done nothing wrong, why not reveal your identity so that your admitted track record of accepting valuable gifts from vendors can be investigated?”
I had not seen it, correct. I am flattered that you used my comments. I did not comment because there is nothing to comment on, my orginal posts speak for themeselves. Do not have any energy to debate with someone who does not listen and use rational thoughts. You are beyond hope with your blind bias.
PS – you just do not understand executive compenesation so, enough there, you are wrong, but can not see it. Later , done with this conversation #losingbattle
REPLY BY JOHN: As I said in the article, I believe you are sincere in your views about Shell Motiva managers accepting gifts from vendors. You do not, as I do, consider it to be a slippery slope. On the other subject, you are right in saying that I do not understand executive compensation. It is a mystery to me how some execs get away with colossal sums e.g. the reported $400 MILLION package for Lee Raymond on his retirement from ExxonMobil. He was not even a founder of a company, just an grotesquely overpaid employee.
on Mar 18th, 2012 at 03:04
Londonlad, Ogonis will not get justice in Nigeria or any other part of Africa. In short, such law as the ATS isn’t anywhere in Africa. In Nigeria, $hell controls everything that has to do with its interests. It will use its fiat to stop the case as it’s tried many times in USA. The govt is a conspirator, so will not allow the case proceed. So what’s wrong with using the law provided in USA, which foresaw such crimes as $hell’s? Also, be informed that Ogonis didn’t even know they’re going to sue $hell when they (we) arrived USA. When the ATS presented itself ten years ago (2002)we applied it. American lawyers helped and still helping us. Importantly, where there’s law there’s justice, so we are seeking it. Greed, as synonymous with the Nigerian state and $hell isn’t the foundation of our suit. Holding $hell accountable so corporation will change the way they do business in the so-called Third World, is the reason we’re in court. Yes, we didn’t sue $hell because we want money. Rather what we want and will always ask for is justice. Note also that Ogonis are far different from other Nigerians. On the one hand Ogonis are distinct in language,culture, landmass and territory. On another hand, we don’t have the luxury to extract or benefit from our oil and gas. So corruption, which isn’t synonymous with one group alone, but all peoples isn’t prevalent in Ogoni society. Also, Ogoni don’t have a state nor had the position of governor of Rivers State, where we are located (as our national location) not by treaty but by British colonial imposition because we’re forced into the Nigerian contraption. The few Ogoni politicians may have tasted corruption, but not without National/state government, party approval. In short, they’re caught up in the corrupt Nigeria system. Our fate in America is, however, different from other Nigerians, as Ogoni is, of course, different from other Nigerians.
on Mar 16th, 2012 at 19:42
Interested to read that Greenpeace (they who overestimated the Brent Spar oil volumes!!) have boarded a Shell contracted icebreaker in Helsinki. Wonder how they got there
on Mar 16th, 2012 at 18:57
Salary $2.06
Bonus $2.40
Other $5.27 mil
Stock Gains NA
Total Compensation $9.735 mil
Good lord John, how can you compare apples and oranges so badly. This does not include his long term stock options; Which Peters did.
Rex W Tillerson Ownership Of ExxonMobil
Industry Medians
Stock Owned (% Of Co) 0.03%
Stock Owned $129.1 mil This his total Stock ownership granted over several years. I did not see what each years breakdown was, but as you can see this is huge!! By the way it has gone up $70mm in two years, compare that!
Ps – Vosers base pay with bonuses and other compensation, not the long term stock grants comparable to Tillersons was 7.0 mm. Again – Apples to Apples is the Key john.
Ps – I just ignored your other posts – tickled pink that you exposed your self trying to compare my posts to taking bribes, any sane person will read those and laugh at you!!
REPLY BY JOHN: The total compensation of Tillerson in 2011 was $9.73 mil. The total compensation of Voser in 2011 was $16.3 mil. Straight-forward comparison. With regards to corruption at Shell/Motiva, I provided links so that readers could see for themselves your defence of the vendor sponsored freebies/bribes and draw their own conclusions. Guessed that you had read the article, as you now confirm. You self-evidently decided against commenting and have only done so now after being cornered. If you have done nothing wrong, why not reveal your identity so that your admitted track record of accepting valuable gifts from vendors can be investigated?
on Mar 15th, 2012 at 23:27
Good lord folks – at least do some homework, what was the Exxon CEO paid, have a clue? Over 2.5 times what the Shell CEO was paid, and historically has been 5-8 times what the Shell CEO is paid. Is Exxon 2.5 times or 5-8 times bigger than Shell. I thought not. Do not hurt your brains coming up with the your reply. Shell CEO pay is not the one you want to use for excess complaints, many many worse examples out there. What do you think they should be paid wise ones?? RELY BY JOHN: Voser received substantially more for the last year ($15m package approx) than Rex Tillerson at $9.73m . Surprised we did not receive any comment from you in regard to the article: “Alleged bribery and corruption at Shell Motiva“?
on Mar 13th, 2012 at 12:58
Nothing to attack Shell with so we now have to revrt to articles from 11 years ago!! Jeez, even the tabloids seldom stoop to these sort of levels of “jounalism”. REPLY BY JOHN: The Reuters article published yesterday referred to the spying by Hakluyt on behalf of Shell and BP, which was the subject of The Sunday Times article. Flattered of course to be equated with journalism when we are mere bloggers.
on Mar 12th, 2012 at 19:27
There was an interesting article and a link to documents describing a race discrimination lawsuit by a Motiva Norco operator a couple of weeks ago on this site. I can’t seem to find it anymore. It stated that an operator was terminated for breaking one of the life saving rules at the Motiva Norco Coker Unit. He was terminated by his supervisor Joey D. It went on to say that two black operators had broken the same life saving rules some time later and were not terminated by Joey D. The operator that was terminated was a white male. I guarantee that this will never make it to trial. They will settle out of court with a gag order. REPLY BY JOHN: Have now found the article you are seeking: Motiva refinery worker files discrimination lawsuit
on Mar 11th, 2012 at 05:23
With Malcolm B retiring, Andy B coming..lets hope there is good changes coming.
By the way , What is there to handover?
To Malcolm- Happy Retirement!! write a book- see who are your friends after you retire. Save the trips , let the business do their work.
Cronies of Malcolmn – Watch out – you are next.
To Andy- show us you mean real business, you are not another Fade. Clean up HR and IT, reorganise new businesses and exploration..there is so much wastes and fuzzy accountability.
on Mar 10th, 2012 at 12:37
Well Ben, some very fine words indeed. However, I think you have missed my point. The US are international bully boys and their legal system is there to make money as much as it is to attempt justice
on Mar 9th, 2012 at 05:29
Londonlad, Great name indeed! Ok. If $hell had committed the egregious crimes it committed in collaboration with Nigerian govt (against Ogonis)in your country (where ever it is), would you prefer the company go unpunished? If yes, good for you, but the law of crime, especially when the culprit is visible and unrepentant like $hell doesn’t apply if in a yes case as could be your position. If no, then you’d be speaking to why Ogonis are using this American law that helped to reduce the speed with which such crimes occurs. Keeping the law will checkmate greedy and deadly corps such as $hell.
on Mar 8th, 2012 at 12:01
As you can see, another power outage at Motiva Port Arthur. Going to really be interesting to watch this new albatross come up on rates and then have this 100 year old power supply keep shutting it down. Tom, why didn’t you fix the electrical system when you had the opportunity? Too busy counting your stock options I guess. Let Jeff do that for you and try to make a difference in your final days.
on Mar 6th, 2012 at 19:51
About time the American legal system did
on Mar 5th, 2012 at 08:37
With Brinded now gone, might CIO Alan Matula now come under scrutiny ? The parallels are there: years of over-promise/under-delivery, aggressive suppression of bad news, and the intimidation of critics through behaviour bordering on the psychopathic. There’s little doubt that the cost of Matula’s vanity projects is playing a significant role on the demise of Downstream, where businesses like Retail make margin on cans of Coke. It’s sad to see DS businesses being divested, but at least one can share their sense of relief as they leave Shell and start divesting themselves of all this junk.
on Mar 3rd, 2012 at 14:14
The article re Brinded and Nigeria on “why Shell can’t build a refinery in Nigeria” is comical. Though the justification is correct, the reality is Shell can’t build a refinery anywhere. Just look at our own Port Arthur project. Under Tom Purves’s leadership, this ill fated concept got hatched. Everyone was happy in the early days, taking Port Arthur back to the glory days. Alas, the cit leaders didn’t plan on Tom and the project team bringing global help in here via Bechtel to do the work and therefore not impact the locals nearly as much as what had been advertised. Now, some 2 years late on the commitment for start-up and a price tag that will ultimately grow to $14B, Shell might just as well say ” Forget Nigeria…we can’t build a refinery anywhere. ” Tom’s legacy goes down the toilet with this project. He would do well to retire and at least give our team half a chance to run it well.
By the way, for any that are watching…. Tom’s #2 boy, Forrest Lauher, aka Forrest Liar, resigned from Shell as Botts sent the anticipated note out yesterday. Forrest was in over his head from day 1 on this project, given to him by none other than Tom Purves. He lost control of the project and got removed back in 2009. Should have been fired. Instead he got saved and was placed in our plant manager seat. Again, couldn’t handle the top job and they pulled him last year. We can only wait for the notice on Tom’s #1 boy Funkhater and then ultimately Tom himself. 2012 is starting to be a great year!
on Mar 2nd, 2012 at 19:03
John, the EU oil sanctions don’t take effect until July, so I guess that Shell are in full compliance with the letter, if not the spirit, of the sanctions. And Shell will no doubt continue to buy as much oil as they can until the very last minute… REPLY BY JOHN: The US embargo of Iranian oil announced in December will come into effect on 28 June. It may not be wise of Shell to upset President Obama by continuing to buy Iranian crude in the meantime bearing in mind Shell’s plans to drill in the Arctic Ocean. Iran is a very hot topic with Obama this weekend. Shell would be well advised to also bear in mind that given the overall circumstances, many will view its conduct as immoral. Shell is well aware of how bad it looks, hence its furtive conduct.
on Feb 23rd, 2012 at 16:58
The quote from a named spokesman for Shell PR (quoted here, but also on Bloomberg and many other sites) that the directors had
on Feb 23rd, 2012 at 16:24
Oh dear oh dear. Now who are
on Feb 22nd, 2012 at 20:50
Good Riddance to Bully Boy Brinded! The biggest mierenneuker imaginable. A very nasty man, arrogant, conceited and a downright bully. Shell will do well without him. Stay off Network rail trains with Brinded on the Board!
on Feb 22nd, 2012 at 16:58
It appears that Voser finally got fed up with Mr Overpromise/Underdelivery. Despite all the nice words about him, he is clearly kicked out. Plenty of sycophants around him are now fearing for their jobs and positioning themselves whom to kow-tow now.
This bearded fellow wasted his great brain on very small details and he was unable to delegate. I think his only real good project was the SLIM project. This was many moons ago and launched him to the top jobs. And there he failed as frequently and eloquently pointed out on the Donovan site.
Big brain, a micromanager on par with the pointy haired boss in Dilbert, a vicious and vindictive attitude to those that were of no use to him or that might talk back.
In summary: Good riddance and now the legal system of Scotland can go after him. But I doubt they will.
on Feb 22nd, 2012 at 12:37
What goes around comes around…. The announcement of Brinded has long been anticipated. We now wait for the next much smaller announcement…. Tom Purves to retire….. This will make our day when that moment happens.
Shell never deals with the issue of bad leadership until it is too late and the havoc has been wreaked…. However, as we say in the US, Every dog has its day….. and today that was Malcolm.
on Feb 16th, 2012 at 21:43
So early retirement then after all that ……. REPLY BY JOHN D. You are still playing a point scoring game. You seem to forget that the avoidable deaths of Shell offshore workers on Brent Bravo is at the heart of this matter. The deaths occurred after a safety audit led by Bill Campbell exposed a shambolic, illegal and shameful safety regime on Brent Bravo. They occurred after Shell senior Expro management had promised Bill that Shell would bring an end to the “Touch F*** All” culture and the falsification of safety records. The explosion and record breaking fine provide proof that the promises were not kept. There is NO commercial aspect to this matter as far as Mr Campbell is concerned. He is driven solely by a fear of an even worse event due to the same policy by Shell of putting production and profits before the safety of offshore workers. Please give Bill some credit for his integrity and for his long campaign, which has rightly received cross-party support from many MP’s.
on Feb 16th, 2012 at 09:31
Agent provocateur indeed!! Never been called that before, and I am most certainly not in league with Shell in any way! I again reiterate my point : was Campbell fired or given early retirement from Shell and thereby lies his grudge or did he reach full retirement age in the company? An honest answer might convince many that his continuous aggressiveness against Shell is genuine or just an ongoing grudge. This is not a “slanging match” merely a point of clarification.
REPLY BY JOHN DONOVAN:
Mr Campbell has made it clear that he does not wish to get into discussion with someone making insulting comments while hiding behind an alias. With regards to his comment that you may be an agent provocateur, perhaps he gained that impression from checking your history of postings. Just so there is no misunderstanding, we welcome contributors who provide a counter-balance to negative postings about Shell. I have provided some links to further information about the Brent Bravo scandal. Despite all of the promises by Shell senior management about safety, which including appointing a safety Czar, its track record remains atrocious. Years after the Brent Bravo debacle, it was revealed that the lifeboats for a Shell North Sea platform were not seaworthy. You could not make it up.
on Feb 16th, 2012 at 09:11
LondonLad: In many cases “Reaching Retirement age” in Shell simply means being unable to find a position outside Shell -nowadays the most competent people generally move on long before reaching retirement age and pursue a second career elsewhere.
on Feb 15th, 2012 at 17:57
To : an observer of Shell, you state “It is commonly known that a great many employees of Shell Expro are freemasons”. Where did you get this “fact” from – smoking whacky backy?? I doubt very much that a great many are indeed freemasons. Even if they are (wich I seriously doubt), so what? Let’s face it they are a society that provide one of the largest contributions to charities in the UK. I think you very clearly have an axe to grind against Shell. In that context why does Campbell have such a chip on his shoulder over Shell? Was he sacked for some reason? Did he actually reach his retirement age in Shell? Would be nice to know so that we can believe more that his rants are genuine problems he has with Shell rather than caused by some hidden grudge.
on Feb 15th, 2012 at 03:57
GTW, I know you are right, TP and others will get their due. What is painful is that those whose lives have been changed and whose spirits have been destroyed because of his actions, will not be compensated. Tom is not the only one taking credit for this new cruel process of forced ranking, by claiming credit for what market demand has meant for profits. There are promotions taking place right now because credit is claimed by those executing Tom’s plan for performance ‘refirings’. I worked in manufacturing sites where management and performance was a joke, and profits were above forecast. It’s always been market demand and the hard work of the folks on the ground that make manufacturing successful, Tom is not a pioneer in taking undue credit for local successes, but he has certainly been the cruelest!
on Feb 14th, 2012 at 22:23
I have no proof nor will I ever find that proof, but this reprehensible conduct of the legal authorities smells to high heaven of masonic lodges. It is commonly known that a great many employees of Shell Expro are freemasons. The police forces all over the world are well presented in the various lodges. I would not be surprised if Brinded himself is a member.
Bill Campbell is a very courageous man taking on these evil forces. We in Shell all knew him to be a completely honest and competent Maintenance manager and HSE auditor. But he loses against all the parasites and sycophants whose sole job is to protect the directors. And then live well on the spoils of their abhorrent activities.
Top marks for the Donovans who keep this festering sore in the spotlight. To some it maybe a lot of repeating old stories, but those that want to hide and bury their bad actions know that time is on their side. And Shell has deep pockets and knows how to procrastinate.
on Feb 14th, 2012 at 11:03
John, there is no issue with my post. This is the same GTW that has been providing updates for some time on the ill fated project CEP and the ill fated Tom Purves, both of which should be going fading into the background this year as old worn out news.
on Feb 13th, 2012 at 09:21
I retract my previous statement. COMMENT BY JOHN DONOVAN: WE HAVE REASON TO SUSPECT THAT THIS POSTING IS NOT IN FACT FROM THE PARTY WHO USES THE ALIAS “GOLDENTRIANGLE WATCHMAN ON THIS BLOG, BUT IS FROM AN IMPOSTER.
on Feb 8th, 2012 at 12:12
With all of this money spent on the CEP expansion, it has been built on an old electrical infrastructure. I guess no one is counting how many times you read about a “short” electrical outage at the plant. Tom Purves and the Motiva leadership know exactly why this is happening and how to fix it. They don’t want to pay for it. They have been given the project and have turned it down at least twice. Meanwhile, we just keep having outages. Going ot be interesting when both refineries come down in the future.
on Feb 7th, 2012 at 15:54
LondonLad: the lack of stories concerning Shell should be welcomed, if it implies that Shell are cleaning up their act, perhaps due in part to the efforts of the Donovans.
on Feb 5th, 2012 at 18:49
US Observer, surely almost all (NOT all)contributors to this website have an axe to grind against Shell, particularly those who have a perception that they have been screwed by Shell in times gone by. As for Itchy Woman, she clearly has a femanistic / burn-the-bra approach to work in Shell. AND I would like to add that once again an old old article (from someone who has an axe to grind against Shell) has to be republished due to lack of news against Shell (I refer to Briggs 2009 article). COMMENT BY JOHN D. Would it not be fairer to say that everyone posting on this blog, including you, has an axe to grind. It is easy enough to look back over your contributions and reach a conclusion.
on Feb 4th, 2012 at 18:11
It is easy to figure out who Witchy Woman is (LC). She has an “ax to grind” and is using this forum
on Feb 4th, 2012 at 10:07
@uscitizen
Voser is a competent and amicable chap. You claim Shell has delivered on its deliverables. Let me tell you everyone delivers on their deliverable…. But joking apart, look at the promises over the years and how well Shell has delivered on these promises. Their trackrecord is not very good over the last 15 years or so. They are a good money making machine. And sofar they have delivered on their constant or increasing dividend payments. Sometimes by increasing their debt but they have done it. A nice high oilprice has helped, don’t you agree??
So my only observation was that his ‘promise’ to extend North Sea fields is quite opposite their activities in this area. And they have promised this before and done the opposite. It was a nice promise to build a new and expensive office in Aberdeen, more jobs for the UK and more activity and extending of production. Just check back what they have done.
And predicting future productionlevels by Shell in general and Brinded in particular is nothing but a sick joke.
on Feb 3rd, 2012 at 23:10
To – an observer of Shell
Shell has been delivering on its deliverables – why would you paint Voser as some one who is not??
on Feb 3rd, 2012 at 23:08
This was not a personal attack now was it Witchy one??
#133 Witchy woman
on May 8th, 2011 at 1:42 pm
Marvin Odum who probably has the worst safety record in Shell goes for a diversity vote and someone who has no safety experience to replace the VP of safety he just fired. Clear message where his priorities lie.
on Feb 3rd, 2012 at 23:06
Witchy Woman – you blase me for personal attacks???? That is so rich! I am defending people that are attacked if you had not noticed – and yes I do slam the folks who are throwing garbage out! Live with it!! Enjoy your retirement! Shell has a good retirement package in the US dont they??
on Feb 3rd, 2012 at 23:03
I feel the value of your posts is also minimal, just a complainer. PS – here is where you bash Denise – remember – or do we need to question your integrity the way folks question Shell leaders??
Witchy woman
on Dec 7th, 2011 at 12:35 pm
In GOM we thought that hurricane season was done. Why is Hurricane Denise causing so much damage then? Like all Hurricanes though they move on the professionals are left to pick up the pieces.
on Feb 3rd, 2012 at 17:03
According to the Independent article posted today the boss of Shell is telling us all not to get too emotional about fracking. Has he not seen the confirmation that fracking causes earthquakes? You have cited the Reuters article. There are others including coverage of a fracking earthquake in Blackpool England. I have to conclude that Voser is a fracking idiot.
on Feb 3rd, 2012 at 06:03
Good morning John. I read this morning in Barrons that Lynn Elsenhans is now the ex-ceo of Sunoco. The public announcement by Sunoco, here,
lists her accomplishments as selling assets, shutting down plants and getting out of businesses.
on Feb 3rd, 2012 at 00:16
US Citizen
Thank you for your unsolicited feedback. It was typically of zero value.
I think you need to learn how to read before commenting.
I don’t see any mention of Denise there, and as far as I am aware Deepwater would appoint the VP.
Typically you have it wrong again and incidentally the new appointment is great. If it was Denise, she did well.
Maybe its about time you left as you contribute little apart from personal attacks.
on Feb 2nd, 2012 at 14:02
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?”
on Feb 1st, 2012 at 12:33
US Citizen, you are probably right. I expect it will be higher than the $10b I shared. Everyone over there knows that Motiva has had a spinfest on the information. Contractors have been told to shut up and not report the facts. That is what happens when the Tom Purves came back and took over. Everybody knows it. You are a suck up and everyone knows that too. I’m glad that you remain oblivious, even to the day that Shell reaches up and drops you over the cliff like they have done so many in the last several years. Shell….good people and crappy leadership. We all know it!
PS… Stay tuned for the Purves retirement announcement coming soon to a garbage can near you!!
on Feb 1st, 2012 at 01:00
Uncle Tom – your data on CEP at Port Arthur costs is wrong – so stop spreading lies. Just quit if you are that unhappy.
on Feb 1st, 2012 at 00:56
To Witchy Woman – get off the Denise Rants. She is a very talented hard working woman of integrity. Not every HSSE position needs to be filled by HSSE career folks. In fact – folks with line experience, which she has, are in a very good place to lead HSSE organizations. I did and did just fine. You are just an unhappy person who is mad you or yours did not get that job, give it up and let the biased outsiders do their shell bashing, not shell people who are simply bitter at their lot and should realize how darn lucky they are. Or – please quit and become a shell outsider – might help us both out.
on Jan 31st, 2012 at 19:19
Having read that the former RBS-CEO, Fred Goodwin, has been stripped of his knighthood by UK authorities. Makes you wonder if and when Sir Phil Watts will stripped of his one. No doubt Phil’s selfish behaviour at the helm of Shell did more harm to the industry and private investors than Fred.
on Jan 30th, 2012 at 02:42
Are there cases where UK employment lawyers have won against shell? REPLY BY JOHN DONOVAN: Don’t have knowledge of any such case, but I recommend you to a lawyer who has sued Shell many times on our behalf. Four High Court cases for IP theft and breach of contract. Two for libel. All settled by Shell with damages and all legal costs paid. The lawyer is Richard Woodman, a partner at Royds Solicitors, 65 Carter Lane London EC4V 5HF Tel: 020 7583 2222. Richard knows Shell well and all of the tricks of their legal department. Richard is head of Royds Employment Department and specialises in all aspects of employment law. He was recommended to me and turned out to be a great asset and kind friend in our years of successive legal battles with Shell. Thanks in great part to his dedication and expertise, we never lost a single case against Shell. Also had a great barrister team led by Geoffrey Cox MP QC, a courtroom orator who verbally bashed in open court a High Court judge who was blatantly biased in favour of Shell. Judge forgot to declare that his life long friend had Shell as a client. The judge also had an undeclared commercial connection with Tom Moody-Stuart, the barrister son of Sir Mark Moody-Stuart, the then Shell Chairman. By coincidence, or otherwise, the Judge shocked the legal world by unexpectedly resigning after we had made a formal complaint to the Lord Chancellor. The Judge joined the aforementioned friends company, which worked for Shell. Apologies for rambling on.
on Jan 29th, 2012 at 17:38
I hope we get an SE/SD professional as the new VP of Deepwater SE/SD and not another import to a senior position.
on Jan 28th, 2012 at 18:19
Old Timer – 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. REPLY BY JOHN DONOVAN: You are entitled to your view. Considerably more evidence is being accumulated as a result of many newspaper archives from Europe and the USA, and books as far back as the 1930?s, all being made available and searchable online. In a few months time, we will publish all of the additional evidence. Those who are interested will be free to read it. The evidence is overwhelming. It includes information and documents from Shell
on Jan 27th, 2012 at 13:14
John
Great stuff to re-post some historical events in Shell. It shows that your network has mostly been spot-on predicting what was wrong and what would happen.
It also shows how long a big company can continue on a substandard level and still do reasonably well. Could it be that a high oilprice has helped a bit?
I remember that evil Watts still very well. He has gone completely silent the last few years, exactly what can be expected of a small minded man. Presumably he is working his Japanese garden and repenting in his home church, trying to buy absolution and still hoping not to go to hell but instead a very long time in the purgatory…. I fear in vain!
It would be also be nice if you could dig out some old records in which the man with the facial hair (aka Mr TFA) has been promising increasing production levels and if I am not mistaken, he even projected more than 6 million bopd to be reached about now. But he never delivered and still is on seat!! He has been at it for some 15 yrs or more by now. In the past we learned faster in Shell but then there was less fear and more decent people at the top.
Keep the good work up!
on Jan 23rd, 2012 at 14:22
SHELL EXPECT US: REPLY TO WILLIAM TELL BY JOHN DONOVAN. We have exchanged email correspondence with you. As I believe I have pointed out to you previously, if you supply any Shell internal emails, we would insist on giving Shell sight of the emails before publication of the emails or any related information. It is our normal practice to give Shell the opportunity to comment on authenticity unless the information comes from a trusted source.
on Jan 18th, 2012 at 17:46
Well, well – if anyone wishes to get a flavour of what is possible in the wild west of Ireland I suggest you watch the wonderful John Michael 2011 film “The Guard” starring Brendan Gleeson. Anything & everything is possible out there.
on Jan 6th, 2012 at 11:56
Are we to understand that the violent conduct we witnessed on Irish newsreel shots from Corrib in Mayo were fueled by Shell supplied alcohol to Irish policemen …tell me no …innocent decent people protecting their homes
on Jan 6th, 2012 at 11:40
John saw your reply it all happend ok problem is the Hague is now in charge of the situation all Irish corrib staff have been silenced four people have been let go over their part any one who speaks or produces evidence will suffer big time the cops who got the booze are watching from the sideline also in silence hoping for a clean outcome . If it was all exposed the project be stopped that came from the horses mouth Shell .
on Jan 6th, 2012 at 10:38
I am ashamed by the conduct of Shell HR in the Anti Discrimination case. As a company we should honour these issues. The mentioned HR rep (Van Barlingen) in the article did much more damage to Shell’s reputation by her cold reply and non-action.
I truly hope that senior HR management will overrule this decision and decide in favour of Mr Gatti.
on Jan 6th, 2012 at 09:16
Mr Donovan are you aware that a one thousand euro reward is on offer in Mayo for the name of the supplier of large amounts of alcohol to local Garda on behalf of Roadbridge Shell. REPLY BY JOHN DONOVAN: I have seen the various allegations and comments posted here, but no evidence. If anyone has any evidence to support these allegations, please sent it to me: john@shellnews.net
on Jan 5th, 2012 at 12:04
Still criminal offence to bribe Gardai Rb who supplied it? next you will say you didn’t pay for home improvements or will you ?
on Jan 5th, 2012 at 11:12
Roadbridge supplied no booze to Garda on Corrib others supplied it Roadbridge were told to pay for it get your facts right jp
on Jan 4th, 2012 at 23:47
Corrib Project comments from G Hamilton not correct Roadbridge Shell main contractor supplied large amounts of booze to police protecting the project now the press have a hold of the story and panic has set in….oh what a tangled web we weave when first …etc ect
on Jan 4th, 2012 at 23:18
Roadbridge Shell main contractor supplied booze in large quantities to cops on the corrib frontline now cops in a panic because press have a sniff of it cops not pleased with Shell
on Jan 4th, 2012 at 19:42
In in response to George Hamilton, Shell Corrib have bigger problems than Gardai gifts. The lead project planners RPS have informed Shell that every land owner agreement they have could be deemed to be invalid because certain landowners got special disguised extra payments by way of cash, home improvements..etc… whilst the rest got the bare minimum for access to there land. The Irish Shell CEO is gone over this matter.
on Jan 4th, 2012 at 18:35
Shell Corrib Gas Project losing the much needed support of the local police force. By leaving them in a very embarrassing position over Illegal Christmas gifts. Heads are rolling Peter Voser CEO now involved – Shit is hitting fans everywhere
on Jan 3rd, 2012 at 12:55
John D, Someone should tell Mr Wallach of Beaumont enterprises that the Motiva project has long surpassed the $7B dollar price tag. This project will come in north of $12b, 2 years late and is being tagged as one of Shell’s worst projects. The project would have been killed by both partners of Motiva but too much money had been sunk into the effort, notionally $4B, to walk away from it.
on Dec 24th, 2011 at 18:43
We would like to wish all visitors and contributors a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.
on Dec 22nd, 2011 at 19:54
The Bonga spill obviously is unforgiveable. A relatively young facility should not leak oil. But the disaster as mentioned by many journalists will be minute. It is light oil and most will evaporate and disappear before hitting the beach.
In 1979 there was a spill of another magnitude: the bottom of tank 6 had dropped out in Forcados. There was 1 meter oil in the terminal and Bert Ockeloen, the General Operations Manager flew over it the next day and stated: I may lose my terminal so break the wall and flush it into the sea. We talk of 100,000 tonnes of Forcados crude. Fortunately it was in the middle of the rainy season, there were no spark arrestors on the export pumps and the oil was lapping at the base of these…. God took a kind eye on Forcados that day. After flushing the lot into the sea, it all disappeared within weeks. Not a trace to be seen. Some small money and fish was given to local villages. Only the channel used to move the oil to the sea remained polluted and was cleaned up many years later. It all was possible because there was a military government suppressing the press and life was good for Shell!
So, bad marks for spilling oil on Bonga but it is not the end of the world. Nigerian bacteria are very strong and will eat it all up!
on Dec 20th, 2011 at 02:41
I absolutely love your blog and find the majority of your post’s to be precisely what I’m looking for. Would you offer guest writers to write content in your case? I wouldn’t mind producing a post or elaborating on a lot of the subjects you write regarding here. Again, awesome web log! REPLY BY JOHN: All are welcome to submit articles for publication, relating to Shell, this website, its owners and related matters. Does not matter if the content is positive or negative. Any allegations must be substantiated with evidence. Links can be inserted. Please note that we will not allow the forum to be used for advertising purposes.
on Dec 8th, 2011 at 19:59
What the hell are you two talking about with these hurricanes? Just hot me thinks.
on Dec 8th, 2011 at 05:21
yes Witchy Woman, and just like after a hurricane you can pick up the pieces, but the casualties are gone forever
on Dec 7th, 2011 at 12:35
In GOM we thought that hurricane season was done. Why is Hurricane Denise causing so much damage then? Like all Hurricanes though they move on the professionals are left to pick up the pieces.
on Dec 2nd, 2011 at 15:47
So Golden Triangle MAN – Lets assume Purves and Smallwood are as bad as you say and assume that the project execution was lacking – over budget and overschedule, one editorial comment for you – I assume you would have known how to pull off the most complex US refinery project in the last 50 years with better results – but you do not seem to grasp the magnitude and size.
Having said all that – you state – ” Because of the decisions of Motiva leadership, and Tom Purves in particular, this project could have done so much more for the city of Port Arthur. They decided not to.”
Decided not to what? How can any one debate that this Shell investment – late and overbudget, is a huge coup for Port Arthur in jobs and tax base?? How?? More permanent and contract jobs for years and years? What on earth are you doubting about that. Look in the mirror and realize your hatred for Purves is clouding your view on the long term big picture.
on Nov 30th, 2011 at 11:40
Read this Shell spin…..
When Motiva Enterprises completes it
on Nov 25th, 2011 at 14:48
Fracking will be good for South Africa, especially since it will provide plenty of gas that will displace expensive imported gas. I have heard that there will be in excess of 2500 jobs from start up of the project, a vast majority of whom will be South Africans. All-in-all a good piece of business for the country despite all the negative press provided, in the main part, by ill-informed and people with political agendas.
on Nov 24th, 2011 at 10:52
Fracking in the Karoo by Shell how is it a good project for South Africa? How many people will be employed on the project?
on Nov 3rd, 2011 at 17:03
Thanks John for sharing the Nigeria spills link with us. It brings back happy memories from the old days when I was involved in many of the wells that are now being sabotaged or are failing. From the photos it is clear we should thank Huub van Engelshoven who decreed that Shell would use solid block trees even on land. Normally these are used offshore but he knew way back to not rely on good maintenance and honest nigerians. Solid block trees are much more sturdy than composite trees. The extra costs must have paid off. But now there is a genuine mess for a whole host of reasons. Nigeria needs to sort itself out first methinks.
on Oct 31st, 2011 at 13:27
Oil players told to toe the line to earn licence to operate (Brunei Times)
EXTRACT: OIL and gas players must toe the line if they want to secure a licence to operate from the government, the energy minister yesterday warned as he scored Brunei Shell Petroleum Sdn Bhd (BSP) amid allegations of irregularities in the tender process and for not fully contributing to local business development despite its long presence in the Sultanate.
In a speech at the Brunei Shell Vendor Forum, Minister of Energy at the Prime Minister’s Office (EDPMO) Pehin Datu Singamanteri Colonel (Rtd) Dato Seri Setia Dr Hj Mohd Yasmin Hj Umar urged oil and gas contractors to strictly observe the government’s policies on local business development, business integrity and safety. “They are essentially the ingredients for licence to operate,” he said.
on Oct 31st, 2011 at 13:26
ALSO FROM THE BRUNEI TIMES:
Zero tolerance on corruption
EXTRACT: Energy minister voices gov’t displeasure over transparency issues at Shell vendor forum:
QUESTIONS on business integrity, transparency and checks against corruption in the relationship between Brunei Shell Petroleum (BSP) and contractors have surfaced…
on Oct 30th, 2011 at 15:16
“Sucking up” (as you put it) to potentially massive new emerging markets (e.g. China, India & Brazil) is exactly the way to go for any company. I am also sure that a great majority of Shell’s shareholders (myself included) want this to happen – why allow the likes of Exxon, BP etc. to do this and not Shell?
REPLY BY JOHN DONOVAN: I am sure most will agree with you, but in the case of China, is it prudent to inject huge funds, as we are all doing, into a regime with an abysmal human rights record, which is vastly increasing its military power, including naval forces and its nuclear arsenal, and has acted recklessly in pursuit of its ambition for orbital weapons? I guess we are all hoping that the Chinese government and its aggressive military will decide that it would not be prudent to destroy its customer base, bearing in mind that almost all consumer goods these days seem to be manufactured in China. Wal-Mart is probably its best customer. Greatest respect and affection for the Chinese people, but its leaders are another matter. Remember Tiananmen Square. Remember Tibet. Is it morally correct to deal with governments who have no respect whatsoever for human rights?
on Oct 28th, 2011 at 10:53
Verna leaving to go to Bechtecl would surprise me. She knows how bad Bechtecl is and have been on this project. The only reason Bechtecl is still around is due to the relationship between Riley Bechtel and the Saudis. I hear Funk will leave in the dead of night, which tells me Uncle Tom isn’t too far behind with his retirement. You can bet he will take care of his little boy. As for the article on timing, just like Shell….. Everyone knows that the project is 2 years late. They continue to push start-up dates into 2012. Everyone involved with the project knows it is a bust. I’m now hearing numbers in the $11-12b range. It has gotten so bad that the Motiva folks won’t even share the cost numbers with anyone. The contractors feel that Motiva doesn’t want to hear the truth and that is fine with Bechtel. What a shame! Uncle Tom, I hope this is what you were looking for. I hope they include Tom’s severance package in the cost of the project and just do us all a favor and dump him. Give him his big retirement party so all the old Shell cronies can show up and tell their good stories and act like none of this matters. Tom, you stink, have stunk for awhile, and everyone I talk with over here in PortArthurville looks at you as a plague. Your are spoiled meat and no one will align with you…… except Jeff. You 2 deserve each other.
on Oct 27th, 2011 at 14:12
To Par Cepper & Triangle Watchman: I hear that Purves and Funk have now aligned thoughts on Motiva for project reduction. Means Rutherford could leave Port Arthur for Betchel. Good news eh!
on Oct 25th, 2011 at 17:05
The Americans really are THE bully boys of the planet. What right do they have to have legal jurisdiction over what happens elsewhere on the globe, particularly when the plantiffs are not American. Yet another example of Nigerian’s trying to get a fast buck.
on Oct 23rd, 2011 at 22:29
Comment received in response to the article: Will Malcolm Brinded be attending the funeral of his friend Gaddafi?
Maybe Brinded’s not going to the funeral but is he going to be the next Chairman of Network Rail?
(Name and email address supplied)
on Oct 23rd, 2011 at 01:13
PAR Cepper, trust me, I know what I’m talking about. Uncle Tom is the root problem. Funk is just hanging on. As soon as they get rid of Tom due to a failed project, some say one of the worst ever in Shell, Funk will be gone quietly….. Lauher has already been dumped.
on Oct 21st, 2011 at 21:51
triangle watchman: you don’t know what you are talking about. Funk is about to strike and you are still on about Uncle Tom. The problem really is that there too many druggies on the work site. Gee what a mess.
on Oct 20th, 2011 at 19:53
“Dr. Goodluck Diigbo points out:
on Oct 19th, 2011 at 14:41
Message to Monday N.K. We have received your comment criticising Shell’s conduct in the Nigeria Delta. Unfortunately we cannot decipher some of the points you are making. Can you please resubmit it after seeking help in re-drafting so that our readers can understand what you want to say.
on Oct 15th, 2011 at 09:14
Good to see that Shell (SPDC) has a website that reports on oil spills in its operational areas in Nigeria. Covers operational oil spills, theft, sabotage and other illegal attacks. Clearly shows that each year between 2005 and 2010 the very large majority of oil spills is from sabotage (despite the twaddle coming from Amnesty, environmentalists and Nigerians with an axe to grind with Shell). Even the Dutch newspaper “De Telegraph” has praised the website.
on Oct 14th, 2011 at 11:37
Re the article of Motiva getting funding from the Enterprise funding, Unlce Tom Purves and the Motiva leadership knew exactly what they were doing. They had the same game plan with the city of Port Arthur and the tax abatements. They showed all the upside of the Crude Expansion project with promises of 300 new jobs and a bunch of local commitments for local workers. As soon as they received the Enterprise funding and the tax abatements, they let Bechtel bring in workforce from outside the area. Re the 300 jobs, they did not include the many jobs they were cutting in the base plant, forcing retirements and reducing positions…. all the while advertising the new jobs for the new sections of the expansion refinery. A shell game to say the least and shows the capability of Shell’s senior leaders, especially the one Tom Purves, who no longer has a career. He is just hanging on until the last few checks are signed for this elephant of a project, now ballooning to over $10BILLION. A reminder that Tom promised it would not go a penny over $8.5BILLION. My my my… if you want details on this one, just ask Ms. Verna Rutherford…. Remember Tom……. I’m watching……
on Oct 8th, 2011 at 14:28
Zebulon John Egai: the only one that can fix this is your own government. So to all Nigerians, revolt against your own corrupt government and try to get a rule of law in your beautiful country. Once that is achieved (more or less) the rest will improve too. After all the demonstrations in arab countries, it is now time that you guys start this too in Nigeria. Only Nigerians can fix this. As long as you have that massive corruption (at all levels) life will be hell for everyone.
on Oct 7th, 2011 at 11:56
shell and its partners, in niger delta, have violated united nations framework convention on climate change, GAS FLARING is regularly going on,who can help us. thank you.
on Sep 15th, 2011 at 07:00
Hey dutchdude, good point on survivors of indiscretion in shell ranks. But let lowly team leaders push back when managers are disingenuous and we are swiftly severed. There is no justice. Even if SR restores some of the morale and spirit; nothing will compensate those whose spirits were disgraced after being subjectively ranked then terminated. What self-appointed organizational development ‘guru’ convinced whom that this was a way to improve the Culture? 1.5 x 1y pay was an insult to those who were not given a choice. I guess the only remaining hope is that karma or God and the heavens, mete the ‘justice’ deserved by the ignorant souls who enacted this heartless process! As detached from the current conversation as this may seem; please consider my comments as further example of how Shell seems to contort Priorities!!!
on Sep 13th, 2011 at 16:44
To retiree: No sir, I don’t want any more fatalities or spills in Shell. The sad fact is that inside Shell and outside as a society we have become too foregiving to inferior HSE performance. Who still blinks an eye when 1 person is killed in our business? The HSE staff use a matrix that only when more than 3 or 4 are killed the incident becomes major. The BP oil spill showed that even such a worse case scenario is survivable for the company and most of its senior managers. How many BP managers lost their jobs over that incident? Reality is that the oil industry is building up for the next Piper Alpha, (many current managers don’t even know about that incident anymore; outside UK this is a fact). Dear retiree, we want the same. No fatalities, no big oil spills and no more managers who get away with it all….
on Sep 12th, 2011 at 14:46
Sorry Itchy woman I have no idea who you are talking about! I am sure most other readers of this site have no idea.
on Sep 11th, 2011 at 05:59
Macannon, you know very well who I am referring to. The Ego has landed in Houston.
on Sep 4th, 2011 at 13:44
Probably due to the fact the boss was a woman “Twitchy Woman”? That said, what are you referring to and where are you referring to?
on Sep 3rd, 2011 at 15:24
So, no-one wants to work in HSE then. Strange how only two people applied for a senior position. I wonder what caused that?
on Aug 30th, 2011 at 23:22
As some commentators have said, abandoned and old fashioned facilities and pipelines exposed to the oil surface that they become impacted by natural agents (sun, rain, etc)will definitely leak and spill most oil considering the chain of pipelines in Ogoni. More importantly, reports have it that $hell staff and government officials, the Rivers State military taskforce and buyers from outside and within the state are behind this oil bunkering, which has been only few year in operation. By and large $hell and the government are still the culprits, because they use outdated, exposed materials and hungry youths in the community to still get this oil, while pretending operations in Ogoni have been stopped.
on Aug 28th, 2011 at 04:09
dutchdude’s comment: “Unfortunately this UK spill was too small.”
So you would prefer that the North Sea take on a 5 million barrel spill to prove a point?
on Aug 25th, 2011 at 20:42
Oldtimer, you are too forgiving towards Glen Cayley. His HSE record is truly terrible, and one wonders how many chances a senior managers gets in Shell to demonstrate he is incompetent in manageing safety? Seems Shell needs a “BP moment” to wake up, as they did not (want to) learn from the BP spill at all. Unfortunately this UK spill was too small.
on Aug 25th, 2011 at 16:55
So according to this sites main headline pipeline sabotage prevails yet again in Nigeria. Seems like these so called
on Aug 24th, 2011 at 19:41
Macannon: As I said, if the wells had been properly suspended or abandoned, and the flowlines and infrastructure cleaned and removed (in accordance with standard industry practice – especially in Holland) there would have been no corroding, leaking, flowlines and production facilities, and no possibility of leaks due to corrosion or sabotage. Whether or not sabotage took place, corrosion alone has resulted in the release of huge quantities of oil in Nigeria, as it did at Gannet. The facilities and flowlines in Nigeria were left full of oil. Over the years most of it has leaked into the environment.
on Aug 23rd, 2011 at 12:23
Outsider, I have never stated that saboteurs were responsible for the Gannet leak so like others on this website you should not exaggerate or add words to what has been stated. It is the amount and impact of the leak that is important and it is this that may well have been overstated to get a story or prove the
on Aug 23rd, 2011 at 09:47
Macannon: if the wells in Ogoni land had been abandoned (or properly suspended) and the surface flowlines and infrastructure removed, there would have been no possibility of sabotage. Instead, wells were left filled with oil and gas under pressure, as were corroding, leaking flowlines and production facilities. Whether or not sabotage had taken place, corrosion would have ensured that large quantities of oil and gas would leak into the environment, as happened at Gannet. Or perhaps you prefer to have us believe that the Gannet leak was also the work of saboteurs?
on Aug 22nd, 2011 at 14:31
Question is Outsider are you, WWF, Greenpeace or anyone else able to say how much has been spilled? Wait until the correct numbers have been ratified by the authorities. As I said earlier the likes of Greenpeace are often way out with their numbers as they know very little about the subject. As for Nigeria (particularly Ogoniland) most of the problem is not from (ex-Shell) wellheads but from damaged pipelines. For damaged read sabotaged by locals for their own gains. Please provide evidence of widespread negligence by Shell in their responsibilities in Ogoniland for securing wellheads. Indeed wellheads, flow lines & other facilities in Holland, Malaysia etc. etc. were adequately sealed. HOWEVER, these countries did not have the saboteurs that caused the subsequent pollution. As ever with Nigeria the cancerous corruption prevails and do-gooders and tree huggers jump on the band wagon as they have little or no knowledge about the subject. All they can see is an opportunity to bash an international company. Let’s see them attempt to blast the Nigerian Government – result would be that they got nowhere.
on Aug 22nd, 2011 at 12:52
So Cayley feels the inspection and maintenance programme let them down? This would infer that changing some ink on paper will fix the problem.
Now Glen is a nice fellow and a geologist so he maybe forgiven for being so ignorant. I would expect these farcical statements from HR folk but not from petroleum professionals.
I bet that the inspection and maintenance programme is a very good one. Developed and improved over many years and checked by the outside agencies. The management of this programme however is clearly lacking. And management is made up of people. And people can be hassled in doing the wrong thing as long as you scare them sufficiently.
Brinded, who set the scene many moons ago with his insisting on processes rather than common sense, has created an army of frightened drones who always agree with the boss and are happy if a series of boxes can be ticked off so all will be well. Those drones have also blindly followed the TFA policy of Brinded. And being an ex Exxon guy, Crayley knows all about following orders. The mistake he made is to think the orders from his current bosses are of the same quality as in Exxon.
on Aug 22nd, 2011 at 12:31
Macannon – are Shell really able to be so precise about the volume of the Gannet spill, or should their figures be considered as comparable with the 5000 barrels/day of the initial MMS press releases on Macondo. In Nigeria, as elsewhere, the operator (Shell) was responsible for securing their producing wells and infrastructure when production was stopped. The pollution which occurred after Shell stopped production was only possible because Shell failed to fulfil its obligations. It is striking that Shell did not leave leaking wells, corroding flowlines and collapsing production infrastructure in Wassenaar or Schoonebeek when they stopped production from the fields.
on Aug 21st, 2011 at 16:32
At the end of the day the very small amount of oil allegedly leaked (“estimated at 218 tonnes”) will disappear very rapidly and cause very very little damage to the environment. Of course now Greenpeace (they of the over statement of Brent Spar pollution!!!!!) will continue to exagerate volumes (as will others) to the extent that the entire Gannet Field reserves have leaked into the North Sea. It really is that time of the year when there is so little news to report on. Ho Hum.
on Aug 20th, 2011 at 19:31
Outsider it seems to me that you’ve read way too much into what Veritas said in his post. He didn’t say that since it was stopped after 10 days all was OK. As for Nigeria you appear to have joined the uninformed Tree Huggers in accusing Shell of the pollution. A vast (yes vast) majority of the oil spills in Ogoniland post date (yes post date) Shell’s involvement in the area. Sabotage by Nigerians who want to steal the oil and also get damage money are the primary causes.
on Aug 20th, 2011 at 16:14
Veritas: you seem to be implying that because Shell have finally managed to stop the flow after 10 days, then everything is OK? How long must a well flow and how many thousands of tonnes of crude oil need to be released into the environment before a problem exists? I guess the Nigerian leaks should not really be a problem either – it’s only a matter of a few thousand barrels of light, sweet crude after all.
on Aug 19th, 2011 at 23:11
John, I normally appreciate your site for its neutrality, but it’s clear now that Shell’s North Sea leak is fixed that at least two of your “experts” you cited in your August 16 post, and possibly all three, were very very wrong. I think you have done very well in the past verifying your sources, especially the chap from Malaysia, but the folks cited that day were full of hogwash and speculation. Other than that, keep up the good work. REPLY FROM JOHN: Some people might be surprised at your assessment that we are neutral in relation to Shell. As to your other comments, stay tuned. More information will emerge shortly about how far Shell can be trusted in relation to the safety and integrity of its North Sea Platforms. The information, includes a recent document supplied to me on Friday by the HSE offshore division. It is a letter from a very senior UK government official sent to a senior person at Shell Exploration and Production. We will put the letter into the public domain and also bring it to the attention of relevant U.S. regulatory authorities and Alaskan state senators.
on Aug 16th, 2011 at 16:32
Suggest you put a different picture on your lead story concerning Shell still being in Syria. I’ve got one of Assad if you want one. REPLY FROM JOHN: Appreciate the offer, but have found one, unless yours is more appropriate. Thanks.
on Aug 12th, 2011 at 16:52
Boy oh boy, part 7 sure has a lot of very lengthy argumentation but in honesty (and I do have Shell shares) I read nothing in there that really convinces me that you should continue to rattle on about some connection between Deterding and Hitler. An alledged connection that happened some 65 years ago. I really believe you keep this on the “front page” as a form of tabloid press titilation. Come into the present and concentrate your continued sniping at Shell based on the present system. REPLY BY JOHN: You are entitled to your view. Considerably more evidence is being accumulated on an almost daily basis, as a result of many newspaper archives from Europe and the USA, and books as far back as the 1930′s, all being made available and searchable online. We will publish all of the additional evidence. Those who are interested will be free to read the evidence, which is overwhelming. It includes information and documents from Shell’s own archives, which Shell was concerned would come into our possession. We have Shell internal communications obtained by us under the UK Data Protection Act revealing Shell’s anxiety at this prospect. Shell has threatened action in relation to this subject. We are 100% confident that for obvious reasons, no action will be taken. We are not talking about allegations, but historical fact. Deterding/Royal Dutch Shell pumped funds into the Nazi regime for many years and Shell continued to do so after Deterding resigned as Director General. Deterding remained a Shell director until the day he died in Nazi Germany. He had a Nazi funeral attended by Nazi officers and senior Royal Dutch Shell officials. A personal message from Hitler was read at the grave.
on Aug 12th, 2011 at 14:33
John, Regarding your response to “Austria1″ that you do not believe that current Shell management sympathizes with the Nazis… If this is indeed the case, why are you so affixed on this topic. “The past is the past”, there are enough present issues that you could direct attention towards. Why do you “live in the past” ? REPLY: A legitimate question. The answer can be found here: Royal Dutch Shell Nazis Secrets Part 7: Why does it still matter?
on Aug 11th, 2011 at 18:27
I have read with concern that the current Shell management sympathises with Nazis. Is this correct? REPLY BY JOHN DONOVAN: I have not read that and I am sure that they do not.
on Aug 11th, 2011 at 17:50
The comment that “SPDC has not produced oil in Ogoniland since 1993″ (from Andrew Vickers) reafirms my point that all subsequent oil spills (last 18 years) have been caused by sabotage from the Ogonis themselves. In many cases encouraged by the village elders and MOSOP leaders. Their aim? To get large amounts of money from Shell et al. About time these people were held to account and not Shell. I am also amazed that Shell is still responsible for these pipelines if they no longer produce from the area, surely the Nigerian Government is now responsible? This is certainly the case in the likes of Malaysia where Petronas takes over full responsibility where a company has stopped production (yes I know, and made the well heads etc. safe) and relinquished the acreage. Heh ho no doubt it’s the age old problem of mega corrupt senior Nigerians seeing an easy way to fill their Swiss bank account, likewise lawyers (most being the leach scum of this earth) and tree huggers thinking they’re doing good (idiots).
on Aug 9th, 2011 at 23:43
Get over the alias thing John, or start calling out 95% of your posters. Be consistent – is that not what you ask of Shell?? Live up to the standard you ask others to live by! SMH: REPLY BY JOHN D: The vast majority are not as personally abusive or blinkered as yours self-evidently are, as can be confirmed by glancing through your record of postings here. I have the courage to post outspoken comments using my real name. You do not. Since you make more postings here than any other visitor and are by far the most outspoken – a self-proclaimed Nemesis – it really is time that you worked up the courage to reveal your real name? What’s the problem? What are you afraid of by coming out into the open? If you have told us the truth about accepting gifts/hospitality from Shell suppliers, I am sure you have nothing to fear. With a deluded outsize ego like yours, how can you bear to remain anonymous? Don’t forget to supply a nice colour pik along with your name.
on Aug 9th, 2011 at 23:41
Right John – do hot share your background data, cant share that – but clearly ID the person with your links. Swell job of high integrity posting. Get that point! Of course you will tell us you have lots more facts, can not share them, but I can tell you who it is with my links! Wow – crazy that you can not see that behavior is shady and that if Shell did something like that, you would call out the lynch mobs. Trust us, we have more data, but we can not share it!! REPLY BY JOHN: Same reply as previous: Your analysis of the situation was based partly on an inaccurate assumption. You are unaware of the background facts. I have not revealed detailed content of extensive emails on this matter with an insider source, emails to the Fat Cat in question, nor my entire related email correspondence with a top lawyer at Royal Dutch Shell, Michiel Brandjes. I have nothing further to add at this time regarding the allegations other than to say that I have to be rather more careful than you in what I say, bearing in mind that I do not hide behind an alias, as you choose to do.
on Aug 9th, 2011 at 15:35
That’s right Goodluck Diigbo you weren’t given N10 million, it was probably more like N20 million. The MOSOP organization is well known for it’s corruption – again, where does all the money they ge in various compensations? NOT to the Ogoni people who are hoodwinked into believing MOSOP is doing them good.
on Aug 9th, 2011 at 06:05
I hope the county commissioners understand and more importantly the people of this area understand the implication of supporting this pipeline. Besides the environmental effects, this pipeline will take jobs away from the precious Sabine Neches Waterway.
A pipeline project that could create thousands of American construction jobs and lessen the country
on Aug 8th, 2011 at 23:30
Wow – a new low – no facts – just unsubstantiated claims by someone with initials that match the initials of someone else and John is willing to accuse a shell “fat cat” of sexual harassement and having affairs. You keep topping your self John. Show me how this is fact based reporting? But you only post facts right John? Shell does something like this and you add this to our eveil portfolio right John? Geez, give me a break. You indict your self over and over, making this way too easy John. Evil huh?? REPLY BY JOHN: Your analysis of the situation is based partly on an inaccurate assumption. You are unaware of the background facts. I have not revealed detailed content of extensive emails on this matter with an insider source, emails to the Fat Cat in question, nor my entire related email correspondence with a top lawyer at Royal Dutch Shell, Michiel Brandjes. I have nothing further to add at this time regarding the allegations other than to say that I have to be rather more careful than you in what I say, bearing in mind that I do not hide behind an alias, as you choose to do.
on Aug 8th, 2011 at 16:57
I bet that of the “potential”
on Aug 7th, 2011 at 01:30
Refer to Shell Malaysia’s comment dated 24th July ” Their shared services centre (now known as Shell Business Services Centre) is a fine case study of how unsuspecting employees are hired, used and disposed. Long work hours, under incompetent team managers, guarantees quick turnover. Staff turnover at this entity has remained high for years
on Aug 4th, 2011 at 22:44
Go read the posts I have made where I state that all individuals and companies make mistakes, of course we have. No attempt to hide from that at all John, come on, read the posts and stop looking uneducated!!
ALL articles are gathered – sorry – not even close – but nice try!
Later -
REPLY FROM JOHN: You ask me to go and read your posts again. If you don’t mind, I would rather accept that you have already conceded on that point. Apart from posting articles ourselves (over 20,000 on this website) we pay for a live news feed of Shell related articles and take all that are gathered, irrespective of whether they are positive or negative in relation to Shell. That is a fact.
on Aug 3rd, 2011 at 16:50
Ironical – oh that is sweet – that word should be your middle name John! Oh – I just love those old buried links from 2009 for a Wikipedia article, come on John, you can do better than that. Posted anything since then? All kinds of articles you can link to that are posted every week about Shell activities in the community. Love this – look at his lead in;
Royal Dutch Shell is responsible for many important initiatives in relationship to the environment, encouraging business start-ups, supporting charitable causes and other good works. With regard to the environment, Shell has however been accused of [1]greenwash
on Aug 2nd, 2011 at 18:42
John, I am still looking for your posts telling the world that Shell does good deeds, come on – post them again!! From your nemesis – a lazy, uneducated and evil Shell employee!! Please keep the compliments flowing. Did I have any spelling/typing errors – whew – I sure hope not – John might cast mean thoughts about my capabilities again!! I am so hurt! REPLY FROM JOHN: I just found it ironic that you castigated another person on this blog for making an “undeducated” post. I accept that your spelling errors were caused by laziness. Don’t worry, since you hide behind an alias to insult people, no one will be able to identity you personally. Is there any chance that you will ever work up the courage to make postings under your own name, as I do, taking legal responsibility for everything I say? You cannot claim with any shred of credibility to being my Nemesis, when you hide behind an alias and are entirely dependent on my goodwill to permit you to make postings on this website. Based on your overall postings, I do not believe that you are evil or uneducated. Delusional, perhaps. Certainly proud of the company you work for. There is nothing wrong with loyalty, even if sometimes misplaced. As to Shell positives, there is a permanent link: ROYAL DUTCH SHELL INITIATIVES
on Aug 2nd, 2011 at 18:37
Thanks for the tip and for showing again the pettiness(sp??) that defines who you are John. I sincerely apologize for trashing your site with my poor speed typing skills! Trust me, I know how to spell these words! But the content of my comments got through just fine, you even seemed to be able to grasp them John and know what words I mis typed! Thanks for the help, but I am too busy to type in word, proof and then post, I will pass on your tip of the day. Got any more value added tips? PS – lazy implies you did not put forth the effort required for the job, the effort I put into posts on your site was just right. Nice try though! Keep living in the past and the future will pass you by, oh it already has, my bad.
on Aug 2nd, 2011 at 12:19
Misspelling (or is that Miss Spelling, who actually cares) does not mean an uneducated post. (I have to say that it would help by having a larger “box” to comment in so that more of the typed sentence can be viewed and not located halfway down the page.) I have to agree with the comments from “uscitizen” concerning the repetitive, and now somewhat boring, link of Shell to the Nazi’s from over 60 years ago. I think it shows more about your mentality than that of present day Shell. It is also very clear that “shell malaysia” is someone with a major grudge against the company, perhaps sacked for under performance? Poor spelling? Shell continues to provide handsomely to the local communities throughout East & West Malaysia, above and beyond government requirements set in PSC’s etc. Shell cannot be blamed for the oppressive nature of the Malaysian system / government. Rather than quoting a load of legal court/case numbers, can “shell malaysia” please expand / describe what employees have been unfairly dismissed for? My experience with Shell is that dismissals are for pretty serious offences, most of which are included in the contracts that staff sign on joining the company. REPLY FROM JOHN DONOVAN: Shell used to have an internet discussion forum – “Tell Shell” – supposedly for uncensored lively and open debate. It had a nice wide space for each posting. As I have previously pointed out, Shell was caught secretly censoring postings. Shell then suspended the facility before it finally disappeared without trace. As to Shell’s historical association with the Nazis, no one is forced to read the articles and related evidence we provide. It is not compulsory. With regard to postings in the box, you can type your comment into a Word doc then copy and paste into the box. This would enable uscitizen to identity typing errors. Visitors can click on “All” at the top of the Shell Blog column to read the postings in a wider box.
on Aug 1st, 2011 at 20:08
I know John – you would never imply anthing underhanded with your main page lead in stories on our alleged Nazi affiliations from WW2 about current leadership. Read your own posts where you say the behavior you post about WW2 still exists today. Right John?? And outspoken – your post of course made no sense. The hard working E&P folks do not have time for this, but they are of course the ones John is bashing the most fella! Make up your mind.
That is it, I am part of the Shell propganda bot! Just can not accept that there are many many good folks, all up and down our chain of command, who do things right to make this a good company. One that many many smart folks want to work for.
And Shell Malysia, if you really think my fellow employees acts of giving back to the community are part of a shell cover up, god bless your poor bitter soul, you have of course slammed many many good peoples intentions with your callous undeducated post. I know John, you have tried so hard to point out the good deeds of Shell, so very very hard. Keep it up John, we really really do believe you!! Right! REPLY FROM JOHN DONOVAN: You have the cheek to accuse others of making uneducated posts when you cannot spell uneducated (or for that matter, “anything”, “Malaysia” or “propaganda”). Or perhaps you were just being lazy? Senior management at Shell does still trade with the enemy – see Royal Dutch Shell Nazis Secrets Part 7: Why does it still matter?
on Jul 31st, 2011 at 14:03
This is in response to the erroneous statement by ‘Macannon’ regarding unfair employee dismissals in Malaysia.
“I am sure that some (probably a majority) got their just desserts and are now merely joining on the bandwagon of some genuine cases.” – Macannon
Every case of unfair dismissal is sent to the courts by the local Labour Office in Malaysia. Only the local Labour Office can do so after investigating the merits of the case. The process is lengthy and costly for the employee who was unfairly dismissed.
Please read the details to avoid being misinformed. (Just Google ‘Malaysia Labour Department’).
Due to outdated employment laws, it is impossible for any employee to ‘join the bandwagon’. The dozens of cases of unfair dismissals of Malaysian employees is testament to how Shell is putting up a public show (via ‘works of charity’) while ignoring its own Business Conduct Guidelines.
Shell Malaysia’s modus operandi is very similar to the Ken Saro Wiwa case. When it is obvious that Shell is not going to win the case, it offers to settle ‘out of court’ just before the start of the trial.
Don’t take my word for it. Check the evidence.
http://www.mp.gov.my/ (Type Shell in respondent).
on Jul 30th, 2011 at 11:02
Some very fair comments from “Viktar” and “uscitizen” – all companies and people (including the Donovans) have their faults. The more you are in the public limelight the more you are able to be attacked. Shell does a great deal of good charitable work and projects that Governments (particularly African ones) should be doing them selves. Unknowledgeable idiots such as “outspoken” clearly have little or no close knowledge of the company or have a gripe against the company (lack of promotion, poor performance etc.). Why is it that if anyone praises Shell on this site he/she is classed as “fictional”, “shameless”, “grovelling” or “part of Shell’s propaganda organ”?? I think “outspoken” is someone who has a problem with Shell and cannot accept anything good said about them. Remind you of someone else?? REPLY BY JOHN DONOVAN: No individual has done more than me to highlight the good works of Royal Dutch Shell. I collected information over a number of years and included it all in a Wikipedia article “Royal Dutch Shell initiatives” providing many reference sources confirming the authenticity of the information. The article was deleted on the basis that it was biased in favour of Shell. I have previously stated that the vast majority of Shell employees are decent hard working people. My concern is in regard to the rotten apples who remain in senior management positions despite serious misdeeds, including for example, participation in the management of a rigged tender for a major contract (Tim Hannagan) or involvement in the cover-up (Malcolm Brinded). Tim Hannagan – currently Global Brand Standards and Performance Manager at Shell International Petroleum Company – was not the mastermind (Shell executive Andrew Lazenby), but he went along with the planned deception designed to steal IP information from several companies and stop them from approaching rival oil companies. Hannagan attempted in a subsequent Witness Statement to distance himself from the corrupted process in which the contract was miraculously awarded to a company that never participated in the tender. David Pirret is another senior Royal Dutch Shell executive with skeletons rattling around in his closet. All of these individuals are free to sue me if they dispute what I am stating. I still have the evidence. It still smells. For an independent view of Shell’s activities, including its horrendous record in Nigeria, this article is worth reading.
on Jul 30th, 2011 at 08:55
John, I saw USCitizen’s recent comments on your blog. This ‘gentleman’, if he is a ‘real’ person and not a fictional product of Shell’s propaganda organ, is living breathing proof that being a shameless, groveling suck-up apparently pays off big time at Shell. I wonder which part of the company he works for. Doubt he works for the ‘real’ part of the company responsible for finding and producing oil. Those folks are too smart and too well educated to swallow that kind of crap. Besides, they simply don’t have time for this nonsense.
on Jul 30th, 2011 at 06:56
Bad news, guys. I hear Funk is out but Koontz is in. Folks at Convent are goin to screem! Funk is a bad dude, but koontz is worse. His sneakyness is only surpassed by his union hate.
on Jul 29th, 2011 at 16:38
Thank you for your post Viktar, but you will never be able to convince these poor Donovan folks that Shell and its people are anything but evil nazi lovers bent on destroying the world. I have shown repeated examples of good, but old man Donovan says, oh I am not bashing the people, there are lots of good people, just the company – he does not realize they are the same thing! There are many many examples of good – and I am headed out to one now, helping a shelter for battered women, with a lot of evil shell folks. Thanks again – and I am sure Donovan will have a rebuttal on your example on some ulterior motive we had. And if you say it increases our chances to make more money – guess what – you are right – and do things the right way! They do go together. We all make mistakes, people and companies. Key is to learn from them – and despite Donovans insistence – we do. I can hear the response now, oh well – we are proud of our company! REPLY BY JOHN DONOVAN: Please cite any comment or posting on this or any other website where we have made the comment you falsely attribute to us i.e. that Shell and its people are evil nazi lovers bent on destroying the world. People will be able to draw their own conclusions if you fail to provide an example. You will not be able to do so because we have never stated or implied that this is the case. That false accusation destroys any credibility you had here. I can only surmise that you have been too lazy to read what we have said in historical context about Shell and its Nazi past that the company would prefer to forget.
on Jul 29th, 2011 at 12:22
Shell was helpful in coordinating a JV between I.M. Skaugen and InQtel called HUSH LLC.
It’s an enterprise aiming to stop piracy and terrorism on the high seas. It’s a good example of an ethical oil initiative. Not all oil news is bad news.
We installed the HUSH Hub on Norgas Carine almost a year ago, it saved crew morale, delivered security, and new revenue. Everyone is happier and safer. Now all of our ships have this equipment. All our crews are safer and we’re fighting terrorism and piracy.
We are offering the HUSH Hub to other maritime fleets and thereby doing our part to increase global stability.
Google: inqtel skaugen HUSH
Google: shell inqtel HUSH
on Jul 24th, 2011 at 17:03
Shell entities in Malaysia have yet to prove themselves to be worthy employers. Getting a lawyer who deals with employment issues in Malaysia is hard enough, what more spending a decade pursuing your case in the courts. Only genuine employees who were unfairly dismissed would pursue this path.
The fact that the Malaysian employment laws, the product of neo-colonialism, favours the employer is good news for multinationals like Shell. A ‘gold mine’ of sorts. Most multinationals have been taking advantage of this for decades. However, Shell has taken it to a new low.
Their shared services centre (now known as Shell Business Services Centre) is a fine case study of how unsuspecting employees are hired, used and disposed. Long work hours, under incompetent team managers, guarantees quick turnover. Staff turnover at this entity has remained high for years….at one point, exceeding 40%. It is essentially a sinister tactic to keep costs low.
Shell Malaysia is where it is today thanks to the hardworking people that built it over the past 100 years. And what did they get in return ?
Shell’s mercenary tactics against its own people is well documented (refer civil cases in previous post and elsewhere on this site).
The question is, how many more lawsuits have to be filed before Shell cleans up its act?
Is it another Nigeria waiting to happen ?
C’est la vie!
on Jul 23rd, 2011 at 02:15
Shell’s announcement ( Reuter) of a Manufacturing JV Service company with a CNPC to avoid paying low value drilling is applaudable. However they are in the wrong business. They should leave to people who are good at it. It take years to perfect this. Shell expats who are highly paid and lack of business acumen will sure see the demise of the JV before it starts. Furthermore why Singapore? Trust me. Of course this is not important to Peter Sharpe as he has scored his brownie points, as usual ( capitalising on BP’s Macondo as well ) and would have retired and blame it on others like the CNPC Chinese.
Its not to late- Shell Voser- suggest you focus on your core business and aim at reducing your own Shell overhead and let the service companies do their work for you more efficiently. Dont leave it to Mr Sharpe.
on Jul 20th, 2011 at 17:37
London Lad- the expats today are no longer the professional expats we have in the 70s/80s. The expats then worked very hard and are sincere in coaching locals. The expats today except a handful I am afraid knows nut.
We shall find out who is right soon. Why are IOC partnering with NOC everywhere? They see they no longer can survive by themselves. We shall see.
on Jul 20th, 2011 at 17:21
I used to love working for Shell but no longer anymore as there is so much internal process and not enough external focus. I thought I am the only one but alas about 80% of my colleagues feel the same… we are tired and are thinking of leaving..before we leave. Suggest Shell to do a people survey and ask the above question.
on Jul 19th, 2011 at 11:48
Hey Shell team – Respect to you for having such an open comments policy. Shows you dont’ have as much to hide as some may think! REPLY BY JOHN DONOVAN: Sorry to say that there is a misunderstanding on your part. This is not a Shell website. “TellShell” – Shell’s internet discussion forum for claimed open and lively debate was first secretly censored by Shell, then “temporarily” suspended, then closed. This was because the discussions became too open and lively for Shell management.
on Jul 18th, 2011 at 10:37
Why were these Malaysians dimissed? Malpractice, fraud, poor performance etc. etc.? I am sure that some (probably a majority) got their just desserts and are now merely joining on the bandwagon of some genuine cases. Shelll in Malaysia is a good employer and a vast majority of their staff would agree.
on Jul 17th, 2011 at 14:50
Unfair Employee Terminations in Malaysia
Despite being the world’s number one Fortune 500 company, Shell has a long way to go to comply with its own Ethical Guidelines.
The previously well respected company has taken the stand that if there are no local labour laws to protect its employees, then, ‘anything goes’. Unfairly dismissing employees is a rampant practice in Malaysia. It is so common, that Shell Malaysia has appointed multiple legal firms to defend itself. In the capital of Kuala Lumpur alone, it has appointed at least three separate legal firms to deal with the piling cases.
Unfortunately, these are only cases that went to courts. For every such case, there were many more that never reached the courts. The losers are not Shell…it is the victimised employees. Unlike Western countries, the only legal remedy Malaysians have is to go through the legal process, which sometimes take more than 10 years. Many victims don’t bother with this and just accept their fate and try to move on.
Employees are often bullied into resigning or given poor performance evaluations by their incompetent supervisors. Usually, the management needs a scapegoat to put the blame on. The lax employment laws in Malaysia makes it an ideal place for Shell to literally do as it likes.
The following are just some of the cases that are pending in the Malaysian Labour courts. (Claimants names removed to protect privacy). For full details of each case and findings, please go to the court website http://www.mp.gov.my/ and type ‘Shell’ in respondent. This is publicly available.
I would strongly recommend potential Shell employees to consider carefully before signing the dotted line.
Case No. 8/4-234/97
50 employees vs Sarawak Shell Bhd
2 8/4-406/97
4 employees vs Sarawak Shell Bhd
3 8/4-653/97
5 employees vs Sarawak Shell Bhd
4 8/4-8/98 Miss G vs Sarawak Shell Bhd.
5 8/4-166/98
5 employees vs Sarawak Shell Berhad
6 8/4-334/98
2 employees vs Sarawak Shell Bhd.
7 7/4-732/11 Mr K vs Shell Malaysia Trading Sdn. Bhd.
8 14/4-1996/07 Mr M vs Shell Malaysia Trading Sdn. Bhd
9 3(15)(3)/4-1461/04 Mr J vs Shell Malaysia Trading Sdn. Bhd./Shell Malaysia Limited
10 22(19)/4-2884/04 Mr N Shell Malaysia Trading Sdn. Bhd.
11 8/4-653/98 C & 5 others vs Sarawak Shell Sdn. Bhd
12 8(17)/4-770/00 Mr R vs Sabah Shell Petroleum Company Limited
13 1(15)/2-155/02 Workers Union vs SHELL Malaysia Trading Sendirian Bhd., SHELL Refining Company Bhd., SHELL Malaysia Limited dan Tiram Kimia Sendirian Bhd.
14 27(12)/4-851/02 Ms R vs Stesyen Minyak Shell Jana
15 12/1-357/04 Workers Union vs Shell Malaysia Trading Sdn. Bhd, Shell Refining Company Bhd, Shell Malaysia Limited & Tiram Kimia Sdn. Bhd
16 20(28)(12)/4-733/04 Mr A vs Shell Refining Company (FOM) Bhd.
17 8/4-1377/04 Mr H Sarawak Shell Berhad
18 17/4-2322/04 Mr A vs Sabah Shell Petroleum Company Limited
19 22(6)/4-2455/04 Mr J vs Shell Malaysia Trading Sdn. Bhd.
20 8/4-2607/04 Mr J vs Sarawak Shell Berhad
21 17(8)/4-2622/04 Mr Y vs Sarawak Shell Berhad
22 10/4-3272/04 Mr P vs Shell Malaysia Trading Sdn. Bhd.
23 20(13)/4-618/06 Mr M vs Shell Malaysia Trading Sdn. Bhd.
24 26/4-1017/06 Mr A vs Shell Malaysia Trading Sdn.Bhd
25 1/1-1329/06 Ms R vs Stesyen Minyak Shell Jana
26 11/4-1879/06 Mr M vs Shell Refining Company (Federation Of Malaya) Berhad
27 10/4-2258/06 Ms L vs Clamshell Dredging Sdn. Bhd
28 2/4-201/07 Mr V vs SHELL AUTOSERV MALAYSIA, A DIVISION OF CHAMP DISTRIBUTORS SENDIRIAN BERHAD
29 1/1-912/07 Shell Employees Union vs Shell Malaysia Trading Sdn. Bhd. Shell Malaysia Limited & Shell Refining Company (F.O.M) Bhd
30 20/4-307/08 Mr M vs Shell Malaysia Trading Sdn. Bhd
on Jul 16th, 2011 at 02:49
Another round of cuts coming to Convent, poor Stan, you thought your were safe because you are black, but they finally see the lazy no good phuck you really are you lying bastard. I don’t feel sorry for you one bit. I have a better job now and I don’t have to put up with all the lazy protected race and gender scumbags. I hope David is proud to have kept you so long. They let go some really good guys and kept ignorant lazy ass trash like you. Roxanne, Jill, and Connie I still can’t wait to but ya’ll in the mouth.
on Jul 14th, 2011 at 12:05
Is there a career path in HSSE?
Only time will tell when we see who the new people are in these senior positions. Time to send the right message to HSSE staff
on Jul 7th, 2011 at 19:02
Well Joe McBloggs I guess the problem is that key people in the Scottish authorities are more concerned with their independence from England than some old story about Shell.
on Jul 7th, 2011 at 14:52
Why is it that the Scottish authorities are so lax when calling Shell to task? It has been many years since the two workers died on Charlie and it took the site of Donovan and actions of retired auditors to keep the attention going albeit at a very low level. Otherwise all would have been forgotten and swept under the carpet.
One almost would believe that many operators and members of the policeforce are member of the same masonic lodge and we all know that the brothers are there to help each other?
I bet that nobody in the UK authorities will ever take Brinded to task for his TFA policy and other hypocritic remarks on ‘Safety is our top priority’. It is disgusting. The feeling of justice has gone.
on Jul 7th, 2011 at 08:38
Risteard O
on Jun 30th, 2011 at 12:56
Read an article from about this time last year… wanted to share it with the readers of this site as it is becoming a prophetic reading…. Steve cleaning up the Gulf Coast. He has alot in common with the groups that helped BP last summer… except the scum he is cleaning up are bad leaders, not oil on the beach….. Tom, when does your time to come to get cleaned up and leave?
By Joe Blow
It was with some elation that I heard of Mr. Purves
on Jun 28th, 2011 at 11:45
I wonder what value/reserves Shell will be attributing to last year’s multi-billion dollar shale gas acquisitions now?
on Jun 27th, 2011 at 08:01
The third company in the NYT list of shale gase producers is EOG Resources. EOG Resources is the new name for Enron Oil and Gas Company
on Jun 19th, 2011 at 04:04
Motiva paid him $3mm into CIDA. But trust me, he has no idea about the oil sands crude coming as Shell has kept it quiet until the pipeline can get approved. Everyone thinks it is Saudi crude that will fill up the CEP. It will be oil sands crude and all the environmental emissions that will come from it. John D should try and contact Hilton and get his feedback
on Jun 18th, 2011 at 23:26
I wonder how much Shell has paid Hilton Kelly? He hasn’t said much about CEP.
on Jun 16th, 2011 at 01:22
I’m glad Shell refuted the statement re Saudi Aramco being the sole supplier of crude. As soon as the keystone pipeline gets approved, Shell will exercise it’s 50% equity rights and push Canadien oil right into Port Arthur. I’m sure my environmental buddies in Port Arthur are not aware of the oil sands crude coming to Port Arthur or they would already be screaming. There was another article that came out yesterday that stated that Saudi Aramco is pushing oil to China more and more. Get the facts straight or Shell will….
Oh and by the way, there is no way in hell that the project will be finished in 1Q 2012. Everyone knows it. Ask Shell for a retraction on that one.
on Jun 15th, 2011 at 16:46
There’s a certain irony in Ann Pickard’s lecturing of the Australians. I believe her previous assignment included responsibility for Nigeria? Have her views on greenhouse gases really changed so significantly since she arrived Down Under?
on Jun 13th, 2011 at 17:50
Watching Tom:
Also wanted to ask how are you guys doing with the Life Saving Rules. Are the whites being fired for breaking a life saving rule and blacks keeping their jobs like in Norco?
Wow – this site reaches new lows. Some of you Shell folks just need to take care of your business and stop trying rationalize things away. Geez, if you raise your kids like this we are in big trouble with the next generation. Have Mom and Dad handle any problems, its ok Johnny they are just picking on the (fill in the blanks) portion of the population. Give me a break.
on Jun 13th, 2011 at 17:45
It’s a little odd that the news is dominated by the first (very small)shipment from Pearl, while Shell is invoking force majeure on very large volumes normally exported from Bonny.
on Jun 11th, 2011 at 14:33
The article titled “Saudi Arabia will be sole source supply for Motiva Port Arthur” doesn’t tell the whole story over here that we see on the ground. Firstly, Saudi Aramco, during 2008, cut crude supplies to the US, and therefore Motiva as it’s largest supply base, and sent incremental crude to China, namely for better profits. Secondly, if Shell ever figures out how to get Canadian oil sands crude down to Nederland, the Arab heavy will back out pretty quick. Shell owns so much equity in the crude supply bbls for Port Arthur. A lot of stumbling blocks exist to finish the pipeline from Cushing down to the Gulf Coast. Until that time, I expect the answer is Arab heavy. When that pipeline opens up to the GC, you will see both oil sands and Arab crude filling up the crude unit at Port Arthur….
of course, that assumes that the infamous VPS-5 crude unit ever gets finished. The article talks about 1Q2012. Anybody over here with a real view on the ground knows the only thing that will be complete is the Coker. My my, the spin doctoring that Shell tries to do is sickening……
Has anyone seen Funkhouser lately? We don’t see him doing any work…..
on Jun 10th, 2011 at 11:57
It should be noted that Mr Jim Hartsock has now been placed in a role called Turnaround Manager – Operations Integration. He knows nothing about turnarounds nor operations. He only knows Tom. Tom Purves is a joke and continues to show the impact of his heavy hand on our site. There is no way that Jim Hartsock ought to even be here. Those in the know like Mr Steve Sanders understands how this played out. Steve gets a visit from Purves some time back and gets told that he will make a job for Hartsock. All the while, Tom is actively working to cut the throats of several people over here trying to make a difference and delivering severance packages to these people by adjusting their performance factors. Tom, time may move on. Your legacy doesn’t. It died with your credibility. We all now count the days when you are gone. Limp off into the sunset, with your tea jug and enjoy your wife and family. You have done enough damage here. And take Jeff Funkhouser with you. I hear he got into a little bit of trouble with the police over here and Tom helped send him to Saudi Arabia for a little bit of work to calm the issue down.
Keeping our heads down and waiting for true leadership to show up.
on Jun 9th, 2011 at 19:07
Watching Tom:
Also wanted to ask how are you guys doing with the Life Saving Rules. Are the whites being fired for breaking a life saving rule and blacks keeping their jobs like in Norco?
on Jun 9th, 2011 at 19:04
Watching Tom:
Please tell me you have met Mr Joey D, from NORCO. Funks right hand man. If you have not met him yet, you are missing a real treat. He is a Douche Bag. Funk pulled him out of Norco after he was given a manager job that he could not handle, got himself in too deep, and had to bale. Chances are if you see Funk, Joey will not be far behind like puppy. He is on special assignment (special project there) cause Norco had enough of him and he knew it. He is getting paid big bucks for nothing cause he is a piece of garbage. Talk about a chump. Before he was promoted, he could not even quality on the easy CR-1 job in Norco, had to go out on disability and sucked his way up the ladder after that. NO one likes him and he knows it. I am hearing they have enough of him there, I can only imagine. If you get a chance, go check out that snake, but dont turn your back on him, he is just a bad or worse than Funk or Tom.!!
on Jun 9th, 2011 at 17:21
The people @ PAR understand it all.
on Jun 8th, 2011 at 18:51
JEEEEEZ WatchingTom Purves can you please use some language that most people that use this site can understand. (e.g PAR = ? Funkhouser is who? Lauher =? etc. etc.) I am sure you have good intent with your rambling, but, please make it more understandable to the wider audience. I would suggest, for example, a bit more titilation (aka the Sun newspaper – that’s over the pond newspaper for you or aka the nonsense correlation STILL used as titilation by this website for Shell and the Nazi’s). To be quiet honest I have never seen such a rambling on this website with names that 99% haven’t got a clue who they are!!
on Jun 8th, 2011 at 02:24
Just a quick update from the little town called PAR…. As it has been well documented by now, Tom Purves has set up shop back over here in Motivaland after his demotion….. i mean transition back to PAR to quote “help get this project straightened out”….. never mind the fact that he has never ran a project of this size or anything comparable. So the very next thing that he began to do is try and suck up all of his buddies, which some call minions, to come help him….. The most notable chump is his main side kick Jeff Funkhouser. Believe me, he is staying low until he can slide out of town. All of Shell knows he is a joke…. yet the senior leaders of our company have let Tom have his way. The 2nd stooge, Forrest Lauher, just got ran off and will leave the site shortly. He should have never been given the project, was not equipped to be successful, should have been fired back in 2008 when they took the project away from him. He failed miserable as site leader for PAR and was finally found out. Funk, you will be next.
Now, we have an audit team come in from the Hague to review how our pipe module project went. The lead honcho for this part of the project, Mr Jim Hartsock, another one of Tom’s boys, mysteriously gets an opportunity to go to the NPRA in Denver instead of participating with the audit team. Can you imagine that one? Why would it be ok first of all for one of your project managers( re Hartsock, I say this lightly) to go to NPRA while this pitiful project tries to stumble across the finish line. Secondly, wouldn’t you think Jim would have useful information to share with the audit team? Where is Jim for his interview? “I’m sorry… he is in Denver at an NPRA conference….. Seriously Tom???? And who would Hartsock be meeting with in Denver….. none other than Jerry Crail of the infamous Tom Purves gang.. Jim, I guess you were setting up your next gig with Crail and the Upgrader outfit up north…… May be you can do better than you’ve done here…. This is the guy Tom saved from Tosco when they dumped him at Wood River. He got Crail to hire him at SGS, then made Quinn give him a job at Convent, and when Quinn finally got tired of him there, forced the PAR gang to take him in on the project. He gets assigned to watch the pipe modules at remote locations, all the while working from his home in St Louis….. and low and behold, the modules are screwed up….. Lots of questions that need to be asked…. Can’t get answers from Hartsock because he is in Denver following Crail around….. for some of us, this is getting really old Tom. Do us a favor, come clean, and retire. You are done man…. You are no longer da man! and haven’t been.
Shell execs who read this still….. find out about Jim Hartsock…. and while you are at it, look into Jeff Funkhouser…… These 3 are bad and need to be dealt with.
John D, why don’t you send these 3 an emil and ask about this one? Share their responses with us…..
on Jun 6th, 2011 at 15:21
Me thinks JanBlauu that you’ve been smoking something you shouldn’t be smoking!! There is absolutely no way that IOC’s will disappear in 5-10 years or less. The likes of Petronas (very well trained by Shell & Exxon in the 70′s & 80′s) are good performers. Most others (e.g. those NOC’s in Oman, Venezuela, Indonesia & Nigeria) have very lazy incompetent local staff who remain still very dependent on the expat doing the work while they themselves cream off millions. Long live the IOC’s and the expats. Local staff need to get realistic with their dreams while at the same time thinking of theor country and not just their own Swiss bank accounts.
on Jun 6th, 2011 at 05:39
John- I think I know what Mirilad is talking about..in 5-10 years ( or maybe earlier), there will be no International Oil companies (IOC) and all the National oil companies ( NOC ) will be fully independent and contracting the service companies to extract oil/gas. Why need IOC as middle man? This is an outdated business model. Its time to replace the high overheads and expensive expats who do not add values but add costs. JB
on Jun 1st, 2011 at 11:59
well Mr. London lad, u seem to think all national oil companies fail…why not quote successful ones.. REPLY BY JOHN DONOVAN: Have not got a clue what you are talking about?
on May 22nd, 2011 at 09:43
REPLY TO “Google” and “Googler”: The reason why we have not published your comments/allegations is because to the best of our knowledge they are baseless and therefore seriously defamatory of the relevant third party. You are also wrong in stating that the relevant article has been deleted. It has just moved down due to the posting of new articles. We researched the background of the person in question and found nothing to substantiate your allegations. If you have any such evidence, send it to me by email and we will reconsider the matter. You want to make allegations hiding behind an alias using our facility, under our name. That is not something we are willing to do. We also note that you have submitted comments under multiple aliases, not just the two most recent ones. With regard to the subject of publishing allegations, our attention was recently drawn to an article published by Time Magazine: “The Caligula Effect: Why Powerful Men Compulsively Cheat.” We have decided not to publish the related allegations.
on May 22nd, 2011 at 00:16
An excerpt from the Port Arthur news at the end of 2010…..
PORT ARTHUR
on May 16th, 2011 at 20:27
John – Further to the comment by Anonymous. I am not arguing if Shell did or didn’t get involved with the Nazis. I used to be a frequent visitor to this site but rarely visit anymore since you seem to be totally obsessed with Shell’s Nazi involvement. This is very old news and it is time to move on to news and topics that are more timely. REPLY BY JOHN: Thanks for taking the trouble to comment. The focus on Royal Dutch Shell’s Nazi past will be expanded with further facts resulting from more research. Other significant developments are in the pipeline. This is not a subject we have any intention of dropping, as will become abundantly clear in coming months. If you find the subject so objectionable, simply ignore it and just stick to current news and events, which are still covered. Someone is interested because site traffic has increased, not declined, since we highlighted Shell’s close association with Hitler and the Nazi party. Nothing staggering, but still well over 2 million hits every month.
on May 15th, 2011 at 18:16
John, this growing obsession with Nazism is trivialising of other people’s suffering and has nothing to do with Shell as a company at all. It is, frankly, a bit weird. It is also immensely hypocritical to accuse Shell of insensitivity while expropriating the suffering of others in the service of your personal crusade. REPLY FROM JOHN: It is absolute nonsense for you to claim that Shell as a company had nothing to do with the Nazis. If you read the book “A HISTORY OF ROYAL DUTCH SHELL” authored by historians paid by Shell who were given full access to Shell archives, you will see for yourself that Shell had a great deal to do with Hitler and his henchman. Shell pumped funds into the Nazi coffers. The evidence is confirmed and expanded by a variety of independent reputable sources, including numerous newspaper reports. You seem to be in complete denial.
on May 8th, 2011 at 22:55
John,
I saw the article stating that a blow in the Artic from one of Shell’s propose wells would not produce more that 9468 bbls/day.
Who is the manager and/or PR moron at Shell that released that statement? 9468 bbls/day, max. Really? You don’t say? That level of accuracy and precision impossible to obtain. How about you folks at Shell trying again to come up with a ‘meaningful’ estimate, instead of this kind of useless crap.
on May 8th, 2011 at 13:42
Marvin Odum who probably has the worst safety record in Shell goes for a diversity vote and someone who has no safety experience to replace the VP of safety he just fired. Clear message where his priorities lie.
on May 8th, 2011 at 08:58
John, has it ever occurred to you that your increasingly frequent evocations of Nazism and the Holocaust to score points against Shell might itself be considered deeply offensive and insensitive? REPLY BY JOHN: A number of valued contributors to this blog have complained about the focus on Shell’s Nazi past. “Musaint” decided to stop visiting. Another said he was thoroughly bored. The subject is controversial and the header graphics designed to shock. Shell managed to escape the public odium it was due from its financial support for Hitler and the Nazis. The blame was all heaped on to Deterding even though Shell continued its financial dealings with the Nazis after his resignation as head of the company and even after his death. This is all becoming clearer as a result of evidence emerging from the transfer of newspaper articles from microfilm to searchable online digital archives. We have gathered many more articles from newspapers in the USA, Canada ant the UK (The Scotsman, The Daily Mirror, The Daily Express, The Guardian, etc) and they will all be incorporated into a revised single reference source. We intend to make sure that what you describe as “scoring points”, but is a history of Nazi party funding which contributed towards tens of millions of horrific deaths, is brought to the attention of the world. We note that only one item was highlighted in the many Shell internal documents Shell recently supplied to us in response to our 2011 SAR application under the DATA PROTECTION ACT. It was a reference to our article on this subject. Because we consistently keep a link to the Nazi Secrets article as the top feature on our site, it ensures that the Shell/Nazi/Hitler subject appears at number 6 or 7, dependent on browser, on the first page of a Google search for “Royal Dutch Shell” out of 2.6 million results. For obvious reasons, its the subject that Shell would least like attention drawn in such a prominent rankings position when people Google “Royal Dutch Shell”.
on May 7th, 2011 at 14:16
@Londonlad,
Maybe what Omani 1959 is trying to do is gather enough information so that he and his other idle, non productive friends can take to the streets of Oman again, to try and blackmail the government into cancelling the production sharing agreement with Shell, and then the Omani government can sell 100% of its Oil and Gas and thereby gain far higher revenues.
This in turn (he is hoping for, or surmising at this stage) will lead to higher salaries for the woefully inept and unproductive, Omani nationals, but I must admit not all the Omani nationals are lazy and unproductive. By and large most of them try to do their best, but their
on May 7th, 2011 at 14:07
to LondonLad answering your question so what if Shell takes it’s contracually agreed oil in Oman, we Omanis (80%) are living on poverty line and Shell is stealing and sucking our oil, this oil fortune which Shell sweeps (34% share) from under our feet should go back to us Omanis not to this giant oil leech.
thats why we initiated an oil nationalization campaign in our country to get back this valuable natural resource.
I coud not find in PDO’s annual report any evidence on how much exactly Shell takes from our oil.
if you have any reference on how much Shell takes from our oil I will be thankful to you.
on May 5th, 2011 at 16:09
To Omani1959 :So what if Shell takes its contractually agreed oil in Oman? All facts and figures can be found in the company (PDO) annual reporting. Instead of trying to cause trouble (have you been sacked or passed over for a position?) just get on with an honest days work.
on May 4th, 2011 at 00:04
Trying being an experienced floorhand, welders helper on the pipeline and an Occupational Safety and Health Tech in the oil and gas industry as a FEMALE…I dont care what anyone says, its still the “good ole boys world” in O & G…wish me luck that maybe an honest job will come my way. Safety isnt a game people and the next time you look at missing hands and caved in sculls you’ll remember how much you need peope like me. It all turns to the right but that cant happen if no ones alive. Ya’ll be careful out there and LISTEN.
on Apr 25th, 2011 at 18:33
can anyone give any evidence or a proof that Shell:
(The company takes around 200,000 barrels of crude per day
on Apr 21st, 2011 at 03:08
Alot of international workers on our site working this project, coming from the team who said they would hire locally for the tax abatements…… and the city officials bought it….. Wonder if this guy lived on downtown Port Arthur???
A contract welder working on the Motiva plant expansion in Port Arthur who was found dead Monday was identified as Arnel Ocampo.
Ocampo, 52, was from the Philippines, said Justice of the Peace Brad Burnett.
Contractors said that they saw him slumped over on a scaffold at about 5:15 p.m. and tried to yell for him, but he was not moving, Burnett said. The contractors told the judge there was welding equipment on the scaffold with Ocampo.
Emergency responders were contacted and Ocampo was taken to Christus St. Mary’s Hospital in Port Arthur where he was pronounced dead at 6 p.m., Burnett said. The judge added that he did not notice bruises or any sign of a fall, but did order an autopsy.
Ocampo was a contract worker with International Plant Services, said Burnett.
Autopsy results are still pending.
Read more: http://www.beaumontenterprise.com/news/article/Contract-worker-who-died-at-Motiva-plant-1342631.php#ixzz1K7SuwGYU
on Apr 20th, 2011 at 17:47
to Elias777 thanks for your solidarity with the campaign to nationalize our oil and rightly said oil leeches like Shell should stay away from our country.
All the best.
on Apr 19th, 2011 at 03:59
@KuchingKid,
Spot on with your comments regarding the Omani’s.
They all have this attitude that they get sent overseas to complete their degree, and then come back to Oman and expect to walk into a (Manager’s) job, with an office, a computer, two cell phones, and a group of workers below them to do all the work. The expats just have to sigh and get on with what they were employed to do.
on Apr 18th, 2011 at 07:17
To Elias777 : You state that “Venezuela have done pretty well to nationalize oil” – tell that to the people of the country who are only just waking up to the fact that Charvez has wasted most of the money on pet projects & sponsoring other evil regimes (& his own overseas bank accounts)whilst at the same time leaving the people in poverty and with very little human rights. If Omani 1959 wants his country to go the same way so be it. Perhaps they will eventually see sense and go on the streets to get rid of such stupid ideas. Fact is Omani’s tend to be very lazy people and get others to do the hard work.
on Apr 16th, 2011 at 13:45
To Oman 1959, I wish you all the best with your campaign and I hope you succeed to get all the documents, I’m sure you have the knowledge and technology to process your own natural resources. If UAE and Saudi Arabia did it why not Oman? Venezuela also have done pretty well to nationalize oil, why not Oman? Is time for developing country to take care of themselves, OIL LEECHES should stay away from Middle East.
on Apr 13th, 2011 at 08:02
To omani1959 – let’s face it Iraq, Yemen and now Libya have NOT improved their oil production under nationalization and most certainly have reduced production recently. Corruption and laziness of locals make nationalization very problematic. By the way, if you blog on this site (or others) expect other peoples views, even if you don’t like them.
on Apr 13th, 2011 at 03:03
to Kuchingkid I did not ask about your opinion on nationalization, I only wanted some information about the2004 agreement between Shell and Oman government.
there were too many oil nationalization success stories in the past :
Saudi Arabia nationalized its oil from Aramco
UAE nationalized its oil from Adnoc
there is also Iran, Iraq, Libya, Yemen who all had success stories with their nationalisation.
hope you fail and our campaign wins.
on Apr 13th, 2011 at 02:29
It may be a pain, but, is it illegal to spy on someone just to gather information? I don’t think so. The problem comes when there is something to hide!! REPLY BY JOHN DONOVAN: Witness intimidation and related burglaries are illegal and amounted to a criminal conspiracy to pervert the course of justice. The conspiracy continued even into the three week High Court Trial heard by a Judge who failed to disclose that his lifelong friend, the founder of an IP firm, had Shell as a client. The Judge also neglected to disclose his connection with the barrister son of the then Shell chairman Sir Mark Moody-Stuart. The Judge expressed not the slightest interest in Shell’s spying activities. He allowed Shell to engage in a carefully contrived deception at the climax of my three day cross-examination designed to entrap me. The case was settled. Shell paid all legal costs, said to be over
on Apr 12th, 2011 at 06:34
To omani1959 : like many fully nationalized companies they often fail miserably due to incompetence of the locals who are put inpositions they cannot cope with. Additionally they are finacially raped by senioe local staff who take most of the profit and squirrel it away in Swiss bank accounts. PDO will be no different – lazy / corrupt locals will be the beneficiary. Hope your campaign fails.
on Apr 10th, 2011 at 14:18
we are leading a campaign in face book to nationalize our oil company in Oman “PDO” :
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=group_194036703966156&ap=1
we desperately need any information about the 2004 agreement signed by our government with Royal Dutch Shell which owns a staggering 34% share in PDO.
I will be very grateful for anyone who can give us some details about this agreement.
on Apr 9th, 2011 at 04:59
“Refugee from Shell slams fracking” – what scientific knowledge does Wuganalee have to state such drivel? That said, the article has very little substance to make me support his arguments. He seems to be yet another Ogoni trying to get money from an international company. Perhaps he should try and do an honest days work to get some cash.
on Apr 8th, 2011 at 11:47
So it will be interesting to watch as Uncle Tom Purves has to come clean on the cost of the Motiva CEP project. He originally sold it as a $7B project as the clown Lauher and the rest of the project team put their pencil to paper and came up with the costs. Of course, all of those people have been run off the project. Meanwhile, the owners gave Uncle Tom a chance to come clean back in Dec 2008 when they shipped him back over to clean up the mess. Most of his check estimates came in north of $10B. What does he do? He goes back and says “Not a penny more than $8.5B and we can get this project complete.” Well, he has had to go back to the well several times since then and the project stands at an approved budget of something north of $9B. He is going back for another $0.5B soon. The estimates still say north of $10B. Uncle Tom, we wish you well. Glad to see you are a big project guy much like your buddy Forest. And let’s not forget that the start-up plan for this albatross is pretty bad. Who is running that show? Take a guess….. Uncle Tom’s sidekick “da Funk”. This is going to be a hoot to watch as it comes across the finish line. All I can say is No clue.
on Apr 5th, 2011 at 22:29
REPLY TO USCITIZEN: You seem to be deliberately trying to mix up what i have stated and what “OUTSPOKEN” has alleged. I authored the article “Shell is very different from Enron“. There were a number of articles by various publications comparing the Enron scandal with the Shell reserves scandal. The article by The Economist “Another Enron” is one such example. “OUTSPOKEN” provided related comments as a result of reading my article. OUTSPOKEN has already responded to your comments. You have acknowledged that there were former Shell employees at Enron who you describe as traders. In any event, I am not responsible for other contributors opinions/comments, whether from OUTSPOKEN, you, or anyone else who supplies comment for publication on this website.
on Apr 5th, 2011 at 17:58
God Bless Donovan and the person Outspoken who can not post for himself on this site. First Outspoken – shame on you for doing consulting work for Enron – you day out of one side you did not know how they made money , clairvoyant one, and then work for them as a consultant. Using the Donovan connect the dots skills, you are crooked. Secondly – as a lowly consultant, I am sure you had no real insight to how folks behaved or did business. But wait, if you claim you did, then you reinforce my orgininal thought, shame on you for doing business with them? So which is out oh outspoken one – indict yourself or admit you really did not know how they did business???
John, John , John – must you continue to dig while you spin, – nice try – Managers vs Execs. The guy was clearly implying that Shell managers/Execs worked for the corrupt Enron and Shell is corrupt – so any questions. Please. Name on ex Shell Manager who had anything to do with the big Enron decisions! Thought so , the silence is deafening.
I feel for folks like you! Have fun spinning this one!!
PS – maybe Shell survived our crisis , and it was a crisis, because there was no comparision to Enron, ya think?
Later – I may change my tag and send my thoughts to John so he can post for me – Come on Outspoken – if you are so Outspoken post for yourself!!
NOTE FROM JOHN DONOVAN. USCitizen included within his posting the comments made by “OUTSPOKEN”. I have deleted the repeated relevant OUTSPOKEN comment about ENRON, which can be read below. All that is left here is the latest comments of USCitzen.
on Apr 4th, 2011 at 14:15
POSTED On BEHALF OF “OUTSPOKEN”, A FORMER EMPLOYEE OF SHELL OIL USA: John,
I read the comment by the one reader about doing a criminal background investigation of your family.
Sounds like Shell at work here. Slander and defame those that would question the good name of Shell. Cast aspersions upon their good name. Destroy their credibility. Break them and their allies. What a tired and tawdry way of doing business.Thuggery disguised behind a thin veil of respectability provided by the carefully crafted corporate image.
As a doubter of Shell management’s quality of character and their manner of doing business you have become one of the feared and despised ‘OTHER’. The OTHER are to be neutralized so that they can not cause difficulties for the Shell corporate family. The OTHER are the enemy of all good Shell loyalists.
REPLY BY JOHN: I have no idea who made the comment.
on Apr 3rd, 2011 at 08:01
I wonder, has anyone investigated the Donovans for previous bad / criminal past family members? I am sure there must have been, but, does that make them responsible for the past family behaviour? REPLY BY JOHN DONOVAN: No one has said that current Shell employees or descendents of Sir Henri Deterding have any responsibility for his actions. They do not. Royal Dutch Shell boasts of its long history. Check out “Our History” on shell.com. As can be expected, although praiseworthy events are rightly covered, there is no mention whatsoever of Royal Dutch Shell massive financial support for Hitler, which saved the Nazi party from oblivion. The dark side of Shell’s history is hidden in the closet along with millions of skeletons. Due to the same driving motive – GREED – Shell has continued throughout the years to do business with evil dictators and still does. e.g. in June 2009, Shell settled a US Court case for $15.5 million in respect of complicity in torture, murder and human rights violations in Nigeria. As for “criminal past family members,” there are none of which I am aware.
on Mar 31st, 2011 at 17:35
I would suspect that Mr/Ms Lao is speaking in a perspective very relative to his or her own experiences. I guess Shell has done an ‘excellent job’ in the ‘relative-subjective’ opinion of all who only value the profits of their behavior. Too many contributors to this site have cited personal experiences with unethical behaviors in Shell’s local and corporate/global-level ‘systems’.
on Mar 31st, 2011 at 09:22
First time on this website. What is the matter with the site owners? So bigoted persons. Shell does an excellent job in poor countries despite all the anti-Shell nonsense posted here.
on Mar 30th, 2011 at 23:17
POSTED ON BEHALF OF AN OUTSPOKEN FORMER EMPLOYEE OF SHELL OIL USA: Yes I have something to say to uscitizen. Get a life. And learn to read and think for yourself. You come across like some Hitler Youth PR manager. Hail Mighty Shell. You also might want to read a book entitled ’1984′. It is a good read.
Not that it is any of your business but I used to consult for Enron. I did so for years so I know of the beast of which I speak. Unlike many former Shell employees I refused to take their job offers because I could not figure out how those clowns were making money, outside of their gas pipeline business. As it turned out, they weren’t. And for your information, some of Shell’s former senior level managers who went to work for them couldn’t figure that out either and left in short order. But these were the honest former Shell managers, some of whom I knew quite well.
However, as is always the case, birds of a feather flock together, and the slimier of the former Shell managers stuck around at Enron to begin second careers. Eventually, the big bad Wall Street wolf huffed and puffed and blew their house of cards apart. Couldn’t have happened to a nicer bunch of crooks. The sad part of the story is about all the good, hard working employees that got ‘f***’ by their own management, not to mention all the investors that lost their investment. In that regard RD Shell management and Enron management come from the same ‘rape’em and stab’em’ school of business economics. They make off like bandits with their inflated salaries and stock options, leaving the investors and employees holding the bag. It is fortunate for RD Shell investors and employees that Shell had the resources to survive their own massive corruption scandal. Aside from that, RD Shell management and Enron management were not that dissimilar in the way they operated. They still aren’t.
on Mar 29th, 2011 at 14:36
Geez, John Strikes again with a headline full of spin. Name one member of their senior or central leadership team who was a Shell exec. Sure they had some traders, but I guess you think traders set company policy and are the ones who mislead the world on Enron earnings, right John. Your integrity is not up to the standard you seem to want to hold others. Tip – your headline makes the uneducated think that leaders of Enron were ex Shell folks. Either change your headline or admit you mislead folks, that is the standard you espouse! But you will not, we know you too well. The spin meister!!
REPLY TO USCITIZEN FROM JOHN: You accuse me of spin, but engage in blatant spin yourself. This was not a comment made by me as you purport, but by a former employee of your company. The headline was a direct extract from the comment in question. The former Shell employees working for Enron were described in the comment as Shell managers, not Shell executives as you wrongly state. Hope you don’t mind me correcting your inaccuracies. I am sure “OUTSPOKEN” will have something to say in reply.
on Mar 27th, 2011 at 07:11
Dilbert, you must be joking ! If you are in Shell long enough, you know it is just lip service. Those Whites with skirts are preferred over colored in key positions. Since when you do you see a colored SEG in the EC. It will never happen. We have given up long time ago.
on Mar 26th, 2011 at 14:48
Peter Voser really knows how to motivate the hired hands:
Announces that DIVERSITY is top on his agenda. Odum (US Country Chair) follows with the statement that “persons of colour” are his top priority.
Sweet! Now my incompetent management will be incompetent females “of colour”!
What am I supposed to tell young white male hetrosexual engineers when I interview them? That they will love watching the diversity candidates promote past them because diversity is a wonderful thing? Sure it is, now get back to your cubicle and make your boss her bonus.
on Mar 21st, 2011 at 15:34
So, when are these Nazi secrets exposed. I am still waiting! So far nothing worth reading!! REPLY FROM JOHN DONOVAN: Sounds like your alias should be “NOT INTERESTED”. Can only surmise that you have not read the entire 9 part article. Or perhaps you are unconcerned that Shell helped finance the Nazis and hence the concentration camps, where millions perished in horrific circumstances. We have already provided copious evidence from independent reputable circumstances and much much more is in the pipeline. The Internet will prove to be a disaster for the reputation of Royal Dutch Shell. More newspaper archives from around the world are being made available on a searchable basis online. More books are available online on a searchable basis. Same applies to foreign language books and articles including from Germany. We have further confirmation of Shell’s direct contact with Hitler and Shell’s funding of the Nazi Party. Shell is certainly interested. Shell senior management was in contact with me on the subject earlier this month, after discussions with the paid historians responsible for “A History of Royal Dutch Shell”. It is obvious from the comments made by Fat Cat CEO Peter Voser about current events in Libya that Shell is still prepared to deal with the devil, driven, as always, by unscrupulous greed.
on Mar 16th, 2011 at 16:28
From RIA Novosti:
Russians Rush for Iodine Pills:
Russian military units stationed on the island of Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands, which are disputed with Japan, prepared for a possible evacuation because of the nuclear threat, only days after they were warned about the tsunami.
on Mar 15th, 2011 at 12:47
amazed nothing on this site about Kashagan; another mega-project quickly going down the pan in Shell’s hands
on Mar 11th, 2011 at 21:53
No tsunami impact on Sakhalin projects says Upstream Online:
Oil and gas projects near Sakhalin Island off Russia’s far-eastern coast have seen little impact from the tsunami triggered by a massive earthquake in Japan, supermajors operating in the region said. Russia ordered a tsunami warning in three …
on Mar 11th, 2011 at 16:13
Any news from Sakhalin about the effects of the quake/tsunami? Yuzno Sakalinsk is only about 400 miles from the epicentre
on Mar 3rd, 2011 at 01:25
John, how bad is the trouble in the Middle East going to hurt Shell on crude? I know the deal with there partners on Motiva crude but what about other areas? REPLY BY JOHN DONOVAN: Others contributors to this blog are better qualified than me to answer your question.
on Feb 27th, 2011 at 20:56
uscitizen is right, market demand is significant in setting consumer prices. no evil in working that process to full advantage. No, the upset in the balance occurs when individual and corporate self indulgence exploits other individuals, communities, cultures and the environment, whether on the supply or demand ends of the system. Every expense incurred from entertainment, travel, training, and drilling in deep water impact the supply cost. Responsible citizens understand this and are forever conscious of the impacts of their behaviors on all costs to the community, the environment and supply-side costs as they impact consumer prices.
on Feb 21st, 2011 at 17:06
To the poor fellow who wants to know why coke is more expensive than oil on a volume basis – God help ya! Next product up for his review – bottled water. Market demands , market demands. People will pay , companies will sell. REPLY FROM THE POOR FELLOW IN QUESTION: John, I have a response to USCitzens ‘predictable response. How about a monopolistic duopoly that exists between Coca – Cola Corp. and Pepsico and that prevents the rise of any meaningful competitor????? ‘Market forces’ my ass. The same thing is occurring in the bottled water business only the Nestle’ company has jumped into the fray and that keeps the situation somewhat more ‘fluid’, no pun intended.
on Feb 21st, 2011 at 17:04
I give, I call uncle. I can not continue a debate with someone who clearly is not listening and thinks acceptable ethical, moral and legal behavior with vendors, ie once or twice a year activities at de minimus levels, will drive me to corrupt practices. You win, I am crooked, all folks in all industries around the globe who have business relationships with behaviors identical to mine are crooked and we can not manage the slippery slope. Happy, good. I can see a lot clearer how your logic works and that the black and white world you live in is applied with your assumptions about peoples standards, values and ethics. Later and moving on. Please have your sarcasm meter calibrated before reading this post.
All the other accusations are too numerous to debate, others can engage you on that. I know how I am asked to behave, how I am expected to behave, how I am graded vs that behavior and how I apply that standard to my organization. All in my organization sleep well. Our community neighbors appreciate our behaviors and the stewardship we apply to our business. All I got pal.
REPLY FROM JOHN DONOVAN: For the sake of argument, let’s accept that you are a responsible person of integrity who acts at all times in accordance with the Code of Conduct. Unfortunately some Shell employees/managers/executives are greedy and thoroughly dishonest. Some climbed to the very top of the company. One even received a knighthood while secretly engaging in a multi-billion dollar securities fraud. Allowing vendors to treat Shell employees to freebies and Shell employees to treat government oversight officials to gifts, is a recipe for scandal, as per the notorious Shell sponsored Drugs, Sex & Corruption scandal involving the U.S. Minerals Management Service, which made news headlines in 2009.
on Feb 20th, 2011 at 01:06
POSTED ON BEHALF OF A FORMER SHELL OIL CO EMPLOYEE: John,
FIRST SUBJECT: Can anyone in the US food industry or petroleum industry explain to me in reasonalble and rational terms why Coca-Cola, etc., sells for about $1 US per liter retail, while gasoline sells for about $0.75 per liter US retail, which includes a host of Federal, State, and local taxes. Am I missing something here??
SECOND SUBJECT: John,
After 9/11 the US Congress passed an ill considered piece of legislation called the USA Patriot Act. Provisions of that Act are up for renewal this year. One of the more onerous provisions has to do with the attaining of search warrants. The Patriot Act did away with the protections from ‘unreasonable search and seizure’ that had been in place since the signing of the US Constitution in the late 18th century. That particular provision is set to expire shortly and an extension is currently under debate.
When I think about it, the Fed’s could use this statute to literally walk into Shell USA offices and go through everything Shell has in the way of business records. Everything. The cause would be suspicion of conspiracy to commit espionage. Wonder why that has not happened given that NCIS had/has had Shell under investigation?
Perhaps it was due to high level political connections in the Bush Administration, and continued high level connections in the US government. What do your readers think?
on Feb 15th, 2011 at 18:39
REPLY TO US CITIZEN: Unfortunately the code is meaningless since Shell senior management has a track record of supporting corrupt practices, engaging in corruption, securities fraud, IP theft, price fixing cartels, fictitious trades, putting profits before employee safety, sponsoring industrial espionage, using Shell employees as unknowing guinea pigs in a study of carcinogenic properties at a chemicals plant, informing on Nigerian gangs Shell was secretly funding, disguising Iraqi and Iranian oil shipments which were in breach of UN sanctions. This list is endless and includes involvement in torture, murder and human rights abuses. It really is deeds, not words which count. Shell’s ethical code is a sham. And we can see how Shell treats whistleblowers. I admire your loyalty to Shell, but it is sadly misplaced. As to your acceptance of gifts, free golf and “outings” from vendors doing business with Shell, the intent is obvious. It is to buy influence. That is corruption. It remains to be seen if the level of corruption – the gifts and freebies – are approved by Shell, but in that case it is an unwise unethical enticement to vendors and potentially a very slippery slope.
on Feb 15th, 2011 at 17:35
Nope – will not share that with you. But we have a tracking system where we log all of our vendor contacts and where we log offers that are out of compliance. Violate these polices and you get fired. Questions? We have had to fire folks for these violations. We are expected to flag violations that we see. We do not run to a hate site and post them, we deal with it.
Read the document you posted closer – while it does not list the limits, it refers to them.
ever offer, give, seek or accept G&H
that exceed prescribed value limits,
unless line manager approval has
been obtained. These value limits
are listed at intranet site.
If you are going to post a document read it!
on Feb 15th, 2011 at 00:35
REPLY TO US CITIZEN: Could not find the G&H limits within the Code of Conduct. Apparently published on the Shell Intranet. Perhaps you can kindly tell us what they are provided that does not put you in the position of revealing confidential internal information.
on Feb 15th, 2011 at 00:20
Wow – we went from items described as acceptable in our code of conduct, Yes Joh the standard is always that the activity does not influence your decisions, to visiting ladies of leisure and needing protection. I rest my case. John, you are like some politicians, take an extract out of context. If you read the whole policy , that I review every year, you would see that there are limits that have to be reported if you go over or are invited. That sidetrip to Vegas better have been reported by the person you replied for John. All of mine are reported and logged. You clearly did not understand the reciprocity approach that many of us take. You have a business relationship with a vendor, you ensure that for business entertainment, you reciprocate. That takes out any doubt that you did something for benefit. Try to understand how that works. There is no hole for me to get out of John, but you are in a cavern quoting part of a standard and applying it out of context. How do you know if it impacted my decision or not? I am not about to put my job at jeopardy for a lunch or a golf game. And to the guest that went thru you, shame on you for your accusations. Insulted me and my family. I will not do the same to you, higher standard. Good day. PS – read the whole policy John and then let folks know about the limits and why they are there.
on Feb 11th, 2011 at 21:54
POSTING ON BEHALF OF A FORMER EMPLOYEE OF SHELL OIL USA:
Reply to US Citizen:
When I was working for Shell USA I once had a vendor (who will remain unnamed for the present time), and whose services I was evaluating, offer to fly me out to their corporate facilities in California in their corporate Boeing 727 to ‘look over their operation’. On the return trip they indicated that there would be a stopover in Las Vegas for a little ‘R&R’. Prostitution is legal in Nevada, and they asked if I have ever visited any of the more famous ‘recreational institutions’. Of course, there would be a little gambling, etc., at the casinos. A good time would have been had by all. I declined the invitation. The vendor was not ‘passing the grade’, and they were clearly trying to either buy me off or set me up. It didn’t make much difference.
This sort of thing was, and still is, not uncommon in the oil industry. It is the sort of thing that comes with being a ‘member of the club’, so to speak. The vendors supply the ‘entertainment’ in return for business being kicked their direction. That is the quid pro quo. (Does this remind you of the Sex and Drugs scandal at DoI??).
I am certain that you enjoy your ‘benefits’ and that you have a good time, being that you are obviously ‘a member of the club’. (I presume you ‘use protection’??? Wouldn’t want to give the wife an unwanted ‘gift’.)
on Feb 11th, 2011 at 19:58
yes, every Shell employee that is cowardly silent when they see unfair, unjust, unsafe, unlawful or immoral acts. ..and especially those whom I have seen commit these acts while getting recognized and rewarded for some pretentious accomplishment. Those that get away with political games for their own advancement are the most proud to work for Shell. I was once very proud of Shell, and very proud to be an employee. I earned a very comfortable living,and probably overlooked things while raising my family, that became intolerable as I aged. Be proud of your company, do well and take care of your family. Do all that you can to influence when you see someone violating these values. Hopefully you will never be exposed in the way that I was, to behaviors and activities that you can no longer influence or tolerate.
on Feb 11th, 2011 at 16:52
REPLY TO uscitizen: Every time you pay us a visit, you dig yourself a deeper hole. You admit accepting gifts, lunches and free golf from parties doing business with Shell. This is what it says in the Shell Code of Conduct: “You must not offer, pay, make, seek or accept a personal payment, gift or favour in return for favourable treatment or to gain any business advantage.” Do you think these parties are lavishing gifts on you because of your sex appeal and great personality, or to gain favor? Based on your postings I think we all know the answer at least in relation to the latter. With the time you spend on free lunches, free golf/outings etc plus visits here, currently several times a day, I am surprised you have any time left for work? I have deleted from your comments the inclusion of the postings to which you are responding, because the repeats in my view only cause confusion.
on Feb 11th, 2011 at 15:57
REPLY TO “bware” BY “uscitizen”:
So you just bashed every Shell Employee that is proud of Shell. We are all wonderful, dedicated, self-sacrificing lieutenant or pawns? I have said on here that a company, like people make mistakes. Never said Shell has not. What we refuse to take is the bashing that John and people like you hand out. Stating that the intent of the company is to make money in spite of all the stakeholders. Pure rubbish and if you really paid attention you would know that. I have worked with people like you, we know your type. I sleep very well, you have not read all my posts. If this company was EVIL as you and Johnnie state, then I would have been asked to violate operating permits to make money, look the other way to get the units back up on time, etc. We simply do not do that or allow that. Some operating companies do, that will get you fired at Shell. Now you and John will call me a Liar, but you have not been in my shoes and that is how we and I do business. Simple. And if you can not see how a person who works for a company that trains us to do business right is bashed because of some mistakes as an evil company, so be it, you are the one who is myopic and looking thru some colored lenses. Later, gotta go violate a permit and gas the community – that is what I do every day right?
on Feb 11th, 2011 at 15:48
THIS REPLY IS IN RESPONSE TO THE POSTING BY JOHN DONOVAN COMMENCING “In fact your posting was published hours ago…
My bad – it was not there when I refreshed but one I posted after it was?? Oh my Vegas and Atlantic City – we clearly are not communicating. $20 lunch at the local Mexican place. Sometimes I buy sometimes they buy! $50 round of golf, sometimes they buy sometimes I buy! Oh and I have nothing to hide from the Shell system John, turn them all in. Taking a trip to Vegas or Atlantic City would be against the policy, I do not do that. You chose to start this web page, so I all realize you are in a much different place than folks who come on here. PS – why do you not call out all of the folks bashing shell and not using their real names, I thought so! So I guess the fact that they are hurling abuse while hiding their identity allows us to draw conclusions about their honesty, courage, integrity and credibility. Right John! Now we see how your argument falls apart, as most of your arguments do! See ya, till next time. Enjoyed the distraction!
Headed off to Wimbledon with a supplier soon, RIGHT!! That is what John thinks a Business meeting is to further a business relationship!!
on Feb 11th, 2011 at 06:26
…of folks like uscitizen…no responsible character traits here. All of Shell is always great. If one believes that they exploit, rape, and abuse resources and people, then one must be vindictive. uscitizen is clearly a hopeless patsy. ..or maybe he is a dedicated employee that does not want to see his beloved Shell being immoral… or a manager/director who is trying to defend the charge that he has so proudly stood by. I like others in today’s new shell could no longer live like this. If you sleep well every night, knowing what Shell’s only true motive is, no matter how well you deny it to yourself; and without ever communicating it to anyone, then God bless you. You are one wonderful, dedicated, self-sacrificing lieutenant or pawn. This all boils down to Shell’s ability to irresponsibly disregard communities, cultures, the environment, humanity, and the personal impact on individuals, for the sake of energy exploitation for profit. No, uscitizen, I have worked with people like you, for people like you, and have had people like you work for me; not becoming part of the character-absent, immoral culture, and speaking honestly when you see injustice, is the only way to be truly content. Defending immorality, can only mean internal misery, no matter how much you want to believe that preserving your position and honoring Shell is what’s important. There are far too many observable, irresponsible acts committed by Shell, not to at least admit awareness. Some of us see these behaviors carried out by such a significant player in the exploitation of our resources as EVIL. Something tells me that you may be in a position of some influence. How well are you really sleeping? please forgive me if i have this all wrong; i am just trying to figure out the means of your die-hard , servant position.
on Feb 10th, 2011 at 23:19
REPLY TO uscitizen: In fact your posting was published hours ago. Guess you forgot to refresh the page. We remain keen to have people speaking out for Shell. That should have been plain from the fact that we have continued without exception publishing your abusive comments about us over recent years. What I am pointing out is that there is a vast difference between us making comments in our own names about Shell, which we are prepared to defend in court, compared with you making defamatory comments about us while hiding behind an alias posting name and an alias email address. Shell has our current address for correspondence and the service of legal proceedings. We were in contact with Shell just days ago via our home address and await a response. I am sure visitors to this site would be impressed if you posted under your real name (and supplied us with your address details – not for publication) so that we were in the same position as Shell is with us i.e. able to challenge us in the libel courts. If you have confidence that your personal acceptance of gifts, lunches and “outings” from parties doing business with Shell Oil will not be frowned upon by Shell senior management, then at least declare your name. BTW, are the “outings” to Atlantic City or Las Vegas? If you continue to insist on hurling abuse while hiding your identity, others will be able to draw their own conclusions about your honesty, courage, integrity and credibility. On reflection, bearing in mind the hole you have dug for yourself in relation to the subject of bribes/corruption, you are probably best advised not to disclose your real name.
on Feb 10th, 2011 at 21:31
Oh Donovan – you did not post my last entry. What part of it violated the Blog rules? Yes folks – when you post some hard truths the great hope for ethics will not post it! Wow – pot calling the kettle black, but that would mean your accusations against Shell have some merit, so naaah. Bad analogy! Lets just say you make mistakes that folks can interpret as evil, bad form, low ethical standards. See how tough it is to meet your standard of pleasing everone all the time?. Tough world out here John, come join us.
on Feb 10th, 2011 at 18:22
“Interested
on Feb 10th, 2011 at 2:12 am
What is happening in PA with CEP? I understand there have been talks about this blog. The funny thing is that after the note from Norco about the three new comers all talk stopped. Would like to hear what OSHA had to say about the mishap.”
They might have realized what kind of site this was and realized they were posting in the wrong place and found someplace more credible!
on Feb 10th, 2011 at 18:20
“RELY TO US CITIZEN:
You cannot change now what you have stated here in the past. Fortunately visitors can look back at your comments and decide for themselves whether my statement that you have admitted accepting gifts from vendors and seem to consider such gifts to be an entitlement, is a fair assessment. You have now also admitted accepting free hospitality. Lunch, presumably washed down with free beer or wine. You also mention social outings. The list grows. What next. This is the corporate culture that resulted in the Sex, Drugs and Corruption scandal. With regards to whistleblowing, I suggest that you check out relevant legislation enacted in the USA and the UK to protect whistleblowers. You will then be better informed. Far from being illegal, whistleblowing is protected. Shell has a whistleblower helpline, but unfortunately it is fatally flawed, which is perhaps why Shell employees contact me, rather than Shell. With regards to Shell employees generally, we know that the vast majority are decent hard working people and have said so many times. Our problem is with the Shell fat cats who will deal with the devil and flout Shell
on Feb 10th, 2011 at 02:12
What is happening in PA with CEP? I understand there have been talks about this blog. The funny thing is that after the note from Norco about the three new comers all talk stopped. Would like to hear what OSHA had to say about the mishap.
on Feb 9th, 2011 at 01:09
RELY TO US CITIZEN:
You cannot change now what you have stated here in the past. Fortunately visitors can look back at your comments and decide for themselves whether my statement that you have admitted accepting gifts from vendors and seem to consider such gifts to be an entitlement, is a fair assessment. You have now also admitted accepting free hospitality. Lunch, presumably washed down with free beer or wine. You also mention social outings. The list grows. What next. This is the corporate culture that resulted in the Sex, Drugs and Corruption scandal. With regards to whistleblowing, I suggest that you check out relevant legislation enacted in the USA and the UK to protect whistleblowers. You will then be better informed. Far from being illegal, whistleblowing is protected. Shell has a whistleblower helpline, but unfortunately it is fatally flawed, which is perhaps why Shell employees contact me, rather than Shell. With regards to Shell employees generally, we know that the vast majority are decent hard working people and have said so many times. Our problem is with the Shell fat cats who will deal with the devil and flout Shell’s own claimed ethical code to enrich themselves. In future, if you wish to make defamatory and abusive comments about us, please set up your own website so that we can take appropriate legal action against you. We can hardly do so when the comments are published on our own website (with you hiding behind a pseudonym). We have the courage and integrity to make comments in our own name and at our own cost.
on Feb 8th, 2011 at 23:54
“”REPLY TO
on Feb 1st, 2011 at 10:55
REPLY TO “uscitizen”: Have not heard from you since you admitted accepting gifts from vendors doing business with Shell. It was obvious from your comments that you considered such gifts/bribes to be an entitlement. With regards to whistleblowing, you obviously support the people at Shell like Jeroen van der Veer who knew for years that shareholders were being given fraudulent information about Shell’s claimed oil and gas reserves and did not inform the people who own the company or bring the multibillion dollar securities fraud into the open. Shell Production Geologist Dr Huong, who did blow the whistle internally, was sacked and then buried in court injunctions and prison committal proceedings to silence him.
on Feb 1st, 2011 at 10:45
REPLY ON BEHALF OF A FORMER EMPLOYEE OF SHELL OIL USA: To USCitizen: Read the Wikileaks revelations recently? Or is that an ‘inconvenient truth’? Shell only has its senior management to blame for all of that. Need to watch those ‘loose lips…’, and put your corporate propaganda organs into high gear doing damage control. We thought you had had enough and were through with this website. Promises, promises. That is So much like Shell management. You cannot trust a word they say. Have a good day.
on Jan 31st, 2011 at 20:06
Ahh the conspiracy theorists rise. Oh yes, RD is plotting all kinds of evil things! Geez, you folks need to get a life. Yeah if you leak company confidential information, you might have someone trying to figure out who it is! What a concept. Maybe one the us government may want to look into!
on Jan 31st, 2011 at 00:12
POSTED ON BEHALF OF A FORMER EMPLOYEE OF SHELL OIL USA: This is for shellwaarbenjijnu:
I now live in that mystical land of Shangrila. Thanks for asking. To be honest, I was just being a bit of a smartass with that MI6 comment, but the analogy seamed apt. In the States Shell employs former FBI types for their security group, and they have connections with their buddies at the FBI. Yes, it is indeed a dirty and tangled web RD Shell has woven. RD Shell is doing its best to co-opt and compromise politicians and those governmental agencies that have ‘watch-dog’ functions over the legality of their operations. Call them what you want, RD Shell or the fictional ‘Spectre’, the company still stinks and they threaten the rule of law in those countries in which they operate.
on Jan 30th, 2011 at 13:48
Ah “former employee of Shell USA” – regarding MI6 it is even more tangled than you know. Shell has former UK intelligence service operatives on payroll. A certain Ian “McCreepy” is engaged in tracking down employees who leak to this site. No doubt through his web of connections busies himself with trying to crack open this site and determine the identity of the contributors.
on Jan 29th, 2011 at 22:11
POSTED ON BEHALF OF A FORMER EMPLOYEE OF SHELL OIL USA: John,
The more I read about RD Shell the more they resemble the dastardly fictonal criminal entity ‘SPECTRE’ of Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels and movies. Is this a case of art imitating life, or the other way around? Where is MI6 and James Bond when you need them?
on Jan 27th, 2011 at 01:14
Someone From Port Arthur:
You guys had to have met the infamous Joey D, (He will be found right up The FUNKS ass, cant miss him. Please let us know what you think, Please dont be shy we all know that he is a piece of shit!!!! along with the other two that were shipped over there to save the day…
on Jan 27th, 2011 at 00:33
POSTING ON BEHALF OF AN OUTSPOKEN FORMER EMPLOYEE OF SHELL OIL USA: John,
I read your latest Wiki-leaks posting. I knew the Dutch government held a significant stake in the giant Groningen gas field in the Netherlands, but did not know it was 40%. That means RD Shell’s stake is 30%, and they pay a boat load of taxes on what they earn from that field as well. Likewise for Exxon.
So, why has Ireland given away the Corrib gas field to Shell and its partners? It seems to me that the Irish government should be able to cut a deal similar to what the Dutch have with RD Shell and Exxon in the Groningen gas field. And RD Shell and their partners should pay income taxes as well.
RD Shell has done a good job of co-opting the Irish government to get the deal they wanted. That much is clear.
on Jan 20th, 2011 at 12:26
I wonder what “associated marketing businesses” to Stanlow can mean?
on Jan 18th, 2011 at 10:55
POSTED ON BEHALF OF A FORMER EMPLOYEE OF SHELL OIL USA:
Hello John,
Your Canadian reader is quite correct about his geography, of course.
However, I bet much of the air pollution from Fort McMurry circles the globe at that latitude and makes it to Prudhoe Bay the ‘long way’, particularly in the summer. No doubt air pollution from the Russian Arctic oil complexes makes it to Alaska and beyond as well.
As a kid growing up near Yellowstone Park there were times when the smoke from the Alaskan forest fires would reduce the visibility in Northwest Wyoming to just a few miles.
Much of Los Angeles’ air quality and pollution problems today are not home grown, but come with the wind all the way across the Pacific from China.
My point here is that air quality in the Alaskan offshore Arctic is not going to be impacted to any measurable degree by RD Shell’s drill ship and small flotilla of supporting vessels in a two month drilling program. The allegation that it will have any measurable impact is probably pretty much of a joke.
My regards to your Canadian reader.
on Jan 17th, 2011 at 21:09
While the former Shell Oil employee may have a point on the motives of the DOI, his geography is a bit off. To say the oil sands in Alberta are “just next door” is a stretch. Prudhoe Bay to Fort McMurray is about 3600 km (2250 miles) or about the same as Los Angles to Boston
on Jan 15th, 2011 at 00:33
POSTED ON BEHALF OF A FORMER EMPLOYEE OF SHELL OIL USA: John,
Read the stories about RD Shell’s air pollution permits being ‘deficient’, thereby delaying the issuance of a drilling permit for next year. This is nonsense. Something else is going on at DoI.
The amount of air pollutants emitted by land rigs, and the Prudhoe Bay complex, not to mention the massive tar sands projects in Albert, which is essentially just next door to Alaska, dwarf anything RD Shell might emit in a 2 month drilling program.
DoI has decided to ‘stick it’ to RD Shell for other reasons. Maybe it has to do with the Gale Norton affair, or the ‘sex and drugs’ scandals, or the current ongoing investigation by DoI and the Navy. Whatever the cause, RD Shell has a ‘political problem’ that they may not be able to overcome. Don’t count on Shell ever getting to drill in the offshore anytime soon.
Maybe RD Shell should contract for a modern drilling rig, that might help their cause. The fact that they are not going after a modern rig indicates they know something else is going on.
When the Republicans lost the White House Shell lost its sponsor. They are on the outside looking in now.
on Jan 14th, 2011 at 14:30
POSTED ON BEHALF OF A FORMER EMPLOYEE OF SHELL OIL USA: John,
I have been reading the continuing saga of Dr. Huong. RD Shell is a vindictive company. Anyone who knows how they operate knows this. But in Dr. Huong’s case the pernicious hypocrisy of Shell management has climbed to new heights. They sued this poor man because they could get away with it in the corrupt Malaysian legal system. The claim of ‘defamation’ is a joke on Shell’s part. Shell’s conduct in this case is a classic example of ‘corporate tyranny’. Nigeria is another.
Keep this story in the public eye. It is a lesson and a warning to all who would ‘cross’ RD Shell.
Beware the ‘Yellow Peril’.
on Jan 13th, 2011 at 09:16
EGrainger, perhaps I’ll help get some response to your questions started. Yes, it is hard for some to see Shell as the responsible party in some of the Niger Delta events. My opinion is that oil exploiters are responsible for collaborative responsibility, with governments, communities, cultures and the environment. Sabotage of their facilities only indicates that they have not completed the whole package. Maximizing profit can mean neglect of stakeholders.
on Jan 12th, 2011 at 00:59
I am currently investigating Shell’s position within Nigeria, more specifically the Delta; when I came across your website. It is crammed with an insane amount of information I can’t even begin to take half of it in, it
on Jan 10th, 2011 at 10:27
POSTING ON BEHALF OF A FORMER EMPLOYEE OF SHELL OIL USA: John, Got an observation and a question.
The observation is that from all the comments you get, and the articles you run, like that on Dr. Huong, it is clear that RD Shell management is highly cannibalistic and has a nasty tendency to jettison their best and brightest for self-serving ‘political reasons’. It was that way when I was at Shell so things haven’t changed much, except to get worse.
The question I have for all the critics of your ‘revisit of yester-year’ is this:
If the clock were turned back to the 1930′s does anyone have any doubt that today’s RD Shell management, European or American, would sell out their Jewish employees? Remember that Shell USA is headquartered in the ‘Deep South’ and in the heart of Southern Baptist Country. Come on folks, be honest. We all know that today’s sterling gang of managers would do it in a heart beat, and without a second thought. And they would do just to suck up and earn the ‘brownie points’ to further their careers.
Think about that for awhile.
RD Shell is such a well led corporation.
REPLY COMMENT BY JOHN DONOVAN: I will duck that question. What I would say is that some members of Shell top management have ruthlessly abandoned claimed business principles out of greed, ambition and/or misguided loyalty to dishonest colleagues.
on Jan 9th, 2011 at 22:27
More on TP…. Trust me, the fact that Tom Purves single handedly ruined the careers and reputations of many in his 4 years at the helm will be his legacy for those in the ranks. For the SEs in Shell, you are right as they will look at the project called CEP and will let that determine what his ride into the sunset is titled. The facts re CEP are this…. Good concept, bad timing, leadership ( Lauher ) that was in over his head ( remember Tom hired his little buddy off the streets after CP dumped him, project’s initial estimate is $3.5b; Tom gets it approved for $7b; the project goes off the rails due to no controls and inadequate leadership with Bechtel and Lauher and his team, the control estimates come in at $10b, Tom gets it re-approved at $8.5b. And we are where we are. Still trying to get it completed, 2 years later. Project will still be over $10b. Start-up will be what it is going to be.
As for leadership being Shell’s finest, I don’t disagree that this is probably the best Shell can put on the front line. This isn’t saying much as most in the trenches know that Purves carries alot of weight with Motiva and the Saudis since he is the only senior left over from the early days of Motiva. But give me a break, the other leaders brought in are the ones Purves brought in, not shell’s best. At least if he is going down, Shell’s senior leaders let him “do it his way”. Trust me, they all deserve each other. the rest of us just will wait it out anddo our best.
on Jan 9th, 2011 at 16:12
Those observing and those being impacted by TP’s needy ego, do not his legacy make. When it comes right down to it, he and the Funk were seen as saviors to a project needing better management. And this is what gets played outside of Shell. If he pulls it off with cost improvement, and is able to connect all upsets to Bechtel (and others), his retirement package will be one to be envied. The Reuter’s article excerpt below eludes to that view; managers brought in to ‘restart’ the project after Saudi ARAMCO became concerned about cost, must be Shell’s finest.
“The $5-billion project, begun in 2007 was stopped for over a year in late 2008 due to concerns by Motiva partner Saudi Aramco about the cost and management of the expansion. Work resumed in 2009.”
on Jan 9th, 2011 at 02:30
Mr. Donovan, here is what I can tell you since the PR spin on this was pretty shallow…. The crane, a part of the CEP project, and being operated by Bechtel, toppled over backwards, falling into and across a piperack. This damaged the piperack extensively, taking out power lines, collapsing into a resid tank that we had just put back in service. This also trapped an individual in one of the vacuum trucks in the surrounding area. A very bad event indeed but played down to the external community for obvious reasons. Another problem due to Bechtel which should have been fired from the project back in 2009 instead of all the people Tom Purves ended up letting go that were trying to help. Maybe Purves and Funkhouser with their little tag-along plant manager can help to right this one. Believe me, it is going to get worse before it gets better on this project. OSHA is in here investigating. We’ll wait and see what they find.
on Jan 8th, 2011 at 09:29
POSTED ON BEHALF OF A FORMER EMPLOYEE OF SHELL OIL: John,
I read your expose’ on Dr. Huong’s ordeal. As a student of history this is the sort of thing you would expect from the fascists or Bolsheviks of days gone by. The two ideologies are different sides of the same twisted coin.
RD Shell’s cultural roots show clearly in the way they treated this poor man. And their conduct was and is despicable. That man did not slander Shell. Truth is not slander.
on Jan 6th, 2011 at 03:23
Dr. Huong, you are not the only one who has been done wrong. The only truth here is that Shell senior mgt is bad. Tom Purves, here in the US, has done similar deeds as you refer to. He has lied about good people in our company and between him and the HR cronies, who sole job these days is to serve senior mgt, created fabrications that led to good people leaving our company. A strong similarity is the level of diligence that senior mgt and HR exhibited going after these people to run them out of the company. Tom also lied and had performance factors changed, after the manager had set them, to allow people to be targeted for severance packages across all of our GC sites. He falls into the same mix of senior managers that you reference; the only difference is the country. Shell senior mgt has changed this company we have all been proud of and have served our entire careers for. Flat out frustrated and no end in sight. Shell mgt won’t respond to you becauase they have no backbone and won’t stand up to be judged by their deeds. Face it, this company is a 3rd rate company with weak leaders. This unfortunately is as good as it gets until major changes happen.
on Jan 5th, 2011 at 09:51
It would be surprising if the Frontier Discoverer meets current emission standards. The vessel was built 45 years ago. Imagine trying to get an emissions certificate for a 1965 automobile…
Shell claims to have spent over $2bn on its Arctic exploration programme, but are proposing to use a vessel which should have been sent to the scrapyard many years ago. A new vessel would cost perhaps $500 million, but would last for 35 years and would include all the latest safety and environmental equipment. How can Shell claim to be serious about emissions, safety, and environmental protection while trying to use equipment constructed when the issues were not even considered – the Frontier Discoverer was built before the first major offshore blowout (Unocal, Santa Barbara channel) occurred in 1969.
on Jan 3rd, 2011 at 20:45
Golden Triangle Watchmen:
Did the Norco TRIO show up yet? Useless Joey D (No degree just like “Funk”, BB- rule breaker, and Gabby Dipp (brainless). They are all coming from NORCO to save the day over there in Texas. Again Funk pulling strings for Joey. His dictatorship at Motiva Norco was too long and over thank god. They were running him out so he had to call his long lost buddy Funk to help him out. This useless piece of shit is like a grade 2 or so making way too much money for a person with no degree who skated on everyone else
on Jan 2nd, 2011 at 18:58
That TP was able to reek the havoc that he did, on the organization and on people’s lives. No justice that no one had the wisdom or guts to stop him. .. Or that he is still in any position at Shell. … but the biggest injustice of all, is that there has not been nor will there probably ever be, reparation for his damage to personal lives! Yep more of the ‘dialogue’ of alignment, being ‘spoken’ in today’s Shell.
on Jan 1st, 2011 at 23:21
Funny is not what would come to mind for Tx City from where I sit if Jeff gets run off from Motiva and goes to hang on to his next apron with KC. Many of us, who read this website, remember the Tom and Jeff show when it was here. Not even close to being funny. I am just blown away that Shell has let it exist as long as it has. He got fired up here when CP decided that he would not be a manager. Peple up here remember what the knife felt like when he was working for Tom 2 levels down in the organization. I’m sure he has a nice little reason to go to BP with his Norco buddy still around. Was part of why he is no longer married I’m sure. The boy is no good. Trust those who know him. And neither is Purves. He is old school Shell with some friends in HR. The only reason he hangs around. Tom must be counting his days.
on Dec 31st, 2010 at 02:02
About Jeff it would be funny if he would end up at Texas City BP with KC and his other friend from Norco. Poor BP.
on Dec 24th, 2010 at 21:24
POSTED ON BEHALF OF A FORMER EMPLOYEE OF SHELL OIL USA: Response to Golden Triangle Watchman: Hey Buddy, you got it right. The Nazi story isn’t about Nazis, or Hitler. It is all about the mediocrity of Shell management, their lack of integrity and character, and how those major personality faults in senior leadership reflect in the corporate business decisions, in how they treat their people, their business partners, and how they deal with governments. It is about the consequences of bad leadership and the need for a serious house cleaning in the management ranks at Shell, and a change in corporate management culture.
on Dec 24th, 2010 at 14:57
Re Interested…. I think you will see a bad start-up because the construction is / has been bad all along. There is no contractor, excluding Bechtel, that feels good about what they have participated in. Re Tom, retirement by end of 2011 or sooner if he is successful in pushing the project to completion sooner. Face it, he got demoted and sent over here to clean the mess up he created. He is only interested in his legacy and his ego, nothing else. Re Jeff, too young to retire and he has an ex wife who owns half of what he gets so he will want to keep working. As soon as Tom leaves, Jeff will be disposed of in a quiet way. He knows it, Tom knows it, and Shell mgt can’t wait. Jeff is bad to the bone and just dirty. Has been as I understand it for many many years. Forrest won’t be too far behind. He is a joke and just does what these 2 tell him to.
Re Shellie… wake up. This story isn’t about Nazis. It’s about how Shell mgt continues to connect themselves with bad people, bad govts, and because the leadership we have for our company is weak and basically programmed to preach the same message, they are bad. Not so much because they are evil I belive; they are just bad and weak leaders. Not much left to say.
on Dec 24th, 2010 at 02:17
Thanks GTW for update. Started some calls about start up people who plan to leave mid-year 2011. I wonder how this will work for TP & J?
on Dec 23rd, 2010 at 23:09
REPLY TO Shellie: What a strange posting. You seem to be under the impression that we are in some way making money from this website. In fact, it costs us money every month with no incoming revenue. No subscription costs. No advertising. No donations. We deliberately operate on an entirely non commercial basis so that no one can fairly accuse us of trying to make money out of telling the truth about Shell. With regards to the Nazi aspect, I note that thus far no one has disputed the facts as stated in Royal Dutch Shell Nazi Secrets. The evidence, much of which has been buried in newspaper archives for several decades, is overwhelming. Shell decided to deal with the devil for financial gain. It is still following the same policy. We have no intention of dropping the subject. In fact, as will be seen in the New Year, we will ensure that the Nazi chapter in Shell’s history is taken up by the mainstream media. I appreciate that some Shell employees may feel uncomfortable about working for a company stained by its Nazi past, and from the plunder, corruption and pollution in Nigeria. And now Shell is in bed with state sponsors of terrorism – Libya and Iran, but that is the history and current business record of Shell. Evil is in the DNA of this company, which pledges honesty, integrity and transparency in all of its dealings. How on earth does that equate with news stories over the last six months alone and even with those published in recent days. If anything we have published was untrue, Shell would have had the website shut down within hours. It does not try to do so, because any court case would only focus more attention on its evil track record. That’s the truth of the matter. With regards to your personal insults directed at my father, he served in the British army for 12 years and fought the Japanese in Burma. He has a disabled pension and medals to prove his record in World War 2. It is rather more commendable than Shell’s.
on Dec 23rd, 2010 at 22:12
John, can you stop this stupid campaign of nazi thing? This is going no where.
Is your cranky, eccentric old man after this? Ask him to enjoy rest of his days or is he planning another duplicate site to keep your extended family fed.
These pictures from the 60 year old nazi grave are annoying. I work for shell and agree/ disagree with
some or many policies. But you have no freaking right to speak on employees behalf. For one thing, shell is feeding us and other at least millions directly/ indirectly
and your attitude stinks with these nazi & other idiotic, stretched stories.You and your kids (if you can have any), have made their
bucks by these dubious & parasitic activity. STOP when you can…Your sight was interesting during shell restructuring last year with different and real people participating but it is
pathetic now. Same people appear to be posting things under different names..same things with different make-up. If you have any sense then look around, most companies
in the world in 21st century work in similar way. I participate in many blogs online but have not seen such a vicious poison in today’s world. Your kids, if any,
will of course be thanking you for arranging their future source of income. Please wake-up, listen, look around and stop this non sense.
You did your job, screwed Sakhalin but now dont screw more ; it has started to hurt as an employee.
on Dec 21st, 2010 at 17:47
What’s the latest on the epitome of morals, KA, that the GEP Folks so dearly loved?
on Dec 21st, 2010 at 12:51
Interested – Nothing is being said because nothing is really happening or different on the project. It is getting built. Uncle Tom Purves got sent over here to “fix it” but everyone who knows Tom knows he hasn’t got a clue how to run these big projects. But him and Jeff are going to fix it. Right… The last feedback I got from my contractor buddies is that Uncle Tom called them all in here lately and told them they would finish by end of 2011. They won’t tell him any different but know that is a farce, which is the fundamental root of the problem. My understanding, when Tom could have come clean with the board, told them the project would get done for $8.5b when in fact every control estimate and check estimate that different groups did for him said no less than 10. He wanted the project to get done and lied to make it happen. Tom has no issues lieing to anyone. He has done that pretty consistently over his career and continues. We all expect he will wrap it up in 2011 or 2012, collect his stock, and retire. This will be one retirement that should raise the company stock price due to ethics and morals getting better when he leaves. Until then, it’s the Jeff and Tom show because all Botts could do to punish Tom was to demote him and send him to Port Arthur to clean up the mess he created. Wow, what a punishment. He was over here all the time anyway.
on Dec 20th, 2010 at 15:42
What is going on with the Port Arthur CEP job? Can’t find out anything.
on Dec 18th, 2010 at 12:11
I am also an exUS Shell staff. I think I know uscitizen from his style of writing. He was one of those continually on the take – bad apple as far as we were concerned. Amazing of him talking about Grofaz!
on Dec 16th, 2010 at 20:27
REPLY TO uscitizen: I guess we both have got a little over-excited in the heat of discussions. What I will do is thank you for all your postings here and wish you all the best for Christmas and the New Year.
on Dec 16th, 2010 at 19:51
“I used to work for Shell USA. The company you describe did not exist in my day, except at the lower level, sometimes, and I seriously doubt it exists today. In fact, the staff was always looking for a little G&C from one vendor or another. (G&C
on Dec 15th, 2010 at 23:10
REPLY TO “dutchdude”: We try to avoid censorship but agree that the insults detract from some excellent and informative postings and lively debate. Perhaps contributors will kindly bear this in mind in future postings on this blog as I will.
on Dec 15th, 2010 at 17:03
To John D.: John maybe it would be a good idea to post a rule for the blogs that personal insults to fellow bloggers are not allowed. Your blog serves a purpose of discussion, that certainly can’t be had in Shell. The returning personal attacks distract from the real purpose of your blog. There is enough in Shell to write about, let’s not attack each other at this forum, since we all took the time to log in to your site (without a doubt from our own machines and not the company’s!!)
on Dec 15th, 2010 at 10:34
POSTED ON BEHALF OF A FORMER EMPLOYEE OF SHELL OIL USA: I have a response for US Citizen.
I used to work for Shell USA. The company you describe did not exist in my day, except at the lower level, sometimes, and I seriously doubt it exists today. In fact, the staff was always looking for a little G&C from one vendor or another. (G&C – graft and corruption, as in: tickets to ball games, free meals, etc. All in return for throwing business the way of the vendor. This was and still is a time honored ‘quid quo pro’ in the oil industry). Senior management always played games, especially with reserve bookings (does that bring back a memory or two?). No offense fella’, but your blathering about how great Shell is kind of reminds me of the blathering the Germans did in the 1930′s about how great GROFAZ was (look that one up). You are obviously a bright guy and the German’s are bright people. But there are: ‘none so blind as those who will not see’, and ‘none so deaf as those who will not hear’. You live in a world of willful self delusion. A fraud. You have ‘bought in’ to the system in order to move up the food chain. If Shell was such an ethical outfit how come all the criminal investigations regarding bribery, and so on. Guys like you always make guys like GROFAZ possible.
on Dec 15th, 2010 at 00:48
REPLY TO “uscitizen”: Still twisting my words. “Lazy and/or unintelligent” was and remains my assessment of you personally based on your postings, and does not reflect at all on Shell employees in general who are loyal to the company and defend its actions when they deem that it is being wrongly maligned. You say the company you work for would never tolerate you taking inappropriate gifts from vendors. This seems to suggest that you take gifts from vendors which YOU consider are appropriate? You go on to accuse me and conscience driven Shell whistleblowers of being on a par with the Nazis. A reference to the most evil regime in history responsible for tens of millions of deaths, including the mass genocide carried out in concentration camps. Is that really your considered opinion?
on Dec 15th, 2010 at 00:05
Agree with DutchDude, the “revelation” that Shell had people in Nigerian ministries etc is not new, and was always well known. Suppose the diplomats have to put something in their reports, but this is not a big reveal.
on Dec 14th, 2010 at 22:45
Nice shot, lazy and unintelligent huh. So that is what you think about Shell employees who have the guts to defend their company. What a useless tool. Let me give you some data. The company I work for – from EVP down – would never tolerate me mis reporting data to government agencies, violating Environmental permits on purpose to make production targets, cooking the books on fixed costs vs capex, taking inappropriate gifts from vendors. That is how I was trained by EVP’s down and that is how I train my folks and the folks who work for them. We will fire people who do that and have. No exceptions. Is there a different standard at the highest levels, I do not have enough data to draw conclusions. Does not stop you, but it does stop me. Now – how will you react? I lie. right. Show me data, sorry John – company confidential. The info you get from Shell insiders violates our business principles, but you are glad to take it right John. Where does that place you and the Shell employees who violate our policies? On par with the Nazis I would say!
on Dec 14th, 2010 at 18:39
REPLY TO “BEMUSED” POSTED ON BEHALF OF A FORMER EMPLOYEE OF SHELL OIL USA: I have a comment regarding ‘Bemused’s’ comment:
Is it just me or does anyone else think ‘Bemused’ is a few bricks short of a full load. (One good cheap shot deserves another).
on Dec 14th, 2010 at 17:15
Is it just me or does anyone else get the feeling that John isn’t married?
on Dec 14th, 2010 at 12:05
I am now retired but I have been at one time a ‘secondee’ to another oilcompany in which Shell had a considerable interest. Occasionally I felt pressure to pass on business secrets. So I did some soul searching and decided that I was placed there to transfer technical knowhow and for the rest act as if it was my own company. (They did pay my salary after all via some convoluted mechanism). Thereafter it always was very easy for me how and on what to communicate with Shell central office (in those days there was no head office) and this behaviour earned me the trust of the employing company. Hence I am still on good terms with them.
But I certainly do know of many people who would simply spy on request of the head honchos in Shell and pass on any kind of business information they asked.
I guess you just make up your mind whether you can still look yourself in the eye while shaving in the morning. In the end even the Shell honchos respected this behaviour, or at least they pretended it since my brief was to transfer technology and help the company to attain a higher level of knowhow.
on Dec 14th, 2010 at 10:30
POSTING ON BEHALF OF A FORMER EMPLOYEE OF SHELL OIL: I have a question for RD Shell corporate loyalist ‘dutchdude’:
‘If this ‘seconding’ is as good a thing as you say it is then perhaps RD Shell would like to disclose in which other countries it has ‘seconded’ those governmental ministries charged with oversight of RD Shell and their indigenous oil industries.
I am particularly interested in the Irish, Australian, Canadian, and US governments.
I am certain the US Justice Dept. and the FBI would also be interested given that such ‘seconding’ is very much a criminal violation of US law. Now I wonder why that is? I guess American’s have funny, even ‘Victorian’, ideas about ethics and ‘fair play’.
No? I thought not.
With all due respect RD Shell ‘dutchdude’, although you are a good little loyal drone with a good future at RD Shell ahead of you, you are as we say in Texas : ‘So damn full of it your eyes are brown.’ That is a quaint American saying for you know what.
on Dec 14th, 2010 at 04:35
DutchDude, Certainly ‘being in bed with’, or ‘having people in the Nigerian government could be a good thing. And I’m sure initial intent was probably meant to develop a relationship that served Nigeria and Shell. But it sure sounds to me like Shell abandoned some values and principals, to manipulate this relationship. Would you really expect senior leaders to reveal to you in hallway chat, that Shell is “in the Nigerian government” do whatever it takes to profit from Nigerian oil?
on Dec 13th, 2010 at 15:52
In the corridors I have chatted with a few senior managers and all of them have an explanation why we have people in the Nigerian government, and how this is a good thing for Shell. I have also worked with Nigerian government secondees and we all knew that anything we did or said would go straight to the Nigerian leaders. So not really a big secret revealed here; was always right in front of us. And how can it be “infiltrating” if we all know about this? I know many other issues I can get upset about, but this wikileak is not one of them.
on Dec 12th, 2010 at 03:34
REPLY TO JOHN DONOVAN:- John- entirely agree with trying to keep management on the straight and narrow. With the wikileaks details concerning Pickard and the Nigerian Government it seems however, that the Shell Code of Conduct and General Business Principles do not apply to senior figures within Shell. This is terrible, just so terrible. I thought I was working for a principled company – how naive I have been. Morals do not seem to factor with these people. It shows how cut throat the o&g business is. Shell is and will always be ‘me first’. What about men and women ‘for others’? It’s going to take a complete turnaround of management and behaviour before Shell becomes the company it longs to be.
on Dec 10th, 2010 at 06:47
REPLY TO ROSIED: Our objectives are simple. We want Royal Dutch Shell executives to act at all times in accordance with Shell General Business Principles which include the claimed core principles of honesty, integrity, openness and respect for people in all of Shell’s dealings.
This is surely not an unreasonable ambition given that the principles were devised by Shell, are promoted by Shell and are supposedly current and binding on all Shell operations everywhere. In other words, we are only asking Shell executives to do what they already claim to be doing.
The plain fact is that if Shell executives had abided with the SGBP, scandals such as the reserves fraud involving blatant deceit and cover-up, the preventable Brent Bravo deaths which flowed from the Shell “Touch F*** All” safety culture on North Sea Platforms, and the more recent PR humiliations arising from outrageous examples of greenwash advertising, could not have occurred.
We do not believe that it is morally acceptable that Shell executives are indemnified so that even if they cheat, deceive and cover-up serious misdeeds, treating shareholders and the public as gullible fools, they are still able to walk away as winners. In the case of Sir Philip Watts, with a severance package/pension pot reportedly worth $18.5 million USD. We think that this is disgraceful situation at odds with all ethical norms including the SGBP and will continue to say so on this website.
The SGBP is being been used as a PR tool to promote undeserved confidence in the scruples and honesty of Shell senior management. For example, the SGBP featured in the Form 20F Declarations filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission thereby generating confidence in the proven reserves volumes which had been inflated i.e. were false.
While Shell execs continue to make pledges of ethical trading which they flout, we will continue our humble efforts to expose their hypocrisy and we welcome the support of others who like us are not prepared to put up with such deception.
The gap between Shell rhetoric and reality is evidence from Shell’s appalling track record including a leadership role in price fixing cartels, numerous Clean Air Act violations, repeated environmental infringements, multimillion dollar fines for groundwater contamination, more fines for unauthorised venting and flaring of gas. We also have to add to this litany, Shell’s exploitation and reckless disregard of the safety of its employees and its global espionage operation against its own employees trying to prevent whistleblowers. Shell’s industrial espionage activity in the USA and Nigeria has been exposed in 2010. We first became the target of such activity in the 1990′s. Richard Wiseman, the then Legal Director of Shell UK Limited was the spymaster. Other Shell espionage/dirty tricks operations, including infiltration and undercover activity in Nigeria involving Ken Saro-Wiwa, was also underway at the same time. Shell’s involvement in the murder of Ken Saro-Wiwi has been exposed by the Guardian newspaper. This is why Shell settled for $15.5 million the related US court case in June 2010. It could not allow damning evidence of torture and other human rights violations to be exposed in open court. The rule bending Mr Wiseman was of course the perfect choice for the role of the Chief Ethics & Compliance Officer of Royal Dutch Shell Plc. Poacher turned gamekeeper.
Regarding the Royal Dutch Shell Nazi controversy, as previously indicated, Shell is still following the same unprincipled policy. Recent and current Shell fat cats have continued to deal with the devil in the form of evil dictatorships in Nigeria (who in collusion with Shell murdered Ken Saro-Wiwi and other Nigerians), Libya (a state sponsor of terrorism which blew Pan Am 103 out of the sky), Saudi Arabia (Shell’s US business partner – the largest funder of Islamic terrorists) and Iran, the supplier of roadside bombs maiming and killing American and British soldiers. Iran also trains the Taliban on how to use the IED’s. And now Shell is getting into a closer embrace with the Russian Mafia. Claimed business principles are readily ditched in favour of oil and gas reserves.
on Dec 10th, 2010 at 01:56
I guess I am one of the “hard working decent people ” who works for Shell. I guess I am not “getting” the Nazi issue. Really? We are Blogging about what Shell Execs did during WW2? No doubt, any involvement with the Nazis is regretfull!! I just don’t make the connection with todays issues (and of course issues). I am a young (mid 30′s) staff guy, so I am comming from that perspective. If it matters.
Next, Is the intent of this site to; 1) Destroy RDS, or 2) fix the problems in RDS?
New to the site, thanks!
on Dec 9th, 2010 at 19:56
REPLY TO US CITIZEN: I think we can safely leave it to others to decide who is twisting words. My comments about the vast majority of Shell employees being hard working decent people is already on display for all to read and reflects what I have said many times. I stand by my comments about Royal Dutch Shell Nazi Secrets and have supplied overwhelming evidence from independent reputable verifiable sources. You do not put forward “good arguments” because you are either too lazy or too unintelligent to do so, or perhaps both. Also note there is no comment about Shell’s connection with the rankings you took delight in drawing attention to, ignorant of the fact that Shell is a paying client of the company which produced the rankings. I also note there is no comment from you about the WikiLeak revelations today concerning Shell’s espionage in Nigeria, infiltrating every government department. Add that to recent other news about Shell in Nigeria. Plunder, Murder, Corruption, Pollution. Yet you continue to defend the most evil company on the planet. This is not a glib comment but a carefully considered and researched assessment based on evidence I am fully prepared to present in court if Shell disputes what I say.
on Dec 9th, 2010 at 12:30
John, you are so messed up. You now equate a reputable organization and Shell employees with people who admired Hitler. I do not even have to pose good arguments, people read your words and see how twisted you are. Miserable life you lead. Sleeping well in the US, see ya!
REPLY TO
on Dec 9th, 2010 at 06:30
Thank you Donovans with your own wikileaks website! Shell has been saying for years to want to stimulate diversity. But what they have done is to reduce diversity but simply hire more women. American women in particular. And somehow I cannot shed this feeling that Shell has been less than fortunate about picking those ‘diverse adding’ females. All of them run on high testosterone levels, are presumably frustrated they were not borne male and what is worst: they give the impression of not being averse to corruption or assume the business principles are not for them. They blend in well with the current top as often pointed out by the Donovans. And was Cook not removed because she was not good enough after a string of disasters? Even Boeing had problems and she was on that board too. And then the Miss Boynton, kicked out after cooking the books. It would be better if she had cooked a nice stew. And now Pickard. I bet she will survive in Shell, crooks like each other. Who can guarantee me that she is not selling out Shell to the US government? And the list of bad women is much longer. It has gone a bit quiet on Gale Norton, but she seemlessly fits in with this diversity enhancing lot! The bad thing of all this is that there were (and are) many genuine good women in Shell who could make a difference. But Brinded and his cronies do not want change, they just want to milk Shell as long as possible and get out unharmed. Apologies for digressing but I am a great believer in true diversity.
on Dec 4th, 2010 at 07:43
REPLY TO DANIEL: That was a brief parting. 2 minutes before you returned with another comment. The current generation of Germans obviously bear no responsibily for what happened in World War 2. Same applies to Shell employees and to the vast majority of Shell employees during the war years. However, a stigma will always be attached to Germany, Royal Dutch Shell and the Shell brand arising from the actions of those in leadership positions at that time. Recent and current Shell fat cats have continued to deal with the devil in the form of evil dictatorships in Nigeria (who in collusion with Shell murdered Ken Saro-Wiwi and other Nigerians), Libya (a state sponsor of terrorism which blew Pan Am 103 out of the sky), Saudi Arabia (Shell’s US business partner – the largest funder of Islamic terrorists) and Iran, the supplier of roadside bombs maiming and killing American and British soldiers. Iran also trains the Taliban on how to use the IED’s. And now Shell is getting into a closer embrace with the Russian Mafia. Claimed business principles are readily ditched in favour of oil and gas reserves.
on Dec 3rd, 2010 at 23:01
I was leaving it occurred to me. Perhaps we shall see sites like this disparaging the German people and blaming them for all the ills the are beseeching Europe today. After all there is fairly convincing evidence pointing to the fact that the German people supported Hitler as well. I could try and point out who wrong that would be, but … why bother people will see what they want to see
on Dec 3rd, 2010 at 22:53
Alas adieu adieu
Thank you for the past, some very good info and discussion. I too no longer care to ‘look’ so I shan’t.
I bid thee farewell
on Dec 2nd, 2010 at 01:29
We can look at this history vs present behavior in another way. As I stated previously, the move from whole system/eco-sustainability toward dominance of the fittest, is where corrupt ethical and moral practices displace responsibility. The ‘dialogue’ that is taking place has been loud and clear for the past couple of years: managers play with US regulators, managers indulge in hedonistic self-centered activities, we indulge in the pursuit of energy profits even in Iran, AND rewards keep flowing for top leaders. Mr V enjoys a new +22% salary up from 3.2M in ’09 to 4.4M. Now don’t get me wrong, he did an excellent job of getting rid of ~6000 employees and made sure all who followed the rules were also rewarded, whether they drank too much, sexually accosted their underlings, had sex on company property, or perhaps circumvented environmental regulations. …so… do you hear the ‘dialogue’ of alignment? Are we behaving much different than any other time energy extraction and profit became the idol. We are behaving like this at all levels in the organization (internally) and in our relationship with the world. Dialogue no longer takes place. The conversation for alignment becomes one-sided, and all who want to survive in the big-oil game, become servant to the indulgences required to compete. Don’t look to see a change in Shell’s moral or ethical behavior, internally or as a world citizen, unless it is a change that serves someone, and ultimately the organization. I agree, greed is the evil that replaces responsibility. But let’s face it; the rewards for the skilled and greedy, far outweigh any motivation to care for anything beyond self and the enterprise.
on Dec 1st, 2010 at 22:07
I have to say I agree with John. A) If you don’t like it, don’t look. B) I think the history of a company is it’s genealogy, since a leader to be must accept a companies history and culture to even be considered for a leadership position. If a person really believes that history is justified “for the good of the company” he is going to repeat it. We see this over and over within Shell in spite of their lip service to “adherence to the highest principles”
on Dec 1st, 2010 at 10:55
RESPONSE TO “SIGNING OFF”: NO REFUNDS. Reference your assertion that you can’t subscribe to this site unless we only focus on current Shell misdeeds, I would make the point that there are no subscription fees. We have been operating websites focused on Shell since 1995. Shell issued a press statement in March 1995 complaining about our activities. All of our sites have always been operated on an entirely non commercial basis, with no subscription charges. We turn down on a regular basis companies wishing to pay us to place adverts on the site. We have refused all donation offers including from a Russian source during the Sakhalin2 debacle. Thus, we are free of any influence other than from people like you who hopefully enjoy the spectacle of Shell management being embarrassed and belittled from time to time as a result of our activities. So we listen to what you say, but want more people to be aware of the Royal Dutch Shell/Nazi relationship and will campaign accordingly. There will be a major development in this regard later this month. The site continues to attract astonishingly high traffic for a “gripe site”, with over 2 million hits in November. Many German companies, including Daimler-Benz, had associations with the Nazis. Royal Dutch Shell was a foreign company, yet pumped funds into the Nazi party in a variety of ways saving the Nazi party when it was in danger of going bust. Only one German company – I.G. Farben – had a worse track record. Shell was in bed with I.G. Farben, jointly owning and operating German companies which used concentration camp slave labor in the production of synthetic oil to fuel the Nazi military. Although we accept that the whole matter is controversial, we intend to make more people aware of Shell’s record of funding and supporting the Nazis.
on Dec 1st, 2010 at 03:40
I have to echo the message from Disappointed. The Nazi linkage is tiresome. I love reading about how Shell is a bad guy as much as most that visit this site. But this is out of hand. Daimler-Benz was also associated with that regime (utilizing slave labour) as I’m sure other companies were benefiting from Hitler. I almost have to ask – what brand of car do you or does your family own? I want to hear about current Royal Dutch infractions. I just cant subscribe to this site otherwise.
on Nov 30th, 2010 at 22:30
REPLY TO “USCITIZEN”: Hitler was admired by many, including his financier, Royal Dutch Shell Group. Hitler was arguably the most evil person of all time. So much for being admired. Shell spends tens of millions of dollars on global advertising campaigns, so of course many people are deceived and know nothing about Shell’s conduct e.g. its role in corruption and human rights violations including murder and torture in Nigeria, for which it has recently paid millions of dollars in settlements and fines. That’s the facts, as opposed to the PR propaganda paid for by Shell designed to fool the public. And by the way, were you aware that Shell is a paying client (member) of the organization responsible for the rankings by which you apparently set such great store? I think not. That potential conflict of interest should have been declared alongside the rankings, but of course was no where to be seen. I only discovered the financial linkage as a result of some detective work. Shell contributed towards the cost of the rankings publication you have cited.
on Nov 30th, 2010 at 20:22
Make sure you post this about the evil empire since you post all things good and bad, right John???
Shell Makes list of most admired companies
LINK SUPPLIED
on Nov 29th, 2010 at 23:24
REPLY TO MUSAINT: What is obvious from your comments is that you have not even bothered to read the 9 part “Royal Dutch Shell Nazi Secrets” or otherwise you would already know about the overwhelming evidence from independent, reputable, verifiable sources, confirming Shell’s funding of the Nazis. You have not challenged a single stated fact. Shell’s association with the Nazi is distasteful but it is also factual. Exactly how long do you think the information would remain on display on this website if it was propaganda as “Disappointed” suggests? I can guarantee that unlike you, Shell lawyers have read every word and checked all the quoted evidence. If the facts were untrue, Shell lawyers would have had the site closed down within hours. You have been visiting this website for a number of years and despite what you say, what’s the betting that you will do so again? You and “Disappointed” and your comments will always be welcome. Unlike the Tell Shell discussion forum for uncensored lively debate (closed after we caught Shell lawyers secretly censoring critical comments) we publish all postings relating to Shell and/or us. I do however hope that anyone offering comment on these matters will first read the 9 part article. That would be a much fairer way forward than the blanket criticism offered by a person (whose views I normally respect) who dismisses the evidence without even knowing what it is. As to your comment about having a large chip on my shoulder, I somehow don’t think your revelation will come as a surprise to people who are regular visitors here. Most will have surmised that we are not fond of Shell’s overpaid hypocritical top brass, who put themselves before the best interests of Shell employees (who are ruthlessly tossed out on mass with many being forced to reapply for their own jobs). Or in the best interest of shareholders, who have been defrauded and treated with contempt, particular those in the UK who are now second class citizens as a result of the reserves scandal. They are a bunch of incompetents, who due to their own negligence, have to endure the humiliation of a website using the top level domain name for the company – Royal Dutch Shell Plc – to expose the truth about Shell, including its support for the Nazis.
on Nov 29th, 2010 at 22:47
The Shell-Nazi link focus of this site seems to have reached new levels of hysteria with the human skin lamp shades article. Ironically this could have come out of the propaganda kitchen of Joseph Goebels himself. The swastika on the Shell shop at the top of the page is the last drop for me; I will now remove this site from my favourites list. Thanks anyway for the much higher quality content in days gone bye.
on Nov 29th, 2010 at 20:03
I have kept silent these past couple of weeks whilst some appalling dross is written / inferred by the Donovans linking Shell to the Hitler regime. (I am sure Mr. D. you will now come back with umpteen references to bore me to bits about how you can show this that and the other to show how Shell colluded with anybody / regime on the planet.) Point is that some of your recent “attacks” on Shell (viz Hitler)just show how large a chip on your shoulder (and your fathers) you have. Your bitterness shows very clearly through in recent weeks. Shame, as some of the attacks against Shell and their decision to operate in Iran I agree with – this continuous historical linkage to Hitler gets very very tedious and when you show the lamp shade angle it is way over the top – some would say madness. Perhaps readers to this forum and Wikileaks should investigate past Donovans and maybe / allegedly being able to link their ancestores to other historical disasters / tragedies. Bottom line is that this site is now bordering on the rediculous and has lost its value. I shall sign off permanently as I see no value whatsoever in logging in to this nonsense. Bye.
on Nov 28th, 2010 at 14:34
POSTED ON BEHALF OF “EXSHELL”: John, it is vital in my view that Julia (Australia’s PM) should also be aware of Shell’s terrible track record. FLNG is a new technology and Shell has just announced that they are going to pump in billions in their new FLNG development. I am sure that Shell will destroy this pristine Australian waters.
on Nov 28th, 2010 at 08:37
Donna Getz’ account of problems following a well test mirror an event in Drenthe in Holland when production from a sour gas (H2S) well was released during a well test during the 1980′s, causing a herd of cows in an adjacent field to drop dead. I don’t think it even made the Dutch news after the farmer and local community were reminded of the importance of Shell (NAM) to the local economy. I’m sure there are plenty of readers of this site who can provide additional information.
on Nov 20th, 2010 at 17:43
MESSAGE TO THE SOURCE SUPPLYING US WITH INFORMATION RELATING TO SHELL RELATIONSHIP WITH IRAN. YES, WE ARE SAFELY RECEIVING YOUR INPUT AND ARE DULY GRATEFUL. IT IS BEING USED AND WILL BE INCLUDED IN AN IMMINENT MAJOR MAILING TO U.S. GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS, SENATORS AND CONGRESSMAN. PLEASE KEEP THE INFORMATION COMING. WE WILL PUT IT TO GOOD USE. WE FULLY UNDERSTAND WHY YOU HAVE USED A SPECIAL EMAIL SERVICE TO PROTECT YOUR IDENTITY AND SECURITY, WHICH DOES NOT ACCEPT REPLIES.
on Nov 20th, 2010 at 17:26
If anyone is interested, we have a copy of a Shell SECRECY AND RESTRICTED USE AGREEMENT from October 2006 involving “IOOC, Iranian Offshore Engineering Company, a company organised and existing under the laws of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Agreement covers: “so called Sulfinol Process which is a regenerative process developed by SHELL and Affiliates of SHELL for the removal of acidic components from a gas stream employing an aqueous solution containing sulfolane and/or sulfolane derivatives with addition of an amine.” The agreement is self-evidently not quite as secret as Shell had hoped. Copies available on request subject to any injunction by Shell and its 1200 strong legal department which includes 720 lawyers, 80 of which are “intellectual property professionals”.
on Nov 19th, 2010 at 01:27
I think that as we weaken toward ego-cenrtic, there is no grey. One immoral or unethical act changes white to black. We have seen this in our behavior in the Niger Delta; this is part of the SHELL system, observable and destructive to the world that we exploit. As 66 stated, living up to moral and ethical practices will become an increasingly difficult challenge as finding and extracting energy becomes more difficult. Many have shared on this site, observations and experiences of internal breakdowns in moral and ethical practices and behaviors, in all levels of the organization. I assert that ‘grey’, is in the dialogue between top leaders and their subordinates and ultimately through the rest of the organization. What is alarming to me, is the present alignment with compromised standards. We do not have a choice about whether ‘alignment’ works, alignment always works. The responsibility of leadership, from the top down, is to insure that Shell’s relationships, practices and behaviors, internally and in the ecosystem (ALL of the World that is not Shell), contribute to sustaining the ‘whole’ (Shell and the world). This dialogue to get to that alignment is the grey. Sustaining the whole is white, compromising any of it is black.
on Nov 18th, 2010 at 20:58
Very interesting posts. I suppose I turn off from debates that describe things in such stark terms as “evil” or “good”…I do think there are just so many shades of grey in all aspects of life that black and white terms hardly ever do any situation justice! But your unpacking of the term evil is a useful way of looking at it as it relates to folks views of Shell at present. I agree with John 100% that the business principles should either be upheld fully (even if it means losing business and/or pulling out of certain countries) of they should be dumped. Shareholders should be told this upfront and get to vote on the issue – either we will uphold the BPs and that may have some impact on short term dividends, or we will dump them altogether, and take whatever reputation hit that may result – I would have an open and honest debate on this whole issue and then put it to the shareholders. I sense that Realybware is right that we are re-entering an era of ‘ get their first, develop it fast’…and the Business principles may come under greater pressure then now! On the pesticides/drins issue – agree it is worrying, but caution again that hindsight is a great thing, and we simply did not know about the dangers of certain chemicals then as we do now. Asbestos is a classic example of that.
on Nov 17th, 2010 at 23:56
REPLY TO “66″.
Pleasure to discuss these issues with someone who makes their points in a reasonable balanced way. With regards to the similarities between then and now, basically Shell is still keen to deal with the devil (e.g. the fanatical Iranian regime and the alleged reformed state sponsor of terrorism, Muammar al-Gaddafi) to achieve its business objectives, irrespective of ethical/moral considerations. The history of Royal Dutch Shell published in 2007 was revealing about the anti-Semitic behavior of Royal Dutch Shell towards it own employees. Its authors came unstuck resting their defense (of Shell funding the Nazis) on the basis that Deterding’s attempts to meet with Hitler were all rebuffed, thereby drawing the conclusion that the Nazis attached no importance to Royal Dutch Shell/Deterding. Unfortunately they were apparently unaware that in fact Hitler had a four day meeting with Deterding at Hitlers mountain top retreat. The Nazis also arranged for an official from the German Foreign Office to be seconded to Deterding as a personal assistant to facilitate liaison with Hitler. In addition, Dr. Georg Bell, a German spy, acted as a joint agent/delegate of Deterding and Hitler. The close relationship between Hitler and Deterding was evident from the wreath that G
on Nov 17th, 2010 at 23:24
realybware: Well said! The moral decline in Shell commenced after van Wachem stepped down. Then there was a succession of leaders with an anglo-saxxon mind. They employed consultants and injected the top with like minded people. And they removed over the years all those who said that the king went naked. And the rest is history. It not only happened in Shell but in many other decent companies. It is hard to believe but in the mid 90s there were still many banks run by decent bankers!
Thank you for your post, I wish I could express myself so well!
on Nov 17th, 2010 at 20:06
66 and Mr D, I think that in order for Shell to remain a sustainable enterprise, there needs to be some philosophical re-alignment in leadership to the moral and ‘good’ vs the ‘evil’ that Mr D refers to. In an organization where profit becomes idolized over all else in the ecosystem, the ‘idol’ becomes all-important to the point that many things and ultimately ALL things will be sacrificed to that end. This is where not only Shell but other oil exploiters have crossed the line in the past. Doing business with the devil is a rewarding affair when we become servant to ego (vs eco). Synergy in an organization, vs individual isolation, competitiveness, (and self-serving greed): are only a reflection of how the ‘whole’ positions itself in the global ‘theater’. Mr Hoffmeister’s pompous attitude about BP is an example of the top down philosophical alignment in Shell today. Although he is no-longer at the helm, his presence definitely still defines SHELL. And no doubt Mr V and his minions ‘align’ helplessly through a new subservient, ordered organization, driven by Mr V’s single-mindedness about the ‘idol’. We will all compete to play that game until we feel our individual morales are being exploited too far. An interesting description of the alignment i am referring to is reprinted below from another source:
Evil is characterized by selfishness and purpose. It maintains that it is both important and correct that those who are worthy should succeed, while the weak and unworthy perish. The efforts of good to distribute wealth generally are viewed as cheating the truly deserving. . Evil characters do not regard other characters (co-workers)–not even other evil characters(co-workers) –as worthy of respect. They are always willing to take advantage of another
on Nov 17th, 2010 at 04:53
Thanks for your resposne John. I do indeed understand that a company’s history in its entirety must be accounted for, and to a certain extent lives on in terms of the companies reputation. However, where I disagree with you is in thinking that the misdeeds of 70 years ago are indicitive of management practices today. Now I know you don’t think much of today’s management, but that is a quite seperate matter to how the place was run 70 years ago. In other words – it has no real bearing on the Shell of today, and how it operates. When I heard first about the Nazi link with Shell, I looked with interest to see if the 100 year history of Shell, published a few years ago, would deal with it at all, given it is not the sort of thing companies want to be reminded off. I was pleased that they did cover it (including a photo of the headquarters in the Hague flying the Nazi flag). Did they cover the issue fully – probabaly not – but I take my hat off to the company for dealing with it at all – I know of many companies who would not have. You describe Shell as “the most evil company on earth.” ….
they have their faults for sure, but in my humble opinion they are a long way from that.
on Nov 14th, 2010 at 23:26
Panalpina and Hofmeister, bribes in Nigeria. I am certain that the top management knew all about the goings on. About 5 years ago a scandal nearly erupted but was quenched. (Or as the say in Nigeria: ‘de disting was quench-oh by de Oga’. SPDC had made around 500 million dollars disappear over the years to all kind of community projects. No trails could be found in the books. And this for a company that should be able to trace every dollar spent anywhere. Because it is shareholder’s or taxpayer’s money. So I am sure that Hofmeister et all just assumed the bribes via Panalpina would disappear in the great wash. I am not an accountant. But as an engineer I know we can and must and do certify for instance every weld on long pipelines. The exact location, date of weld, weldingrods used, name of welder, and an X-ray photo is included. If you can do that, you should be able to trace every dollar spent? Unless you don’t want to?!?
on Nov 14th, 2010 at 22:46
Remind me again…when did WW2 end? Why are you tainting good employees names who work today at Shell with the misdeeds of the company over 70 years ago. Weird. REPLY TO “66″ BY JOHN DONOVAN: As I have said before, the vast majority of Shell employees are decent hard working people. The company is to blame for the misdeeds you mention, which have indelibly stained the name of Royal Dutch Shell for all time. The catalog of misdeeds such as the securities fraud, all driven by pure greed, continue to this day, including dealing with current evil regimes in Libya and Iran. Add to that bribery and corruption in the USA and in Nigeria. And what about the deadly toxic legacy from pesticides, not to mention pollution on an epic scale e.g. decades long gas-flaring in Nigeria and widespread groundwater pollution in the USA. All taking place while Shell pretends to abide with its much trumpeted business principles, including honesty, integrity and transparency. What a joke. I can only assume from your comments that you would prefer not to know about the dark side of Shell. We believe that all Shell stakeholders and the public are entitled to know the ugly truth about the most evil company on the planet, including its role as the financier of the Nazis.
on Nov 11th, 2010 at 21:09
POSTED ON BEHALF OF AN EMPLOYEE OF SHELL OIL USA: IN REMEMBRANCE: I remember walking through the American military cemetery at Normandy one bright summer day many years ago. It was full of American tourists that had unloaded from about a half dozen tour buses. I have never seen so many grown men break down and cry in my life.
My father was in the US Navy and served in submarines in the Pacific theater. 25% of those folks died in combat. In the early days of the war he served in the surface fleet and fought the Japanese Imperial Navy at a place called Guadalcanal. The war in the Pacific was a very dirty, brutal business and not many prisoners were taken, by either side. Your father knows about this, first hand. Many American men who fought in that theater literally hated the Japanese to their dying day. A sad but true fact. My father detested them as a people for what they did, for what he had seen, and for what he had experienced, and would not have a thing to do with anything Japanese, or made in Japan. To his dying day.
10′s of millions of Chinese died at the hands of the Japanese.
In Eastern Europe the Nazi’s were as brutal in their treatment of the Russians as they were in their treatment of the Jews. That war was a war of extermination, and 10′s of millions of Russians died as a consequence.
And the sad but true fact of life is that Royal Dutch Shell, along with other companies here in the US, were ‘invested’ in the Nazi’s and in the Germany economy. That includes Ford Motor, General Electric, and so on. Let us not forget the Swiss. It is not a pretty story.
However, Royal Dutch Shell is unique amongst this rogues gallery of amoral profiteers because Deterding’s support and influence came at a very critical time in the rise to power of Hitler and the Nazi Party. I have little doubt that without Deterding the mid-20th century history of Europe may have been much different. Perhaps the Communists would have gained a stronghold in Germany. We shall never know. However, it is unlikely that this alternative path of history would have been as violent, as viciously brutal, and as destructive as that resulting from the rise to power of the Nazi’s in Germany.
And without the German’s raising hell in Europe and Russia it is unlikely the Japanese would have tried to take on both the American’s and the British Empire in East Asia by themselves. The Japanese lacked the necessary natural resources, especially oil, and the Royal Navy and the US Navy were simply far to powerful.
Royal Dutch Shell has a host of stinking skeletons in their corporate closet, and their management doesn’t seemed to have learned much, or wanted to learn much, from the past conduct of their guiding predecessor, Sir Henri Deterding.
on Nov 10th, 2010 at 11:24
Hofmeister pompous as ever.
Last night I watched the BBC documentary on the Macondo blow-out. It was easy to relate with all that was said by the various participants. But two things stuck to my mind: the media and politicians (Obama included and leading the way) are like a troup of rabid dogs. The moment someone is down, they all attack in a feeding frenzy. All with hidden agendas, all completely oblivious of what their actions might cause. Presumably this is their job and I expect hardly anything else from these charlatans.
But then I saw several times that smug toad Hofmeister dumping on BP in general and Hayward in particular. I have seen this devious american arrive in Shell. He was instrumental in pushing the salaries and bonusses of the top echelons to excessive heights, he introduced the ‘behavioural skills’ at the expense of engineering skills, he pulled in many americans that have generally made a mess of things and when he finally was removed, sorry transferred, he travelled as an emperor through the whole of the USA. All under the title of ‘President’. A non-job if ever there was one. He is a disgrace to the people where he came from (Amish). And now he has become an ugly toad kicking someone who is down on the ground. This shows his real character. I advise all girls NOT to kiss this toad in the hope a handsome prince would emerge. You never know, pigs might fly too.
on Nov 9th, 2010 at 11:32
POSTED ON BEHALF OF A FORMER EMPLOYEE OF SHELL OIL USA: My response to US Citizen is this: As a former Shell employee I know how Shell management functions in ways that would scare the crap out of you. What I have to say about Shell’s very public ‘good works’ (by very well meaning staff) on a local scale versus the conduct of Shell management internationally and on major projects is this: You can make a vampire look respectable and presentable with enough make-up and a good external ward-robe, but lurking underneath that pretty facade still lurks the predatory, blood sucking vampire.
on Nov 8th, 2010 at 21:52
Reply to uscitizen: Back with your usual insults that we have come to expect. You mention about Shell volunteer work in a good cause, then go on to predict that we will accuse Shell employees of having other motives, and based on this false assumption, trot out a put down – “Chew on that” – when in fact we have not said anything at all. I authored a Wikipedia article in 2009 – Royal Dutch Shell initiatives - which included coverage of the help Shell has given to many people, small businesses and charities. It was deleted by other editors on the basis of being biased in favor of Shell. Not that it is any of your business, but we have supported charities all of our working lives, including the Red Cross, and provided help to a US children’s charity on this website. This of course is all beside the point. The reason for your latest rant and rage is the Royal Dutch Shell Nazi Secrets article. If you had read it all, you would know that in the years after Sir Henri Deterding retired as the CEO, Royal Dutch Shell Group continued with the appeasement and collaboration with the Nazis, piling more money into the Nazi coffers, which funded the preparation for war. I suggest before making further comment, you read it all, including the extensive evidence from reputable independent sources.
on Nov 8th, 2010 at 20:47
PS – tell all the folks that we helped out this weekend with many Shell volunteers that we do not resemble in any fashion a “good corporate citizen”. We did this because our moral standards require us to, as employees and citizens. Next thing you will say is that we had other motives, and you can not begin to know how wrong that is or how that insults the individuals who care greatly about our neighbors and their well being. Chew on that. When is the last time you or your blog company did something to help your fellow man, and I am not talking about your hollow rants about Shell to educate the poor common man about how evil Shell is. If you are doing it, tell us about it. I have not seen anything so in true Donovan journalistic behavior I assume you have done nothing. Am I right??
on Nov 8th, 2010 at 20:40
Your determined efforts to connect the alleged individual support of an old RDS exec to today’s company is a huge affront to the people that make up today’s company. We resent and reject your allegations that this is what this company and it’s people stand for. You have done more to destroy your credibility than any organized, does not exist, corporate effort to do the same. Thanks – now the whole world can see what an obssessed irrational family looks like – The Donovan’s!!!
on Nov 8th, 2010 at 19:54
POSTING ON BEHALF OF A FORMER EMPLOYEE OF SHELL OIL USA:
I have a response for ‘concerned shareholder’, and other ‘concerned shareholders’:
Henri Deterding’s only real motivation for supporting the Nazi’s before their rise to power was clearly driven by his desire to recoup his losses, and prevent further losses, due to the Bolshevik revolution in Russia and the threat that ideology posed elsewhere. Deterding was an old style, ruthlessly ambitious robber baron, like Carnegie, Vanderbuilt, and J.P. Morgan, etc. He wanted HIS Russian oil fields in Baku returned to Shell. And Deterding was not alone in his admiration for Hitler. Joseph Kennedy and Henry Ford were admirers as well. And Ford was a financial sponsor, as well as a rabid anti-semite.
Today, Shell’s motivations for dealing with unsavory regimes like the Libyans, the Iranians, etc., is purely based up the desire to secure further access to large reserves of oil and gas. Nothing more, nothing less. Shell management doesn’t give a holy rat’s rear end about the consequences of supporting regimes such as these, just as Deterding didn’t give a holy rat’s rear end about the consequences of supporting the Nazi’s. Deterding’s only concern was for profits, just as it is Shell’s only concern today. Today Shell management doesn’t care that their partner in Brazil, Cosan, has a history of using forced slave labor in their cane fields to support their ethanol production plants, just as Shell in Deterding’s day didn’t care about getting in bed with I.G. Farben in Germany, who use extensive amounts of slave labor.
There are more that just a few parallel’s between the ethical behavior of Shell management today to that of the Nazi era.
Like it or not, Deterding and Royal Dutch Shell played a major role in facilitating Hitler’s rise to power and all that came after. Deterding’s financial help, support and influence were crucial to the rise of Nazi facism in Germany. Without Deterding’s help history may have taken a far different and less violent and deadly turn. That is Royal Dutch Shell’s history. Hiding that history, and the recent history of Shell conduct, serves no purpose other than to create a marketing illusion for the general public. It is an abject fraud. And the conduct of the company, past and present, reflects the quality of character of Shell management (lack thereof) and the corporate culture that promotes such management. By any standard of measure, Shell is not, and historically never has been, a ‘good corporate citizen’.
Remember the old saying: ‘Those who fail to learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them.’
on Nov 8th, 2010 at 11:07
Ha, ha. I think it’s time that Allie Romeo verifies his “sources” as part of his “communication studies”. A funny story , much unlike the current poohah on this site about the link between Shell and the nazi’s. That’s a bit like trying to connect the current British Government (and the current British voters) to the attrocities committed during the colonial era. We have to look back and learn from history, but at a certain point it becomes a bit cheap and meaningless…
on Nov 7th, 2010 at 19:58
It’s also small dash for greedy corrupt Nigerian politicians. About time all their foreign accounts were investigated.
on Nov 4th, 2010 at 17:41
In Nigeria they say ‘pay small dash, finish palaver’. And 30 mln is only a small dash for Shell…
on Oct 31st, 2010 at 00:07
MESSAGE POSTED ON BEHALF OF BILL CAMPBELL: REPLY TO HANS BOUMAN:
Dear Hans
Re the well design you are probably right but having listened to the BP Drilling Engineer and others (he gave good testimony) I am not convinced that they will be proved negligent – their argument will be that other opinions are subjective after the fact and the BP well was fit for purpose. Certainly I do not think their actions will clear the high hurdle of gross negligence (based on the testimony provided under oath) according to the US definition of same.
Interesting to me that BP had every confidence in their Deepwater Horizon Drilling Engineer (also previously Drilling Engineer for Thunder Horse) who handled the two relief wells with Haliburton doing the cement jobs on these also.
With your contacts in the great School of Drillers out there are you aware how the relief wells were completed ? Were these like the Deepwater Horizon well, or did they not have the courage of their convictions.
I am sure if the well design was changed in line with what their critics (including Shell) have stated publicly the ambulance chasing Lawyers will not doubt use this against them.
Many thanks for your positive feedback
regards
Bill
on Oct 30th, 2010 at 16:07
To Bill Campbell:
Thank you for a very good analysis and lucid story. Recently I was asked by a local business club to give a presentation on this blow-out. And I ended with a blow by blow account of the last hours before the mishap, nearly word for word the same as in your story. Obviously we both were guided by the good BP report of the blow-out.
I agree with Bill that with a good execution of the event the well might have been saved but I am personally convinced that the design of the well did not help preventing the blow-out. (No lockdown ring in the wellhead, and not running a liner to be tied back later). When you drill these extremely difficult wells, you will have a very small operating envelope and margin of error. To handle the operations perfectly you need the best people you can get and they must also be kept focussed all the time. It appears that too many critical operations had become routine and or were delegated down to lower levels. The tests were too short and in my view should have been attended by the most senior toolpusher on the rig, this is not stuff you delegate.
Why all this has happened will presumably become clear over the next few years when the lawyers of the three companies involved will get rich in various courtcases.
And I am not convinced with what I have read that this well has been properly killed. Squeezing in all that mud and cement merely created two vertical pancake fracs and oil and gas still may percolate through and surface at a later date. BP had the chance to do a proper circulation kill but it looked as if they and the autorities all wanted to get it over with as quickly as possible.
This blow-out was a classic where many things that ‘never will go happen’ all happened and at the most awkward moment. This is the story for nearly all major blow-outs!
on Oct 28th, 2010 at 18:06
Messers Pals & Kennedy of Bloomberg really ought to research a topic before writing about it. Just what is meant by “Shell is targeting hard-to-reach rock formations in Australia, the U.S. and China”? Coal seams for CBM in Australia are not in the criteria of hard-to-reach. There are undoubtedly challenges in the optimal exploitation of CBM but the technology / techniques are hardly new or “hard-to-apply”. In any case the geoscience and engineering capability in Shell is more than enough to address the task. My comment applies equally well to the (presumably) tight gas assets in North America and China. The tone of the article implies Shell will have trouble delivering meaningful gas production from these “hard-to-reach” formations. Yes, the technical challenge is greater than with conventional gas, but then Shell has invested serious money in researching the technologies and techniques required. Will Bloomberg reporters write an article in the same vein throwing doubt on the ability of the BG-Group to deliver from similar formations in the same countries? One thing is for sure, the BG-Group do not have recourse to the R&D back up in-house to Shell.
on Oct 22nd, 2010 at 15:54
FURTHER COMMENT POSTED ON BEHALF OF A FORMER EMPLOYEE OF SHELL USA: ‘The difference between overt ‘bribery’ and the far more subtle ‘influence peddling’ is much like the difference between rape and seduction. It is all a matter of technique. One method is patently illegal and the other is not. But the end result is the same. Someone always gets ‘buggered’. A horse by any other name is still a horse.
Big business is now in the mode of ‘courting’ political officials and ‘appropriate other officials’ with ‘favors’ and ‘special considerations’. Some of those ‘special considerations’ may entail future employment, with all the associated benefits of a favored employee, e.g., Gale Norton, formerly of the Dept. of the Interior in the US, and Pat Doyle, former Irish Garda superintendent.
In the end, it is the public interest that takes it in the teeth, and all to the financial benefit of big business. ‘
on Oct 20th, 2010 at 00:10
REPLY TO MUSAINT POSTED ON BEHALF OF A FORMER SHELL OIL USA EMPLOYEE:
Cheers. Kennedy was a politician and meddled when he shouldn’t have. However, that self serving nonsense was motivated by local Boston politics. But that is old news. The problem with the way the Irish government has (mis)managed its hydrocarbon resources goes back almost 20 years, to radical changes in policy/law by government officials who ultimately spent time in prison for corruption. That too is old news. But I am sure you are aware of that fact already.
on Oct 19th, 2010 at 15:19
Jeeez “Former employee of Shell Oil USA” that’s a lot of words (all I think I’ve read) but, still no hard documented evidence of substantial reserves you state (i.e some independent authority), albeit your geological argumentation may be a plenty it still needs the drill bit to prove it correct. As important is that you do not show/prove that Shell has bribed the Irish Government aka your article. I know fully you are referring to Northern Ireland – Kennedy stuck his nose into both sides of the countries, and as stated helped raise funds for terrorists.
on Oct 19th, 2010 at 13:29
POSTED ON BEHALF OF A FORMER EMPLOYEE OF SHELL OIL USA.
To Mr. Musaint: It does seem like you are a true blue ‘loyalist’. By the way, the Ireland I was referring to was not Northern Ireland so your comments about Teddy Kennedy are irrelevant.
Furthermore, British-Irish politics bores me. It is somewhat like North-South politics in the US. The ‘South shall rise again’ and other such nonsense. The Irish are independent and the Empire is dead. It is time to get over it and move on.
If you are a poor man, $100 is a lot of money. If you are a rich man, it is chump change. The Corrib discovery is on the order of about 1 trillion cubic feet of gas. Not huge by North Sea standards, but nothing to piss away either. For a small country like Ireland those reserves are a considerable treasure. Everything is relative. Until natural gas was discovered the only reliable naturally occurring hydrocarbon fuel resource the Irish had was peat.
We also know the Irish government gave Shell, et al, one of the best tax/royalty deals in Europe. That is a matter of record. Instead of following the Norwegian model of resource development, they followed the Louisiana model for resource development. So, I stand by my assessment. The Irish got
on Oct 18th, 2010 at 18:59
To the ex-Shell employee of Shell USA regarding his/her comments on the Corrib gas controversy. You may not like the way that the Irish Government has handled this issue, however, they are the elected body and secondly you show no hard evidence that they have been bought, bribed, or even buggered as you nicely put it by Shell. You also mention Ireland has “considerable hydrocarbon resources” – please quote a reliable source (with reserve numbers) where such a comment can be believed. Me thinks that you are merely trying to stir some trouble here without any evidence to truly back up your statements. Reminds me of Teddy Kennedy when he kept sticking his big US nose in to Irish politics and attempted to get money for the IRA terrorists!!
on Oct 16th, 2010 at 14:19
Mr engle, helping to maintain honesty contributes to dialogue, “cleaning up negative postings” is censorship as in 1st amendment! Go-away!
on Oct 14th, 2010 at 14:51
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on Oct 13th, 2010 at 13:02
Mr Voser is ill-advised to make such comments on BP / Macondo. He attracts to Shell the headlines seen in the Daily Mail and is now a hostage to fortune just as Tony Hayward became when he told the world “he would focus like a laser on safety for the next two years” on succeeding Lord Browne. In addition his observation ” to correctly investigate the accident one had to examine the thinking behind the particular well design BP used” is interesting in the light of the Brent fatalities. Just what was the thinking behind the “design” of the piping patches which eventually failed?
Do the Swiss have a translation for the expression “people who live in glass houses should not throw stones”?
on Oct 12th, 2010 at 14:39
Musaint: fully agree that The Brent Spar fiasco was nothing more than a publicity stunt by Greenpeace without any factual basis for their claims. My point was that Shell will always be at the mercy of public opinion.
on Oct 11th, 2010 at 16:32
“Alleged Shell deception in Sri Lanka”. Using your own words Mr. D. (in red, in capitals) “it certainly seems authentic” – and the reason you give (in the same sentence) is “it talks about Shell deception and a hidden agenda”. What sort of reason is that to believe the story is genuine and not someone (yet again) trying to cause mischief!! Like the News of the World, it helps sell a story ……
on Oct 10th, 2010 at 16:03
Should be noted that at the time of the “Brent Spar fiasco” the guys from Exxon kept a very low profile as 50% owners of the structure AND Greenpeace admitted that they got the numbers wrong on the amount of residual oil left in the spar. Just proves that the action by thugs and tree huggers, particularly in Germany, was based on incorrect facts. Basically don’t always believe what is printed on paper and in websites!!
on Oct 6th, 2010 at 14:27
At the time of the Brent Spar fiasco, there was a boycott and vandalism of Shell’s filling stations in Germany, which was very effective in bringing the message home to Shell’s management in the Hague that they were at the mercy of public opinion. This website has been publicising Shell’s large scale ongoing business relationship with Iran, so it is hardly surprising that it has been experiencing “technical problems”
on Oct 6th, 2010 at 04:11
uscitizen of poor comprehension, i don’t think anyone objects to IPFs. FORCED RANKING is where mistakes are made. You may have more data and more cards in your deck but you obviously don’t believe anything shared in this forum that exposes destructive ethics and blatant injustices. Great leaders were terminated in the first round that did not have the chance to work a PIP. Unexpected low numbers were given with no forewarning. Having a better retirement than most citizens is far less than some of these folks deserved. Your statement really sounds far more socialistic. Like someone said a while back, it sure sounds like you have a lot of ownership in some of these ‘schemes’. …or maybe you are just naive and delusional. And I’ll tell you how RIFs were handled in the companies of some of my peers: PIPs along with voluntary retirement, ends up yielding more than needed. Keep your judgement to yourself about low performers getting what they deserved. Some loved Shell as much as you do, and would do anything they could to work a PIP and be productive for a few more years. … and again there are people protected that are poorer performers. ….DUDE!
on Oct 5th, 2010 at 16:53
Golden Triangle is spot on about Tom and unfortunately this style of
on Oct 5th, 2010 at 16:29
For – MR no personal ID for Mr uscitizen dude!
real user I
on Oct 5th, 2010 at 16:18
Golden Triangle Watchdog – I am not in HR – so do not try to play cards you do not have. You clearly have an agenda, do not enjoy working for Shell, so be it. Any one as unhappy as you needs to join the ranks of Donovan. And I have my next job, so no career advice from you will help me. Have a good life, if you can. Find some thing you will be happy doing and stop blaming others for your attitude, you own that dude.
on Oct 1st, 2010 at 12:34
US Citizen…. I have no hatred for Tom Purves. What I actually hate is favoritism, lying, egotism, manipulation, hypocracy. Tom exhibits all of these and very little leadership skills. Tom falls in this catagory along with the fact that he flat out lied to get people off the payroll that he didn’t want on the payroll and senior leadership knows that. He also lied about some other things which will eventually come out, like environmental performance at our plant. That has been buried deep to allow for the CEP to get its permit. Just look around and see how many of our past environmental dept from 2 years ago is still in place or with the company. A complete turnover….. Does anyone wonder why? Motiva got rid of them because of what they found. I’m sure Hilton Kelley could get an ear full if he hasn’t already. Alot of this was on Tom’s watch and he knows it as did the Motiva CEO. I’ve worked here at the Port Arthur plant for 20 years. Tom had a good message early on but it became clear pretty quickly that he was no good, had his favorites, and was not interested in changing the culture, just status quo. He ultimately has a few close allies that he brings with him everywhere, like Funkhouser, Laugher, Hartsock. Man, this is the best he has got. My understanding on Jeff is he got sold from the company with Tosco up north and came back in because Tom got him a job with the company. Here you have a man with no formal education, other than how to suck up, getting up to 1 step away from a plant manager. You wonder why. The folks in the rank laugh at this guy. He has long forgot what true leadership is about. Tom created this and has allowed this to grow. And the issue I have with HR is they have become nothing but a group of staffers, hanging on to the senior leaders, doing what they are asked to do, assuming their role is to identify and help develop the leaders of tomorrow, with very little understanding of what true leadership in the field needs to be. The People survey is a joke and all know it. It stopped being useful after the first edition. Senior leaders don’t use it except to update every other year what they heard. And you can discount my feedback all you like….. gas cards were paid to get the numbers up. With you being in HR, I can understand why this whole topic doesn’t feel good. It’s ok…. Go hook up with Jeff Funkhouser, he can find you a job.
on Oct 1st, 2010 at 05:04
real user I’d, REALLY!?! … Like yours? HAh. Yes some packages were bestowed upon folks with lower ‘relative performance’,mostl of these folks were prompted to their humble positions, because of their knowledge, skills leadership abilities. Most did not deserve to be discarded with paltry pensions. These folks are for the most part on their mid 50s+. they gave the best part of their life to shell and were top performers. IPFs were formulated to execute a scheme that someone will claim is the reason for profit improvements. It doesn’t matter what some of these folks are suffering through, that’s too human. This was executed in a suffering economy, on folks who are beyond favorable age. The IPF rate/ranking is no magic, and in in some cases removed the most effective Leaders. There are many ways this could have been executed without abusing those who have given so much to shell. .. All because someone decided to prove that leadership responded to the people survey accountability topic. Forced ranking in our plant environments is destructive to synergy and ultimately devasting to the unfortunate who end up terminated unjustly. Leaders can behave like tp, jf, ka, deserving no respect from their reports, and end up rewarded. But a poor shift team leader, who might be facing respectable upsets in their personal life lose focus for a while and there is no compassion.
on Sep 30th, 2010 at 18:51
Don
on Sep 30th, 2010 at 18:47
sure sounds like you own some of the new schemes being practiced. also sounds like you reside in a safe little fraternal consortium of self accrediting,and probably self-rewarding
on Sep 30th, 2010 at 09:21
I see ex Sakhalin and bully David Greer has resigned from Regal Pet, wonder where he will create carnage next!
on Sep 29th, 2010 at 11:29
Don’t let USCitizen fool you….. The Shell People Survey is a joke and everyone, who takes it , knows it. Most plants have to give our employees a gas card to take it. And I know for a fact that the HR community has told most all of the senior mgt not to follow up on it….. but instead to read it and listen to what the people are saying and what their concerns are, but dont spend the time doing anything with it. Let’s be real…. Shell is a good company with good benefits. The senior leaders stink because they have forgotten the most important principle that kept Shell strong….. the people. Today, you have the people…..and then you have the senior execs and HR.
By the way, Uncle Tom, how is that new job going? Enjoying your little cubicle over in CEP along with your tea pot? All I can say is… count the days till retirement. You are done.
on Sep 29th, 2010 at 09:20
sure sounds like you own some of the new schemes being practiced. also sounds like you reside in a safe little fraternal consortium of self accrediting,and probably self-rewarding ‘dillusionists’. your people survey results are far different from the ones that we have seen for the past three cycles.
on Sep 28th, 2010 at 22:21
To John Donovan – Right!! That is clearly what we are doing – an eveil empire! I am happy and I assume you are! Hard to be with all that hate, but whatever floats your boat.
To the person who used to uscitizen as their id?? ; we just completed our last survey and it was not at all like the Dow feedback. I will not share the details because that is company business, but i will contrast our reality with your Dow comments since you are sure we are the same!
Pros
World class manufacturing capability and processes – Check
Pretty good marketing – Check
Good benefits package – Excellent benefits package – one of the best in the world at Shell – folks can retire with few worries.
Ability to exercise flexibility in work arrangements – Huge focus on family /work balance – I was able to manage a very very sick kid, lots of time off and worked from the house alot and got good reviews. I have enabled many folks who work for me to have alternate work schedules based on a family situation.
Good place for new graduates to gain skills – Check – we get the best of the best still, put up a poster and we get many many applicants – hourly and professional jobs.
Cons
They paint a target on your back after you
on Sep 28th, 2010 at 20:07
bottom line is these “grievances” are in most cases legitimate positions and opinions about ‘management gone wrong’. The new world inside shell is not much unlike Dow and GE. Here is an example from a Dow employees people survey and link to more of this review:
Pros
World class manufacturing capability and processes
Pretty good marketing
Good benefits package
Ability to exercise flexibility in work arrangements
Good place for new graduates to gain skills
Cons
They paint a target on your back after you’re 55 – all of a sudden you become a burden.
The rating system is impossible to succeed in – if you do its because you’re someone’s golden boy or girl.
Once you get a bad rating, it’s almost impossible to make an improvement.
High reliance on contractors for many jobs.
Very limited capital in some businesses – makes for a very boring job if you’re a good engineer.
Pay levels in manufacturing are lower than competitors.
Advice to Senior Management
Realize that many of your people enjoy their work and you’re stifling their contributions by not making the tough decisions. Don’t let them wilt on the vine – either put some money into the business or sell off the ones that you really don’t want. http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Dow-Chemical-Reviews-E207.htm
I’m sure mr voser and others will receive huge bonuses for saving the company from those low performers. you are not hearing from those who have been kept, as they are either now playing the game well, or they scared and keeping their mouth shut. these tactics did nothing for GE’s or Dow’s stock prices, but someone was well rewarded for enacting them.
on Sep 27th, 2010 at 22:05
USCitizen – Are you going to continue defending this
on Sep 27th, 2010 at 21:29
Sure glad all of the folks at Shell plants have found some work to do and stopped posting grievances on this biased gripe site!! Has slowed way down as it should!!
on Sep 22nd, 2010 at 13:38
Drill a relief well simultaneously? Peoples brains must have frozen over in Alaska. A relief well is a exactly the same as a ‘normal’ well, just harder. The odds of a blow out are the same. To drill one in the remote chance a blow out occurs would be to double your exposure?? We can argue over the merits or intrinsic safety of arctic drilling but lets not be stupid.
on Sep 17th, 2010 at 03:34
Infantile? It’s a pity the energy invested in creation & maintenace of this site would have been focused in a more productive venture. As a retiree, I remember joking with other colleagues that if we lost an email, we could probably find it on this site – so this site actually does have some intrinsic value.
on Sep 11th, 2010 at 15:20
REPLY TO “NIGERIA”:
I have provided volumes of evidence including a leaked 93 page Shell internal document containing admissions about Shell’s track record in Nigeria. Also information about a $15.5 million settlement by Shell of long standing litigation by a Wiwa family member and other Ogoni. Plus links to countless independent articles about Shell’s conduct in Nigeria. In response, not a single piece of evidence, just an infantile comment.
on Sep 11th, 2010 at 13:49
as usual: Donovan equals no clue
on Sep 9th, 2010 at 13:03
Both of you seem to have migrated to far on your points of view. Shell is by no means the evil corp that it is made out to be here. In my opinion its biggest fault is that it tries to hold it self to a standard that frankly is beyond it (or any other major). Its record in Nigeria is poor, however, I don’t think any other major would be different. Indeed I wonder why Shell refuses to leave, it makes little profit, has a terrible safety record just as bad press. However, a large amount of blame must rest squarely on the country itself for their own corruption and waste.
On the other hand, I think Shell continues to be profitable despite itself. It is for the most part run these days but a bunch of yes man (and women) that have no balls or convictions. I doubt whether there is a coherent strategy anywhere in management. In my opinion Transition 09 (what a joke) will make things worse as they methodically removed experienced people and disenfranchised the rest which will result in the departure of the remaining competent people that refuse to work in such a company.
on Sep 9th, 2010 at 09:07
REPLY TO MUSAINT:
It is remarkable that you continue to defend Shell’s dreadful track record in Nigeria when even Shell has admitted that it has contributed to the fighting and corruption in that much plundered and polluted country: See CNN Report: “Shell admits blame in Nigeria” published on 11 June 2004. Two other revealing articles about Shell were published on the same day: “Bribery and corruption put fresh dent in tarnished image of Shell” (The Independent) “Memos expose Shell’s years of lying” (Daily Telegraph). And returning to Nigeria, an article published the following day by The Times: “Shell’s gas burn-off targets in doubt“. And here is a leaked copy of a 93 page report prepared and paid for by Shell containing admissions about Shell’s track record in Nigeria: “PEACE AND SECURITY IN THE NIGER DELTA“: You have also conveniently forgotten Shell’s settlement for $15.5 million of the Wiwa case in June last year: “Shell’s blood money settles the Wiwa case“. Here is a link to many more reports about Shell’s conduct in Nigeria. To top it all, here is a list of admissions and apologies by Shell. And yet you persist in trying to defend Shell? With regards to events surrounding Sakhalin2 leaks, continuing to stand by your conclusions and allegations based on ignorance of the facts and related ill-considered assumptions, does you no credit. I would have thought more of you if, under the circumstances, you had apologised.
on Sep 9th, 2010 at 07:53
Your article “Allegation of death threats surrounding Shell leaked emails”, should ideally be read on a stand alone basis. As is I stand by what I said. Your add-ons in response do not change my opinion of the danger you put the informer into. The Russian mob/secret police (whatever you want to call them) are not stupid, but, they are thugs. Yes again I use the word “alleged” as many of your financial statements on how much you’ve cost Shell are not factually proved. Yes I do attack this website and some of its contributors for nonsense reporting on Shell in Nigeria. Fact is that Shell performs far better than many companies throughout the world.
on Sep 8th, 2010 at 18:57
REPLY TO MUSAINT:
With regard to the snide comment about exaggeration “again”, here is the link to the Argus Media article containing an interview with the so called “Kremlin Attack Dog”, Oleg Mitvol when he states in the clearest possible terms where he obtained the evidence supporting the then $10 billion dollar lawsuit (later raised to $50 billion) he was threatening to bring against Shell: http://www.shellnews.net/images/Mitvol.pdf The source had genuine concerns about the project on ethical grounds supported by evidence. I did exactly what the source asked me do to. I have never released anything about the source which might allow them to be identified and have no intention of doing so now. Mitvol did give a subsequent interview to The Sunday Times confirming my involvement. The article was read to me over the phone hours before the Sunday Times was being printed. However, it did not appear in the paper. When I subsequently made a SAR application to Shell under the Data Protection Act, I obtained a copy of a Shell internal email discussing the pending Sunday Times story which said that my actions had cost Shell
on Sep 8th, 2010 at 18:03
“Evidence I provided to the Russian government cost Shell billions of dollars” – perhaps true, perhaps an exaggeration again. One thing I would not be proud to put into print Mr. D is that “the source disappeared without trace” – most likely (I believe the inference) as a result of your disclosure to the authorities. They are a viscious group in Russia and it would appear that your source may well have lost his life as a result of your actions. I would hold my head in shame. These death threats were from Russians and not Shell I would hazard a guess. I hope you sent the sources’ family a letter of condolance.
on Sep 8th, 2010 at 02:05
A few spare minutes, so I used them to browse the last 9 months since last looking in. The big industry change is the DW Horizon and there is plenty of speculation about similarity in Shell – could it happen here etc. I have moved on a couple of years ago, but in Houston 2005-8 I don’t believe that the Shell well engineers would have ever allowed the scope changes and shortcuts that were made by BP. I remember clearly that a “long string” option in one of our wells was categorically refused and we had to run the liner with tieback at cost >$10mln. Safety at stake, and good engineering practice.
What finally drove me (and a good chunk of the Americas exploration leadership) away from Shell was GoM related, however: the inability to hold to a strategy and the imposition of personal agendas from global leadership. For all Bichsel’s faults (and there are many), once he was convinced you had a valid strategy he left you to get on with it. He had a certain trust level. Once he was kicked upstairs Americas completely lost any independence in both strategic and tactical direction and lease sales were micro-managed from The Hague by people with almost no hands on knowledge of the prospects. many man-years of careful effort to prepare for lease sales were over-ruled by telecon by failed explorers sitting across the atlantic who fancied they knew a thing or two about the GoM. Yes, we won plenty of leases, but never the right mix to build a balanced portfolio of opportunities. After this dispiriting experience, plus the parachuting in of the failed explorers back to Houston, it was definitely time to be off.
on Sep 5th, 2010 at 19:13
This Corrib business is starting to get a right old bore!! Firstly the locals should be thankful for the business that it brings and secondly others (such as Tom McAndrew) should realise what benefits Shell provides with it’s donations to the community / schools. NOT everything that Shell gives should be seen as a bribe or sweetener!! The Greens and Tree Huggers on this planet should realise that Shell, and other companies, do add value to the lives of communities throughout the world.
on Sep 5th, 2010 at 11:51
Memo to “Wilt Staph” : Most of the pollution in Ogoni Land (and other areas) is down to malicious pipeline damage caused by locals trying to steal oil, not Shell.
on Sep 5th, 2010 at 11:18
CEP – there was no problem with the concept as originally designed, but unfortunately was blighted (corrupted??) by the short termism and “worship thy boss” ethos which came into Shell in the 1990′s. The result is a devaluation of CEP to mean “crass exaggeration of performance” or “continual erosion of profitability”.
on Sep 5th, 2010 at 08:16
Well done to BP for getting rogue well under control at last so that it poses no further threat. Shouldn’t have happened at all – but in the end it is safe. Good!
Memo to Shell: Why not pretend that your operations in Nigeria are actually onshore USA and apply the same environmental rules and concerns as if it was millions of Americans at risk not millions of Ogonis?
on Sep 5th, 2010 at 05:47
The summary here re HR all rings true from where I sit. It has been documented here well the work of Tom Purves in the Gulf coast. He was able to change people’s performance factors and make them low enough that , when the severance packages came around, they would be eligible to be let go. Tom knew that the packages were coming because of his relationship with HR, specifically the now retired Glenn Gilchrist. Both he and Tom were able to advocate for the severance packages and also customize and pinpoint those that they wanted to get rid of. This is all well known and will always be Uncle Tom’s legacy, not the screwed up CEP project. Ultimately, Glenn retired because HR likes to feed off anyone, including their own. And ultimately, Uncle Tom will get a nice payoff and ride off, or walk off , into the sunset with his little ice teamaker and enjoy his life all to himself. Not the legacy he wanted to end with I’m sure. And for HR, they haven’t served the people in a long time. They are there for senior leadership and somehow through Hofmeister, Dalzell, Gilchrist, and others, fancy themselves as having the ear of the top brass helping to create and develop the future leaders of the company. What a sad state of affairs our company now sits in with HR’s help. Their own brand of competency mapping for leaders ( aka CEP) ended up creating the 600-750 ( or whatever number Voser landed on) of senior executives to get the heave ho…. Makes you wonder what the CEP is really all about. Gilchrist has now gone on to start another business. Glenn, enjoy yourself and hide behind your web page. Uncle Tom, tell Funkhouser to roll over and get you a glass of tea.
Remember, we’re watching….
on Sep 4th, 2010 at 17:35
retiree, no doubt, the recent pension pay-out savings scheme, executed by the very subjective, ‘relative performance’ sentencing, was hatched from one of the latest HR-inspired soup-of-the-day, organizational-performance-improvement plans. When you hear a manager comparing site performance tactics to McDonalds and Starbucks, clearly someone was led to the wrong seminar… and hasn’t the sense to distinguish the difference.
on Sep 3rd, 2010 at 12:18
On the HR business in Shell: after that evangelical Hofmeister wormed himself into the position of head HR, things went downhill rapidly. He kept traipsing all over the world to all the nice and expensive spots and invited planeloads of HR folk to discuss whatever HR discusses. He made statements that he would be proud to see someone at an airport and see immediately ‘this is a Shell HR person’. He destroyed all good systems we had such as evaluation, development and resourcing of staff. The same staff lost their senior focal points whom they could trust to discuss personal matters and instead the HR circus was swamped with outsiders who only could deal with computer systems and told all staff that they were responsible to look after their own career.
Open resourcing became the biggest farce of Shell and I believe it is now called MOR (Managed Open Resourcing). Few people dare say that Open Resourcing never should have introduced because it feeds on the ‘me first’ principle. Nobody would do anything for the company if he or she would not get personally better from it. Where all that led to has been obvious the last 10 years or so.
And then HR people were being promoted into very senior and overpaid positions that were dealing with business. The development of staff had started to crumble and we got a prime example of the blind leading the blind. He received help from Gary Steel who as director for LEAP had the whole CMD dancing the macarena and when he noticed it all went belly-up, left Shell to go and wreak havoc at ABB. Carol Dubnicki came (for a hideous salary caused by a simple mistake of the senior resourcer who keyed in the wrong number) and left in disgrace having achieved nothing apart from leaving more wreckage. And then Hofmeister started to tour the USA as a royal, pretending to know the business. I am convinced he promoted that other silly woman Cook into several levels beyond her competence. She was so bad, she would have made a good modern HR person in Shell! As Shell employs above average intelligent people, these soon followed up and saw what was rewarded: promises over performance, agree with the boss and ‘me first, never mind the company’. A great many low and mid level HR folk are now employed and hired from outside. Presumably for diversification but more likely for ensuring there is no more corporate memory. And these outsiders have no feel for the business nor its people. Neither do they care!
I believe I have said enough. I am very glad to have retired and can look back on the good old days…. I wish all current employees success in dealing with HR (Human Remains according to Sir John Jennings), but always beware of false or silly information, double check yourself and keep looking over your shoulder.
on Sep 1st, 2010 at 19:31
John Dear
My comment on Shell HR. USELESS
Other synonyms . . . .
Non-Existent, Know Nothing, Won’t Help – Keep Redirecting, No experience, Every Question looked upon as Confrontation,
Should I say more! Why have a local HR group who is useless? Bottom line, you end of getting frustrated and quit asking questions after going thru all that BS!
on Sep 1st, 2010 at 15:25
Would anyone like to comment on the HR organisation within Shell? I’ve had a fair few run in’s with them so far- they all seem to be blimmin’ useless! But perhaps that is like most HR organisations in big corporations (?). It seems like they really do not care about the individual. I’ve been pushed from pillar to post when I ask for clarification on a particular policy. We are told to contact the outsourced help desks sitting in Poland, KL etc. as HR in the business don’t seem to either have the time or skill to deal with local employees. What has Shell become?? Any advice please on how to deal with HR and actually get them to help me would be most gratefully received.
on Aug 31st, 2010 at 01:26
Pensioner 009, First, I am a long time user of this web Site myself. Second, I am sure I am not not the only one who has not taken kindly to his condesending and obviously inflated opinion of himself and his put downs of others on this site. His so called “advice” was more of an insult than advise. His “advice” to “primoregggazz” and his Range Rover were thinly disguised insults, not advice. This was not his first time to do this. If you like and respect him, that is your choice but I am sure there are others that do not agree. Read back on how primoreggazz responded to his co called “advice. I will not be commenting further on this issue or Musaint. those that respect his opinion and methods can read his comments. I will not.
on Aug 30th, 2010 at 21:49
Musaint, those who have been viewing this blog for longer than just a few weeks know you as a respected contributor, so pay no heed to the recent comments.
As to Shell Diesel quality, I got shot of my Disco years ago – far too unreliable always breaking down. For 5 years now my deisel X5 has run on nothing but Shell Diesel and is just fine.
I would more likely suspect contamination in the filling station tanks – possibly water in the tank. This is far more common than many people realise. Trouble is you only find out after you have driven away.
As for new formulations of diesel – that’s driven by EU regualtion – the UK should NEVER have joined.
on Aug 30th, 2010 at 17:18
GSAP/GPMR and the HOUSE OF CARDS
When the GSAP project started up in 2003, we were soon drowning in Powerpoint slides. One image in particular stood out. It depicted the existing Legacy MI systems as a “house of cards”, on the point of collapse. And here was GSAP, to the rescue !
The next stage is well documented. GSAP got nowhere trying to replace the MI, and within 4 years had to be rescued itself. The saviour was a new MI project called “GPMR”, which curiously set off using almost the same methods and technologies that had just failed. You can’t keep a good “strategy” down.
3 years later, GPMR itself looks in need of rescue. Delivery to date consists of 2 humble ‘pathfinders’, both plagued by performance problems, and using different client technologies because of an architectural cock-up. The rising sense of panic is unmistakeable. Developers desperately clone whole chunks of legacy structure without really understanding it, while their seniors trim scope and push back delivery dates – in spite of which efforts, published plans still show GPMR finishing the rest of job (a magnitude more than they have done so far) in little more than a YEAR.
Meanwhile, the original MI (the “house of cards”) is still there. 7 years on death row have done some damage, but systems are still running and generally outperforming GSAP/GPMR. Almost nothing has been decommissioned.
Credit where it is due. 7 years of pitiful delivery would have sapped the morale of lesser teams, but GSAP/GPMR have remained true; true to the sense that “strategy” is what counts, not results; true to the belief that if you continue spending shareholders’ funds for long enough, success will one day come your way. And they are still on-message: open a GPMR 2010 slide pack and you find the original 2003 “house of cards” graphic is still there !
on Aug 30th, 2010 at 07:47
I am sure we were all suitably impressed by your condescending attitude and your bragging about your car. Frankly, sir, if you are trying to impress folks, you might want to try a different tactic than condescension and bragging.
Oh yeah, you do not help your credibility by bragging as most who do that do it to cover their shortcomings. From the way you write, i am convinced you must have many to cover.
on Aug 29th, 2010 at 17:33
Well my poor little munchkin (EXSF), my comments were aimed at someone who (a) spouted on about poor performance with a Shell product, for which I merely asked some questions to help understand his problem, (b) on his response & pontification about having a Landrover tractor, merely explaind what car I had and that it had improved with the Shell product. We don’t all dislike Shell on this website.
on Aug 27th, 2010 at 17:49
Musaint, it is only fair to tell you that the reason I found your remarks offensive was your clear strategy of casting aspersions on others comments. You give them no respect at all by casting aspersions on the intelligence of people you do not even know. I am giving you the same respect that you gave them. If you want your comments to be respected, then you should try treating others with the same respect you might want. Right now, you seem like a Shell Troll to me.
on Aug 27th, 2010 at 17:39
Het Musaint, does doing commercials for Shell pay well? Just wondering and I would guess I am not the only one.
on Aug 24th, 2010 at 18:05
Forgot to add that my car is a Audi Q7 V12 TDI. It’s well tuned and runs on Shell. Any time you want to test your tractor against a Shell run vehicle please let me know.
on Aug 24th, 2010 at 13:13
Just offering advice – fact is that others, like myself, have found the Shell product extremely good. Mine is a well serviced vehicle – is that your problem perhaps?
on Aug 23rd, 2010 at 17:41
MUSAINT – what on earth are you on, if you haven’t got any decent advise to add…don’t comment, yes i do have a diesel motor, if i would have filled up with unleaded, the motor wouldn’t work, surely any dimwit would know this! decent car? well i think my landrover discovery tdv6 hse is a prestige model, not some run of the mill family car that you probably drive…..with reference to 3-4 tanks to work the shell fuel out of the system, well my landrover mechanic filled his range rover up with bio fuel and that took 3-4 tanks of normal diesel to clear out the the bio fuel so it was an approximation!
on Aug 23rd, 2010 at 14:03
I have worked in Nigeria and the much used expression there was: ‘You pay small dash, finish palaver’. I see this still holds true. But I am not certain whether this palaver will disappear. The country as a whole is simply too corrupt and all the poor citizens are victims.
on Aug 22nd, 2010 at 21:20
Posting made on behalf of “Jon Alpert”:
One summer, I worked for Shell Chemicals
on Aug 21st, 2010 at 17:24
Well “primoreggazzo”, I can only offer up some suggestions to your problem. (1) make sure you really have a diesel and not an unleaded car, (2) make sure you buy a half decent vehicle – this could be your main problem. That said, who said you would need 3-4 clean tanks to solve the problem – some cowboy garage?!? “I have refilled the tank after almost running empty” – that’s plain stupid you should check the fuel guage!! My car has absolutely no problem with this product, infact its performance has improved dramatically.
on Aug 21st, 2010 at 14:46
POSTED ON BEHALF OF “primoreggazzo”: I have recently filled up with Shell diesel
on Aug 19th, 2010 at 04:14
Well Uncle Tom has shown up now over here at PAR. I guess the mourning over his demotion is now over. He is able to get the Funk to cut off the alarm clock in the morning and they both ride to work to save the day at Port Arthur. Tom, look deep in the mirror, keep looking, deeper… and listen to the voice that keeps telling you that you screwed it up… the whole gulf coast… people’s lives… because of your controlling ways and the fact that the RVP job was over your head….. Now you can manage the Funk…. have Funk tell little boy Forrest and the brit on the project how to eat the cabbage. You and Jeff deserve each other…. I would just watch the knife in his hand and make sure it doesn’t end up in your back…. remember you taught him well.
Boy I can’t wait to see how you finish up doing SPI-100 on PAR since that became your passion over the past few years.
Remember, I’m watching…..
on Aug 15th, 2010 at 19:10
I know that I have commented on this age old story about Shell selling their Rajasthan acreage before (this story and my comments are probably like a cracked record), but, the issue should be put at the doorstep of 2 Shell individuals – namely Messrs. Wildig and Parsley. I know I have been corrected by somebody previously, but, these two individuals killed off Shell’s E&P presence in the sub-continent (that includes Pakistan which has also proved a money earner for Premier Oil). Probably the Swiss inbred & nodding-donkey Bichsel signed the final death-knell for the sub-continent but Parsley and Wildig were the real culprits. Why oh why was an idiot PE (Wildig) by background given the responsibility to defend exploration decisions?? Hard-nosed that he was, I liked the genuine ability of someone such as Murris to decide on entry or exit on a country. The likes of Bichsel / Parsley and most especially Wildig had absolutely no idea.
on Aug 15th, 2010 at 05:00
Musaint, ‘Geismar thingy’ is probably across the pond from you in the southern US. Just not the same morale and energy as there once was. Probably still a better place to be than many other Shell sites. Some of the most committed folks in the organization are disappointed by some leadership decisions.
on Aug 14th, 2010 at 18:33
What, where, is this Geismar thingy that a number of posts are moaning & minging about. Must be a lousy place to work if there’s so many mingers “working” there!!
on Aug 12th, 2010 at 13:14
Useless PTL, I think that the recent change in VP leadership is important. some other things that are important:
1. Some newer employees do not have the respect for Shell and the work ethic that we once knew at Geismar.
2.Some first line leaders are playing the destructive,force ranked competition game and believe in it. The top rated folks are thriving, and love it, no-one else is inspired. This ONLY works in sales groups or piece-work production.
3.Some of the key folks who really understood and believed in the culture of which you speak, have been removed.
4.Some folks currently in key leadership roles,do not believe in that culture, or have no idea of what we are talking about. “Task oriented supervision is better”.
5.Some of the changes in recent years have been good for the site. It would be critical to not destroy all of the changes for the sake of ‘a better culture’.
6. Many of the supervisors currently in place were selected because they are more capable of task supervision and have no idea of what empowerment of their work teams looks like.
I think that your question goes much deeper than this; just wanted to share some thoughts.
on Aug 12th, 2010 at 03:21
hey geismar gator, history says, many were given over-extended periods to qualify, or to ‘get comfortable’, or to re-take tests and walk-throughs. It doesn’t matter what race you were. Technicians in training are now being held to more standardized, specified time frames to demonstrate progressive success in learning and skill development.
on Aug 12th, 2010 at 01:28
For the Geismar Folks…. Do you feel that the “culture” at Geismar will return to what it has been in the past, or is the damage too deep to reverse itself??? I personally see no benefit in staying at a plant that treats supervision the way that we are treated in Geismar. Are the Motiva sites any better? Is there any place in the organization for someone who actually cares about his direct reports and not climbing over the backs of his peers just to get to the next grade??? If so, someone please point me in that direction, I fear that Geismar is a lost cause…
on Aug 11th, 2010 at 21:28
Agree 100%. A Japanese log carrier built in 1965, with a drilling package added in 1975 is not exactly the state of the art in drilling vessels (and I’m sure the cabins don’t measure up to Norwegian standards of luxury!). But I’m also sure it’s cheap (if 300K/day is cheap?). Maybe with the cancellation fees Frontier Drilling (owned by Shell and the Carlyle Group at the time the contracts were awarded) will be able to afford a refit – after ten years it’s well overdue.
on Aug 11th, 2010 at 09:17
I seems to me that there is one Royal Dutch Shell subsidiary that is well acquainted with the stringent and successful Norwegian ‘rules of engagement’ for drilling and production in the North Sea and Arctic. That would be Norske Shell, RDS’s Norwegian subsidiary.
I am certain those folks can operate in the US Arctic far more competently and safely than Shell USA’s Gulf of Mexico ‘run and gun’ gang. And I am dead certain Norske Shell would never approve of Shell USA’s current choice for a drilling operator for their Chukchi exploration campaign.
Shell USA spent $2 billion on leases and now apparently wants to use an obsolete, but refurbished ‘rust bucket’ to drill their exploration wells to ‘save a little money’. Why not contract a Chinese rig? They are ‘dirt cheap’ (if they don’t sink).
Seems to me Royal Dutch should think seriously about how it staffs and manages its US Arctic exploration effort. It may be time to import some operational and managerial competence. It could pay huge dividends down the road. One screw-up on the part of the ‘junior varsity’ and the gig is up.
Just a thought from a former Shell Oil USA employee.
on Aug 10th, 2010 at 23:25
hey justthefactsmaam i guess you represent the historic geismar family. You know how it goes out here in geismar. If you are part of the family you get the best training and all the time you need to qualify. You even get unlimited chances at taking the test. Black technicians don’t get the same treatment. Blacks have a certain time frame to qualify and a more diffucult time during training.
on Aug 7th, 2010 at 23:53
Absolutely False, While I agree David G. is a clown, the two technicians in question were dismissed because of their competency. It has nothing to do with their race, in fact, if the truth would be told they were hired because of their race. The people who should really be terminated are the people in HR who hire some of these “slugs” and send them to an operating unit, where they arent capable of learning and performing the duties of an operating technician. Then someone like a David G. is forced to make a very tough decision, Fire a black tech. or let his/her continued incompetency reflect on his performance.
This is a lose/lose for a Mgr. But in these two cases David G. made the right decision.
on Aug 7th, 2010 at 14:59
Geismar Gator, word is that the first one of which you speak did not receive due process;he/she was even held accountable in a job they were not yet qualified in.??? The word out there also has it that this most recent one of which you speak, just could not meet the requirements, and that due process was followed, via progressive discipline process. If the ‘fly on the wall’ has this wrong, please share it here.
on Aug 7th, 2010 at 03:23
racial tensions brewing over in geismar, David Gates is at it again this time a one of the only four black female technicians is his victim. That’s two black technicians in a year. There’s also been other problems with blacks not gettin promotions over here also. I guess you can say another one bites the dust.
on Aug 6th, 2010 at 00:13
CORRECTION TO MY LAST POST
an important correction to my use of the word retribution. The statement should have read: Forced ranking is subject to favoritism and RETALIATION, not retribution..
on Aug 5th, 2010 at 06:08
CorporateHR, too bad Mr TP will take this as a move in his favor. It seems unfair for those whose lives were changed, some after 30+years of service, that TP gets moved around instead of out. Severance payments do not replace the additional years that some would have worked. Reduced Pensions do not compensate for the years of life that were given to Shell. Retirement and financial plans and goals were destroyed for some. My personal opinion is that there is no reasonable cause for the way that some of these staff reductions were executed. Many team leaders that were terminated were far more effective than some that were kept.
on Aug 3rd, 2010 at 11:14
Word is out on the street….. Tom purves moves back to Port Arthur to take the lead on the project, rathweg replaces Tom, Farid moves to west coast, and unbelievably a Mark Byrd takes the helm at The flagship. My thoughts….. Clearly a demotion for Uncle Tom but he won’t look at it that way. This is where he wants to be, buried deep in motiva central where he can hide out in a small office on Savannah with his little tea pot barking orders to funkhouser and helping(?) out. Trust me uncle Tom doesn’t look at this as a demotion. He just gets to drop his knapsack off full-time now in the apartment with Jeff and ride to work together instead of playing MLT boy. Big win for uncle Tom. Re rathweg, good move for Steve but boy he has his hands full…. This isn’t geismar. Uncle Tom leaves him the keys with 4 years of baggage and mistrust. Also uncle Tom has been clear that he thinks Steve is a doofus saying it public ally many times. No love loss between these 2. Now Steve on his trips to port Arthur has to get in the middle of Tom, Forrest, and da funk on issues. 3 is a company 4 is a crowd and Steve will see first hand what that relationship looks like. Re farid, he gets to move home to the west coast so he is happy…. Not sure his Martinez replacement will find it the same way. Re bird, ……good luck.
on Aug 2nd, 2010 at 18:49
CorporateHR,thanks for affirming this for me. I would have been shocked to hear if the SR that I knew had compromised his values and morals.
Some very welcome news just out on reassignments of SR and TP will help to re-instill some trust, collaboration and energy in the gulf coast sites. Too bad this took place after we suffered through TP’s rank & yank slaughter. Those who no me will probably recognize me when I say that the dedicated, energized morale that we once knew can only be returned by rebuilding the reciprocal loyalty that TP’s tactics have so efficiently destroyed. The biggest challenge for SR will be dealing with TP’s minions that have been advanced and rewarded for their subservient dirty work under TP. They are still in place and the working folks in the organization will have a hard time being inspired by these cowards that they have watched execute the humiliating destruction of the personalities and lives, of the first line leaders that they respected and admired.
Hopefully the adage, ‘good Shell, bad leaders’, evolves to ‘good Shell recognized bad leaders’.
…..bad leaders will ultimately destroy an enterprise…..
on Aug 2nd, 2010 at 11:41
Bware….. These 2 men are 2 totally different men and everyone knows it. SR tries to lead thru his people the right way. TP never will have a f2f discussion as he is not comfortable with conflict, yet he will write a book in an email. TP is also a long lived control freak who gets lost in the details trying to make decisions. Those that are his minions such as j funkhouser, Forrest lauher, Jim hart sock, etc all know this and just march to his beat because they prosper. Funk has done so many incredulous things he ought to be in jail. TP allows him to get away with it and so does the HR leadership. SR has more credentials as a leader than TP will ever have and clearly more morals. Shell can double it’s profits but it can’t run from the lack of leadership currently happening.
on Aug 1st, 2010 at 15:51
With all of the criticism on here related to downstream VP, TP, I have often wondered about the state of affairs in the other Americas downstream sites, with the other VP, SR. I may be wrong, but I would bet that MR. SR’s organization does not suffer from the demoralizing, narcissistic, autocracy suffered by VP TP’s poor minions.
on Aug 1st, 2010 at 05:09
Mr Voser, Congratulations, the second quater results has improved by 94%. We are proud of you and Shell.
Most are attributable to the better oil price fortunately. Our latest feedback to you is there are still too many Global EVP/VP in the Centre and Regions. They are all very smart people however they donot have very challenging jobs. As such, they have to travel to the Regions/Opcs ..some add values while most creat work for themselves and creat work for the operating units and others. Its not their fault, its your fault for putting them there.
Try a simple survey with staff ( either through People survey or faster mean )…Even some of the EVP/VP during casual drinks admitted that they are not challenged sufficiently but they are put in their current jobs. We could use this smart people better to drive production up, cost down,etc. My estimate is you have around 30-50% of this LC/SEG available to your team. Give these LC/SEG real accountability and you will see even much better results next quarters.
on Jul 28th, 2010 at 00:31
QUESTION FOR USCITIZEN: Do you see any merit in any aspect of this website? Have you ANYTHING positive to say about it? You said: “Too bad you have had to pull so many posts lately because even you, as biased as you clearly are, had to admit they were full of garbage.” Please provide examples of the articles that you say have been withdrawn? Should be easy given your claim that there have been so many. Please also point us to any admittance by me that any article we have authored was “full of garbage”. If you are unable to substantiate your allegations, other visitors will be able to draw their own conclusions.
on Jul 27th, 2010 at 22:04
Right John. I am obsessed and you do not hate Shell. Got it. See ya later.
on Jul 27th, 2010 at 21:59
USCITIZEN
Just thought I’d post a couple of my thoughts. Firstly the use of the word “chiefs” seems to of upset you. I apologise if this is the case. I didn’t mean it as a prescriptive term for all managers.
Unfortunately my manager is not as open as you seem to be.
He unfortunately seems to be indicative of the kind of manager that Shell has these days. A few factual examples as follows:
1. He refused to greet any staff members within our division for an extended period of time. He has since rectified this after several complaints from a number of staff.
2. He routinely attempts to extend people’s 3-4 years windows with zero consultation by stealth on the flimsy HR systems.
3. Once staff make it clear that their future lies within another division of Shell he consistently gives them very low scores on their performance reviews. This has happened on a number of occasions.
4. Despite appalling results in the widely encouraged Shell Survey and strong encouragement from management above him he has flatly ignored the survey results. Sadly the division seems to be heading for another extremely poor, even by Shell standards, set of survey results.
5. He carved out a “dream team” within the team to surround him to work on special jobs. These people have all subsequently quit for other large oil companies. He described this failed venture as an experiment which he was happy failed.
6. He has a healthy level of disrespect for people undertaking post graduate studies as he took the school of hard knocks straight out of Shell.
No doubt there are many great managers but sadly working under two at Shell I can honestly say that within Shell but my impression is that many managers within my particular area of Shell in 80 Strand London have extremely poor management skills and have progressed because of one the following:
1. Nest sitting within the organisation succeeding because of their ability to hibernate for extended periods of time. ie 10-20 years in a sort of mexican standoff. These people seem to lack any sort of genuine ambition or will to progress the company. They project a will to advance the company but a more than cursory examination of their behaviour shows that they demand much higher standards of those below them than they do of themselves.
2. People who are able to resist all temptation to point out mistakes being made within the organisation. The sort of yes sir men that will always tow the company line. These people will never rock the boat even when doing so is the right thing to do. This makes them gatekeepers of the sloth like Shell way.
3. Good technical people who become managers because it is an avenue to higher rewards even though they don’t have the necessary skills to manage others. I believe this is a real problem at Shell as these people in many cases neither do much work or management.
So in closing I’ll say this. I believe this site continues to exist for a number of reasons:
1. There is not much tolerance for criticism within Shell. The biggest mistake I made in my short and soon to end Shell career was identifying genuine problems and trying to be honest with those senior to me. This doesn’t pay. It pays to tow the company line no matter how ridiculous that is.
2. This site offers an outlet for people to voice their constructive criticism as this is not allowed within Shell.
3. This website offers more than just the blind drawl rolled out by PvdV and PV. The sort of we must try harder…. mindless we must improve safety… these results are satisfactory (even though they are record breaking)…. I have reduced the bonus structure because of the downturn (even though there are clear rules on how these bonuses are calculated not just because I fancy breaking the rules which were created in aid of transparency).
So rant almost over. It seems apparent to me that anyone who hasn’t become totally comatose after life within the Shell should realise the following:
1. This company is extremely reluctant to celebrate it’s success. This is very sad and seems to be the result of pain caused by the previous scandals and that admitting success may mean the wretched mid and low level employees may want a slice of the action. At least companies like BP offer a 1 for 1 share bonus scheme
2. The company lacks imagination and has lost it’s desire to innovate and lead becoming a shadow of BP. Those ays may now be gone.
3. Short sighted. The company seems to be a wet lettuce unable to hold the course of actually deliver change. In my part of the company they’ve been talking outsourcing first to Poland then to India for the last 5 years. Very little has actually happened. My impression is this is done to appease others rather than as a result of strong convictions.
etc etc
Sorry for the length of this. Just got carried away.
Cheers
on Jul 27th, 2010 at 18:45
REPLY TO USCITIZEN:
You really ought to calm yourself down Chief. You should be concerned about your own health, not mine. As usual, baffled by some of the things you say. What articles have been pulled? I also note that you are twisting the truth again. I do not believe that Shell is a Nazi loving company. What I do contend is that Shell is still willing to deal with the devil and does, in Iran and Libya. It may be of no interest to you, but the close association several decades ago with Hitler and the Nazi is a matter of historical fact. I will, in the near future, publish extensive further evidence on the subject and explain why it does still matter. Bet you can hardly wait. I note that you call me John. Nothing wrong with that but why don’t you tell us all who you are? I doubt you would be so bold in your real name as you are when hiding behind an alias to make your comments. How on earth can I attack you “personally” when your name is not declared? Contrary to your allegation, I don’t hate anyone or any company. I do intend to go on campaigning for Shell senior management to abide by its own business principles. As you said, freedom of speech. I also have the right to choose to spend my time as I wish. If you don’t like me, or don’t enjoy these exchanges, why do you keep returning? I can only assume that you have become obsessed with this website.
on Jul 27th, 2010 at 18:17
Wilt Staph
on May 25th, 2010 at 1:41 pm
Strong rumors that Shell is frequently making employees redundant; paying them off
on Jul 27th, 2010 at 17:51
PS – I do not have to provide examples of hate, you do that yourself. Your campaign to show that Shell is a Nazi loving company, stuff from 70 years ago, is very entertaining and has a lot to do with today huh John. Noboby but an obsessed hater would post what you do over and over again! You have insulted many many hard working high integrity people who work for Shell. Their families wonder how someone turns into such a hater as you have. I simply point out that a biased obsession is not healthy for the heart and mind and you just have to ignore people like you. You of course can ingore me! Is free speech not great John?! Oh year you like to use that phrase. Too bad you attacked me personally, you have no clue about my brain power and neither do I about yours. But I do no know that you spend a lot of time, hating! Not healthy John!
on Jul 27th, 2010 at 17:46
Well John you have once again displayed how little you really know. Read the persons post, they called people JG4 and above Chiefs. Now let me tell you something John, this is why you can not take everything people tell your little site as gospel. Too bad you have had to pull so many posts lately because even you, as biased as you clearly are, had to admit they were full of garbage. Got some news for you, there are many more posts, including yours that are full of hot air. I come on here every once in a while and try to inject some sanity, a losing endeavor, but I do try.
To edcuate you and to point out how full of hot air the post was about the under the table bonus escalators, a person who is JG4 has had 2 promotions since they hired into Shell. They are 2 grades away from being an entry level manager, so I would doubt many of these people feel like Chiefs. But I would not expect you to know because you sir are an “outsider” and I am so glad you are. Sorry your scratch off campaigns are no longer your passion, but your obsession is indeed entertaining! Bring it on John, I have a life, do you?
on Jul 26th, 2010 at 17:08
“uscitizen” if you really are one of the Shell “chiefs” as you claim, then Shell has lowered its standards. I say this based on your overall postings on this Blog. Why have you been wasting your time for over a year now visiting and making regular postings on what you describe as a “hate site”? What does that say about you? Completely brainwashed and not a lot to wash. If you want to be taken seriously, provide examples of the alleged “hate” so that people interested in this website have an opportunity to consider whether your blanket condemnation has any substance. At the moment the only obvious hatred on display is yours for this website and us, made under the cloak of an alias.
on Jul 26th, 2010 at 15:40
jg6
on Jul 22nd, 2010 at 4:08 pm
Hoping someone can set me straight. Earlier this year it was announced by Peter Voser that he was unilaterally reducing the group scorecard for bonus purposes. This was done at his sole discretion.
I understand that at the same time those employees classed job group 4 or above (the chiefs) would get a behind the scenes 25% escalator on their bonuses effectively negating the effect of the scorecard reduction.
Can anyone confirm this to be the case or dispel it as an urban legend. Thoughts?
Please – as one of the “chiefs” as you say – I can tell you this is just urban legend. Why on earth would you waste your time posting this on this hate site instead of simply asking one of us, would be glad to discuss this with you.
on Jul 24th, 2010 at 08:12
Matula has a gift for taking and getting credit for some of the bigget busts ever…GID, GID2, GSAP, SAP MegaCentre,…..
And for all his focus on cost cutting has anyone looked at the Downsteam IT folks from the US an expat now? Interesting that most previously did their jobs from Houston, but it was time to get the lucrative expat assignment.
on Jul 22nd, 2010 at 16:25
Posting on behalf of a former Shell employee:
Corrib Emails:
I don’t know what you want to do with those emails, but if published they could cause problems for Shell and their partners. It sounds like a bureaucratic botch job on the part of the oil companies. Nobody minding the store. It happens from time to time.
I have done some reading on that particular gas discovery. The gas is about as ‘clean’ as you can find. It has to be dried and maybe enriched a little bit to mean heat capacity standards, but it is good, clean gas. In the States, that discovery at current well head prices would be worth about $6 – $8 billion.
From what I read about the geology and the hydrocarbon source rocks it appears they may be older Carboniferous age coal bearing rocks. These older rocks could eventually be tapped for their ‘tight’ gas, as is currently occurring here in the States. The amount of exploitable gas in those source rocks could dwarf what is in the current discoveries. US gas reserves are exploding because of the new drilling technologies that makes getting the gas out of these types of rocks economical.
In any event, it would be wise for the Irish government to take a hard line w/the oil companies on royalties. They own the gas, for god’s sake (and hense, it is the property of the Irish people). Why give it away to ‘big oil’.
on Jul 22nd, 2010 at 16:08
Hoping someone can set me straight. Earlier this year it was announced by Peter Voser that he was unilaterally reducing the group scorecard for bonus purposes. This was done at his sole discretion.
I understand that at the same time those employees classed job group 4 or above (the chiefs) would get a behind the scenes 25% escalator on their bonuses effectively negating the effect of the scorecard reduction.
Can anyone confirm this to be the case or dispel it as an urban legend. Thoughts?
on Jul 22nd, 2010 at 04:55
Bware, you make all good points. Eveyone over here at PAR knows that Purves, even though he was promoted to RVP, never could give up the site manager role at PAR. He, even today, likes to hide out in Motiva with an occaisional visit to DP and Geismar. We see him more and more at PAR supposedly working on the project even though he hasn’t a clue how to help. He just cuts his boy Funkhouser loose to wreak havoc. We see the Funk more in the base plant than any time he spends on the project. Poor Forrest. He should have been let go after the fiasco on the project but had his job saved only to be left dangling like a puppet while Purves and Funk do their damage at PAR. People just salute because they know what happens when they disagree. Tom this will truly be your legacy, not what you wanted. Everyone knows that Purves sets all the IPFs in the organizations he manages, not his direct reports. Part of the massacre that happened at PAR and Convent was due to Purves freewheeling and setting the IPFs low enough so that when the packages came through, he could finish the job.
And what is even worse is that Botts /Lang/ others know this has happened and just turned their head. Good Shell…bad leadership…..
on Jul 21st, 2010 at 22:32
Beware of narcissistic, autocrats
I think that ‘Improving_Shell’ has a valid point that retirees, ‘refirees’ and current employees, do not want to see Shell fail. Income, pension, and benefits, are important to all of us.
What I disagree with is the statement that management styles and personalities are not useful in determining what has to be improved.
BP has just demonstrated (again) where autocratic, shortsighted, low-cost at any expense, management styles and personalities can affect the health and survival of lives, profits, and perhaps even the entire enterprise. Many of us have seen this through the years, especially after the Texas City disaster. We now have in front of us a mega-example of how these ‘styles’ determine the health of the enterprise. Shell has moved closer to these styles and behaviors in the past three-four years than I have seen in 35 years. The very folks that need to be listened to, and who were promoted to their humble positions in supervision because of their ability to see the big picture and to keep shift teams focused, are being discarded because they are an interruption in the establishment of the new autocratic, ‘classist’, Voser-Purves, regime. And yes this all from the same culture as BRITISH Petroleum.
So if you want an opinion on what has to be improved; re-empower supervision and the folks that do the work, stop the subjective, disconnected (rated by Purves rather than by my manager), competitive performance rating games, and re-establish a governance where moral behavior is as important as performance-by-the-numbers.
on Jul 20th, 2010 at 15:09
Posted on behalf of a former Shell employee:
I read the article on Shell and the offshore drilling in the Chukchi Sea. This is ‘deja vu’ all over again. 25 years ago Shell spent the equivalent of about a half billion dollars leasing Arctic waters. Oil was discovered, and lots of it. The problem was nobody could figure out how to produce safely. It cannot be done because of sea ice. The problem is not the sea ice directly but the pressure ridges that form due to wind drag. These ridges aren’t very high on the surface, maybe 10 meters at most, but that means there is an underwater mountain of ice extending over 100 meters below the ridge. These mountains of ice can bulldoze into the mud on the ocean bottom 15 -20 meters. They would literally scrap away well heads, pipelines, and production platforms like a bulldozer. They are unstoppable and they preclude oil production in the Arctic Ocean. Shell eventually abandoned those leases. And head office had screwed up. They had thrown away almost a billion dollars on some ignorant moron manager’s lame brain idea. The notion that oil can be produced ‘safely’ from the Arctic Ocean is DUMB.
on Jul 20th, 2010 at 14:05
Shell planned to use a vessel originally built as a log carrier in 1965 for their Arctic drilling campaign – probably the oldest offshore drilling vessel in the world. The drilling package on the vessel dates from 1975. Since 1975 huge advances have been made in drilling and subsea technology. The Deepwater Horizon incorporated many of the newest technologies, in spite of which the current tragedy occurred. The only reason for using a 45-year old drilling vessel is that the costs are significantly lower than would be the case with a purpose built Arctic vessel incorporating current technologies. Shell claims to have invested “billions of dollars” in their Arctic concessions, but nonetheless planned to use a vessel long overdue for the scrap yard to avoid the costs of using current drilling technology. And Shell think they have “nothing to learn” from BP?
on Jul 19th, 2010 at 21:49
Shell is selling their Legacy assets?
on Jul 19th, 2010 at 12:25
A sensitive topic (and slightly ‘off topic’) but I must say I’m having trouble with all these references to Al Megrahi as “The Lockerbie Bomber” (without the quotes). I’ve followed this case for some years and have pondered the comments of Paul Foot, Gareth Peirce and Dr Hans Koechler (UN legal observer). I’ve also read the entire Defence Team case papers for the aborted appeal (which takes more than a day). Yes it’s all one-sided, but that’s unavoidable. Even the 2003 appeal findings remain unpublished to this day. I’m not normally prey to conspiracy theories, but it’s clear to me that this was a miscarriage of justice.
We often have reason to reflect on US/EU cultural differences on this site, and this appears to be another example. Many US citizens are outraged at the suggestion that the FBI’s Thomas Thurman might have manipulated evidence. In their experience, law enforcement officers just don’t do that, and yet that is precisely what their UK partners in this case (RARDE) were found to have done in a series of parallel cases whose convictions were reversed on appeal. US citizens likewise seem comfortable with the “rewards for justice” program under which Tony Gauci was paid millions for his testimony (undisclosed at trial but confirmed by the SCCRC). Europeans tend to regard this as ‘witness bribery’. Interesting differences.
Releasing Megrahi was indeed a mistake in my view – not because he was guilty, but because his release sabotaged the upcoming appeal. Now there can be no ‘closure’ for anyone, not least the victims, many of whom never swallowed the Libya story.
on Jul 19th, 2010 at 06:15
John, Perhaps on this fantastic website we can find ways to discuss what Shell does well and what its competitive advantages are vs peers (XOM, BP, ChevTex)in addition to its failings since these strengths will be critical to its survival and sustainability.Discussions of management style or personalities is not that useful in determining what has to be improved in future in Shell? There is no doubt that senior leadership figures are rarely popular with everybody. Can we not have part of this site having Shell performance data or even an intrinsic value calculator, like the have for Berkshire Hathaway elsewhere on internet?
on Jul 18th, 2010 at 08:18
GID: THE LONG FAREWELL TO WINDOWS 2000
Talking of Matula/Crotts, is anyone tracking the progress of “GID”, the centralised windows desktop that is the supposed flagship of Shell IT ? GID1 started in 2000, took 5 years to stabilise, cost a fortune, and reached the finishing line just as Microsoft was ending support for Windows 2000, so was immediately in need of replacement. SUSTAINABLE ? We were assured it would all be quicker next time around, with infrastructure now in place and updates done by wire. GID2 (VISTA) duly started mid 2005. The calendar on my Windows 2000 (GID1) PC says it is now mid 2010, so GID2 has already taken as long as GID1, cost a fortune, and isn’t over yet.
When will it finish ? Published plans say mid 2011. “We’re well ahead of schedule in our current rollout” said Alan Matula in a recent presentation. That’s interesting because original plans suggest it is several YEARS late, but in this looking-glass world, plans just get “reset” whenever they slip. So in a sense, every project is automatically on schedule.
It’s interesting to reflect that before GID came along RDS already had a windows system (“SDE”) that delivered centralised licencing and updates by wire at a fraction of GID costs. SDE wasn’t ‘locked down, so direct comparison is unfair – but how many extra billions is the lockdown worth, and how much is pure control-freakery ? Pinch yourself and you might notice that a ‘PC World’ customer with a Windows CD and no formal training can upgrade their home PC inside 1 day while GID takes 6 YEARS. Then remind yourself that INFRASTRUCTURE is Shell IT’s core business, arguably the ONLY area in which they have any competence. You can guess what the rest is like.
on Jul 17th, 2010 at 03:25
A Shell Executive surrounding himself with “yes men / women”. See Mr. Matula for the best example of this. Mr. Crotts hasn’t had an original idea in his years at Shell, but spouts the Matula mantra as if he had conceived it himself. Matula doesn’t have the time of day for anyone with a varying viewpoint.
Since his big reorganization and outsourcing, you now his loyalists (SG2 and above) making key decisions like who gets smartphones, how much disk space each user gets, etc. (these were decisions that were mangaged by SG6 & 7 in the previous model.
on Jul 15th, 2010 at 21:35
Like a true dictator hanging on to power, Brinded is once more surrounding himself with yesmen and removing those that may be or become a threat. Everyone knows: disagreeing with Brinded means removal. Mafia dons and dictators like Stalin work in a similar fashion. I wonder if there are other similarities? Power corrupts. And we all know Brinded has power. The Board of Shell is failing once more. Failing to step in now means that corrupt people once more get their way. And all this is bad for business.
on Jul 14th, 2010 at 23:32
What is going on in Brinded’s inner circle? First, Brinded’s big ex-buddy Roly Poly Finlayson quits to go to BG; then ex Brinded Boy ,Mark Carne gets sacked at BG by Chapman only to be taken back on at Shell by Brinded (no doubt with a promotion) and he in turn gets the Italian ex-stallion Restucci demoted to go to Oman! Clearly all cannot be well between Brinded and his friends but the re-hiring of Carne in particular is a gross insult to all those who have recently been displaced as result of Voserification!
on Jul 13th, 2010 at 18:47
Totally agree with your comments Shell waarbenjijnu. Sears used to “work” for me when he was in Houston (under Bichsel) and he most certainly was a most devious character. With that in mind why oh why have the US officials used him in this tragedy?
on Jul 10th, 2010 at 18:48
So, the “spill commission” seeks to benefit from the input from Richard Sears, ex-Shell and close to Matthias Bichsel and Marvin Odum. The New York Times writes of Sears being a Royal Dutch Shell scientist, engineer and offshore drilling expert. Richard Sears has spent many years as an exploration geoscientist, is not an engineer and cannot be described by any stretch of the imagination as an offshore drilling expert. He has been involved in the management of deep water drilling activities, but this does not qualify him as an “expert”. There certainly should be no problem with partiality; Richard Sears was known to be intensely Houston centric in his time as a senior Shell manager and lost no opportunity to “whack a Brit or European” in ensuring the bolstering of his empire in Houston – so there is little liklihood of any benefit of doubt going to BP. However, one outcome is certain. Richard Sears will do well out of this his latest latest project. He was known in Shell as a past master of using any opportunity (reorganisation, crisis) to his personal advantage. It would be no surprise to see him emerge in no time at all as some offshore drilling czar in a remodelled MMS – not bad at all for someone who is not by any stretch of the imagination an offshore drilling expert.
on Jul 9th, 2010 at 03:36
Saw a post today that the S. Texas Legacy assets around McAllen are being put on the market…
on Jul 7th, 2010 at 17:00
BP stake to Kuwait,Saudi, Lybia? What will that do for the safety performance???
on Jul 6th, 2010 at 08:03
Musaint, all blowouts result in some public scrutiny, especially when people are killed or injured. However no previous blowout has ever received the amount of publicity that BP’s has received. It is a matter of public record that Shell has used well designs similar to that of MC252. Neither safety cases nor QRA’s can ever completely prevent accidents occurring – indeed, a poorly conducted QRA may actually obscure the magnitude of the risks of a well design.
on Jul 5th, 2010 at 14:58
A little mischief making I think “outsider”. To state that NONE of Shell’s blowouts have been subjected to public scrutiny is simply incorrect. Examples or a complete list from yourself would be helpful to back up your statement. Shell does not use the same approach as BP in GoM. A safety case for example is always used by Shell, but, not by BP.
on Jul 5th, 2010 at 13:09
While BP’s shortcomings on MC252 are now well documented, none of Shell’s blowouts have been subjected to similar public scrutiny. However, Shell has had a few blowouts too, the only difference being that they took place outside the public eye. And there have undoubtedly been cases when Shell have been saved from the consequences of their own cost saving schemes by nothing more than luck (or partners and governmental agencies). Shell also uses similar well designs to BP in the Gulf of Mexico. And Shell’s staff are fallible too. So watch out Peter, it could well be Shell’s turn next.
on Jul 3rd, 2010 at 16:19
Whilst I cannot find fault with much of what has been said in regards to the people at the top I feel that there needs to be a little bit of balance in terms of the professionals who are tasked with making sure that Shells operated wells do not suffer the catastrophic failure which we have seen in the Gulf. Both prior to and subsequent to the incident in question much has been done to ensure that the processes and design do not put the well, people and environment in jeopardy. Those checks and audits are still ongoing and once the details of the incident are known factually they are due to be revisited again. As much as I personally dislike the ‘top table’ I feel that the Guardian has blown the comments out of proportion. As has been commented on this type of incident could have happened to anyone and it is an anomaly but the risks taken by BP seem to have contributed to the disaster. By no way is Shell complacent on this matter though I think there has been some over reading of Vosers lines to suit that papers agenda.
on Jul 3rd, 2010 at 11:54
Voser is an arrogant (and therefore presumably an ignorant) beancounter. Some humbleness in this sad blow-out of BP would be called for.
BP indeed has made a great mess of things. They pushed the envelope just a little too far with too little technical competence. Their culture was changed by Lord Browne in the early 90s when BP had their back to the wall. It was all business and ‘stealing ideas with pride’, all at the cost of technical know-how.
They cannibalised on the rest of the industry to provide the much needed technical input and that worked for a while. Their business model in the North Sea was very simple: ‘investments only if they pay back within a year’ and ‘we will not break the law’. Everyting else was allowed to achieve their goals. But in the meantime most other majors reduced technical competence and would also rely on the service companies. And the service companies kept doing what they were good at: provide decent service for scandalous prices. They were NOT going to rescue the whole business sector that shed over a million jobs between 1980 and 2000.
The Macondo well was just a disaster waiting to happen and has all the signs of an absolutely classical blow-out:
1 pushing the design too far by being too greedy,
2 hope over reason to get away with this (no proper business controls in place) and return to the old finger pointing,
3 when things did not go according to plan they did not stop and think but started to do things and work in the dark. This thinking before doing is a piece of american culture and it sometimes works. But sometimes not. The rest is history.
I know of a network of professionals that is providing free advice to BP and the US government. Some channels of communication go via Shell who is also helping BP. But the team in Shell that is trying to help and liaise took quite a while to understand the dangers of what BP is trying to do and which this network is trying to stop. This is proof that the Shell technology has reduced to the rest of the industry or is even below that.
And therefore is is absolute crap what Voser is stating, he presumably is merely parroting what that micromanager Brinded is telling him. But we all know what the track record of Brinded is. And would anyone buy a second hand car from Brinded? Brinded is also known for his overpromise and underdelivery or in other words: hope over reason…
So Mr Voser, please some more humbleness and you better start to redress the situation within Shell on many fronts. More reserves, more production, better management of pension funds, resume technical excellence, reduce influence of HR, lawyers and accountants etc etc. And factual improvements, not forecasts that it will be better in a few years time. In fact you don’t even have the time to waste your energy on articles in the Guardian!
And off-topic: if you decide to go buy BP, you perhaps can buy the domain name of ShellBPplc.com from the Donovans…..
on Jul 2nd, 2010 at 20:32
Such Arrogance from Voser! I hope you are proven wrong. Anyway, what do you know about drilling. You are just another Swiss gnome bean-counter. Stick to the bean counting and yodelling!
on Jul 2nd, 2010 at 17:58
Agree with Wilt Staph and I’m sure that a lot of internal checks have been made and requested within Shell – insiders must indeed “report” back truthfully on this. However, lets face it, as you say Mr. D. it is only an implication about Shell and is somewhat tabloidal titilation with such “headlines”.
on Jul 2nd, 2010 at 15:10
Surely the question Voser should have asked Brinded is “Please thoroughly investigate with your best people what happened to Deepwater Horizon and report whether Shell is anywhere running comparable risks”. Even if the answer was “No sir” Voser must surely have then asked Brinded to examine all of Shell’s current and planned offshore drilling activities from an HSE perspective in the light of the disaster. To do any less would be culpably negligent.
on Jun 29th, 2010 at 11:29
The details of the sale of Frontier Drilling to Noble fail to mention that one of the largest shareholders and almost the only client of Frontier Drilling is Shell itself. Selling an old FPSO and four antique rigs (dating from 1965) for over $2 billion seems a little strange. Some of the rigs involved had previously been sold for scrap.
on Jun 29th, 2010 at 07:38
Well found, Shellwaarbenjijnu. Corporate schmaltz at its finest ! Almost to the standards of the legendary ‘Comical Ali’…
on Jun 28th, 2010 at 20:38
IT4u / me – you must be commenting on a different company! I have just read an interview with Mr Matula in the McKinsey Quarterly, March 2010 and everything is wonderful, the users are happy, the enterprise is humming. I quote his closing remark:
“IT is more important and intense to the enterprise than ever before, and that essentially requires an ongoing effort to transform IT; there is always another phase. To support that mental model, the first thing is to never lose the perspective that you
on Jun 27th, 2010 at 21:17
Couldn’t leave IT4me without some challenge on his remarks. Unfortunately they are spot on, the systematic destruction of value adding functions (IT, Finance, HR, procurement etc.) has taken about 5 years, and is now almost totally achieved. Offshoring and consolidation of staff into single ‘functions’ has led to a LOWEST COMMON DENOMINATOR approach. Whatever country had the dumbest IT, Finance, HR, staff got to become the baseline that everyone else had to sink down to, and that all the rules were introduced to protect against. Much easier than trying to improve the teams in a few countries.
Separately on Voser’s new vision – the fundamentals for changing actions (and results) is to change peoples experiences and their beliefs. This has been unequivocally ruled out by Voser this week, and hence not a single project that goes against his new vision is being stopped or reassessed. Another disappointing implementation of something that actually has a great foundation. If only senior managers were smart enough to stop all the projects underway and review which are still inline with Shell’s newly verbalized vision. If people saw projects being stopped that are in direct conflict with the new vision at least beliefs would start changing, and there would be some chance of embedding the new culture… as it is Shell staff are doomed to be rewarded in 2010 performance assessments for doing the exact opposite – cutting costs, reducing headcount (more offshoring) and definitely not investing any money to make the customer experience better. Oh well, lets hope by 2011 the staff have updated performance goals in line with the vision (only 6 months to go!)
on Jun 26th, 2010 at 20:50
THE CHANGE CONTROL DIKTAT
To make any change to a Downstream MI system today you start by filling-in a stack of forms. Each contains a multitude of questions, including some risible ones of the “are you a terrorist?” variety. You collect signatures, pass the forms to your resident Kremlinologist, then wait for a verdict from the “CAB” (Change Approval Board). This takes a minimum of 10 days, more usually 1 MONTH.
Some emphasis on CONTROL is understandable in the wake of the scandals of the last decade (Enron, RDS Reserves, SocGen…). But look more closely. No EXCEPTIONS are allowed, so a 1-HOUR change now takes 1 MONTH. This is MI, so we are dealing only with HISTORICAL transactions with no scope for a “SocGen”. MI uses lightweight/disposable engineering, not “production grade” stuff, so it simply doesn’t warrant this level of asset protection. A “one size fits all” approach to Change Control has effectively been dumped on MI without the slightest regard for the consequences.
Misjudgements on this scale do not occur every day, and in this case the reason appears historical. It is only a few years since Matula’s tanks came rolling back into Business IT areas from which they had been expelled a decade earlier (and for good reason; anyone remember MIOS?). So most of the Apparatchiks now enjoying power have no competence in MI. They are not alone. For good measure, the CAB itself is offshored, so those making the scope decisions haven’t a clue what they’re looking at.
I was struck by a recent posting from IT4U reminding us of the behaviours Peter Voser would like us to aspire to: External Focus, Commercial Mindset, DELIVERY, SPEED, and SIMPLICITY. Who could argue with that ? And why do I feel a migraine coming on ?
on Jun 19th, 2010 at 14:32
REPLY TO “FREQUENT FLYER”:
We have named the relevant person many times. His name is in court documents which are in the public domain. He no longer works for Shell. He was at the heart of all of our breach of confidence actions against Shell. In discovery, there was a Shell internal email from him to a colleague indicating that he had taken an illegal action on behalf of Shell, and explaining the excuse Shell would use if the act was discovered. We no longer use his name because the relevant events happened long ago, between 1992 and 1999. He was a young executive whose unfortunate activities were condoned and even encouraged by senior management until we and other agencies, including a retained agency, threatened legal proceedings. When we first brought this matter to the attention of Sir John Jennings, the then Chairman of Shell Transport, he promised to intervene and did so on more than one occasion. I met with him twice and have nothing but praise for Sir John, who upheld Shell’s Statement of General Business Principles. Regrettably, after he retired, subsequent Chairman, including Sir Mark Moody-Stuart, failed to stand by Shell’s ethical code. We were besieged by undercover activity and even received a threatening letter from Sir Mark. While he was Group Chairman, Shell put posters on display at Shell Centre containing defamatory allegations against us. This resulted in one of the two libel actions settled by Shell. Just before the June 1999, High Court trial, my father received an extraordinary handwritten letter from the Quaker wife of Sir Mark – Lady Judy Moody-Stuart. We replied and received an acknowledgment from her wishing us well for the trial. We have no ill feeling towards the young executive whose actions ended a mutually beneficial business relationship with Shell stretching back over 50 years in the case of my father. We blame those people still at the top of Shell who gave him 100% backing after the retirement of Sir John Jennings. Some of the same people involved in the reserves fraud.
on Jun 19th, 2010 at 12:21
John,
Story sounds fascinating, perhaps you should consider selling the movie rights!
Seriously though, if all this is true then why don’t you name the guy involved? Your site is a testement that you seem to do well in court cases and so i’m sure he wouldn’t dare sue if all you say is true? Lots of people have been named/shamed/defamed on this site over the years – if this guy is the genesis of the whole project…we should know who he is. Does he still work for Shell?
on Jun 18th, 2010 at 21:26
REPLY TO “ROFLMAO”: I asked Shell for
on Jun 18th, 2010 at 15:36
The Donovans wanted a million from Shell for their promotional marketing ideas like tie-ins to movies? They didn’t get it so now they embark on a personal vendetta via this website? Sounds like they’re greedy and need to get a life.
on Jun 18th, 2010 at 10:25
For those who would like to read my original piece (gone missing here!) on BP please click here:
Paddy’s Blogger News Article
Some interesting comments. I repeat my strongly held view that Obama and the American Congress have handled this matter well. Tony Hayward, on the other hand, has been abysmal.
on Jun 16th, 2010 at 17:07
The posting addressed to “Leaders of Shell Oil Company” has been deleted. It was received from someone using the name of Brent Waguespack. We have now been contacted by a person with the same name, using a different email address and claiming that he is the real Brent Waguespack and was not the author of the posting (that was critical of Shell). He says that someone was impersonating him.
on Jun 14th, 2010 at 13:17
SHELL WANT TO CLOSE THE MONTREAL REFINERY INSTEAD OF SELLING IT PLEASE SIGN THE PETITION TO HELP US SAVE OUR JOBS AND SUBSCRIBE AT THE FACEBOOK GROUP TO SHOW YOUR SUPPORT THX
on Jun 14th, 2010 at 10:29
71077345 – I’m not entirely sure what point you are trying to make wrt Codgers and Shell running the world outside USA. The fact remains that many (if not most) of the “codgers” now retired from Shell knew their business backwards and collectively were responsible for a large number of the advances made in the industry. One of the Shell codgers for whom I had the utmost respect, Mark Moody Stuart wrote a letter to the FT on June 11 (subject, BP & GOM) and I suggest it is worth encouraging people to read – give it a go 71077345! It can be found on this Financial Times Article
on Jun 13th, 2010 at 20:10
IT4me makes a valid point, but as with many aspects of Shell, a lack of knowledge (and internal transparency) amongst staff is the real problem. There are actually over 30 approved niche IT suppliers, and these provide services at much lower rates than the 4 Big KAS suppliers. It is also possible to get step-outs/approvals for additional IT service suppliers via the Contracting & Procurement Board. The problem however is a lack of knowledge, few people know the processes/possibility to use niche suppliers, and many Project Managers (PM’s) default to using who they are pointed to. I believe this is due to a growing SILO culture, that is being enforced by a huge focus on costs since the beginning of 2010. People are more and more concerned with meeting their own targets to even have a chance at seeing a paycheck.
On a separate note – for those not aware, on 1st of June Peter Voser announced Shell’s new “5 Behaviours” (External Focus, Commercial Mindset, Delivery, Speed, and Simplicity) that replaces everything that has come before now (ie. Enterprise First and LAT). Unfortunately the only real target left for anyone to get a bonus in 2010 is to meet cost & Staff reduction targets. But the shareholders don’t need to worry, with BP taking all the flack and Transition 2010 only a few months away we should see a nice boost in share price into the fall (unless the yanks figure out that Shell is British owned too!).
on Jun 13th, 2010 at 17:14
Hi John, here’s a link to a Houston Chronicle story about the US & BP not taking advantage of Dutch expertise in the early stages of the current crisis.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/deepwaterhorizon/7043272.html
You might consider reposting it, it will be better than Viagra for the codgers who think Shell still rules the WOUSA.
Regards,
710 77345
on Jun 12th, 2010 at 16:20
Paddy – I also cannot agree with all of what you write. BP has a serious case to answer; 11 deaths and extensive marine pollution is a dreadful situation. However, the whipping up of anti BRITISH Petroleum (excuse me, I believe the company’s registered name is BP) hysteria does Obama and the US no credit at all. In the aftermath of the 167 deaths caused by US Oil company Occidental in the North Sea in the 1980′s there were no calls by Mrs Thatcher to place a boot on Oxy’s neck or to vilify Armand Hammer as a mass murderer. In fact, although Oxy was found guilty of gross negligence in maintenance and safety procedures at the public enquiry no legal action was taken against any of the company’s officers – in contrast to the shrill utterances of members of the US administration and government. At the time, Mrs Thatcher had enough political problems of her own (including a rise of populist nationalist sentiment in Scotland) but she chose not to use the tragic event to divert attention by flaying a US company and its CEO in public. Recently, we have all seen the outcome of the Bhopal trial of local former Union Carbide company officials – not a single US citizen amongst them. The deaths of anywhere between 4000 & 15000 individuals and the continued leakage of around 400 tons of toxic chemicals into the ground water warrants no hand wringing in US political circles. It would appear that bad stuff occurring to non US companies, environments or citizens is measured by a different yard stick. To paraphrase the “low punch” observation made by the Guardian’s John Vidal on BP ” If industrial accidents occur in a developing country, say off the east coast of Scotland or in India, the US media would probably ignore it, some government officials may mutter some platitudes in public and in general conspire to escape starting a clean-up for ever.
on Jun 12th, 2010 at 14:47
Paddy, I cannot fully support your comments concerning those made by Obama over the BP oil spill. Certainly BP have a less than acceptable safety record which needs to be immediately addressed. However, I believe that Obama is using this spill as an ideal way to deflect the problems he has in America and his very low support ratings from the voters there. (Bad news is Good news when it is used to hide major political problems.) What I sincerely hope is that Transocean and Cameron-Hydril also start to get their long overdue bashing from Obama and the American public.
IMPORTANT CORRECTION IN RELATION TO THE POSTING BY “MUSAINT”
(CORRECTION SUPPLIED BY GE OIL & GAS)
Please note that:
1. The blowout preventer (BOP) and controls for the Deepwater Horizon rig that exploded and sank in the Gulf of Mexico were not manufactured by Hydril.
2. Cameron International is an entirely separate company and entity to Hydril (which is part of the Drilling & Production business within GE Oil & Gas).
on Jun 11th, 2010 at 11:27
IT COST SAVING IDEA #317: STOP FIDDLING WITH THE SUPPLY SIDE.
If you’re a CIO and you’re bored, one of the things you might do is to fiddle with the supply side. Changing all your suppliers overnight makes a nice splash in the media and marks you out as a thrusting and dynamic leader.
Thus we learned a few years back that Shell IT now had just 4 ‘Key Application Suppliers’ globally: IBM and WIPRO for the ‘oily rag’ stuff (sourcing mainly from India) plus LOGICA and ACCENTURE to talk persuasively and rack up impressive dry-cleaning bills. They how I understood it, anyway.
This setup fits the CIO’s vision of how the world should be, but it’s not how the world is. Most adventures in ‘Matulaland’ run years late and some never work at all. In the meantime, ‘legacy’ IT experts are needed to keep systems running and fix the damage done by unqualified (and constantly churning) offshored workers. Legacy IT experts are mostly locked into earlier supply arrangements – reinvoicing agencies that operate on margins of just 3%, so couldn’t be any cheaper.
How are these 2 worlds reconciled ? Easy ! The legacy agencies are forced to work through LOGICA or ACCENTURE to maintain the illusion of 4 suppliers. The policy makes these workers an eye-watering 30% MORE EXPENSIVE for no discernable gain, least of all in the dry-cleaning department. ‘It’s only transitional’, you might argue, but some of these arrangements are now in their 3 year.
COST-SAVING is clearly a tricky businesss. With charades of this sort tolerated at boardroom level, what chance does Peter Voser have further down the tree ?
on Jun 6th, 2010 at 20:23
You are so right, retired shellee. I too remember this period well.
Some bright spark (with a reputation to create for himself in HR)
decided that all he needed to do was to persuade the CMD (especially Cor Herkstroter) of their the lack of ‘leadership skills’ that he saw and envied in corporate America.
And so arrived LEAP (LEadership And Performance) to transform the financial performance of the Group. The only winners in this stupid exercise were ex GE sychophant Noel Tichy and his S&P 500 boff Larry Selden from the University of Columbia, who were flown in at huge expense on Concorde to London and Amsterdam to evangelise (almost literally) about their ideas on how to create shareholder value US style
I am ashamed to say that, at the time, we were all taken in by this bullshit and went along with the CMD’s show. Not only did we dance the Macarena (led by some brainless but suddenly important and motivating secretary) but we were even ‘bussed’ to some women’s refuge in down and out London to behave like some New York Pastor to listen to others’ woes and offer our guidance and advice on how to deal with their problems. What a joke!
So, if you are looking for a point at which RDS began to lose the plot in terms of understanding and nurturing its core skills, then this must be it – and if you are reading this and still working in HR in Shell, then you have a huge legacy of self-indulgent and destructive behaviour to answer for.
Shame on you!
on Jun 6th, 2010 at 08:43
Seeing Steven Newman performing a bollywood dance does not bode very well for Transocean. Nearly 15 years ago the CMD of Shell danced the Macarena and soon after RDS went into mortal decline. Chiefs of large corporations must remain focussed and not become sun kings surrounded with sycophants. They do represent their corporations in words and actions. Dancing the macarena or making bollywood moves has nothing to do with the core business of either company!
on Jun 4th, 2010 at 08:02
There’s a certain irony in the fact that the unauthorised actions of one low level US employee at BP seem to have a greater impact in the public perception than systematic, board approved, actions at Shell which have resulted in a comparable number of deaths, a significant number of oil spills, and environmental destruction on a far greater scale (in Nigeria for example).
on Jun 4th, 2010 at 04:24
Mountain Sprout song: Petro Lords LISTEN and LEARN the EVIL of my FORMER family’s Ugly Empire. I despise what they have done to this planet and humanity as a whole. Y’all deserve whatever “comes down the pipes” for support of this disgusting Capitalistic Sociopathic Corporation founded by my sick-and thankfully Distant-relative. I am ashamed to be related to such a man!
on Jun 3rd, 2010 at 16:46
A pity that Shell is not able to show any better safety approach than BP. I hope management realises that this could also have happened to Shell; the safety systems of Shell and BP are near identical. Shell was just lucky, and let’s not get too cocky by preaching internally that we are so much better! If we can’t even control our wells in Africa onshore (lucky (again!)for Shell in a country with no free press!), why should offshore Alaska under much more difficult conditions be without risk? Time to clean ship and get rid of the politicians (there are just too many in Shell after TO9), and get back the technical and engineering minded staff.
on May 27th, 2010 at 22:25
Man Shell Geismar has jumped on the bandwagon with the packages they’ve been offering. It’s turned into a package party over here. Rumor is David Gates, who single handedly ran off a technician about six months ago has lost his job management position. I guess youcan say what goes around comes around. That was an awful thing he did and he thought he cold get away with it, but it ended up costing the company some money. Gates is a jerk anyway and he was run out of another department at geismar, so im guessing he will have to try his antics at another site.
on May 26th, 2010 at 19:45
get this, with all these job cuts and consolidations happening, Motiva Convent has decided to make a band! “time on tunes” is the name of it. This is just pure idiotic! Shows how much our company really gives a crap. The kicker is that they are full funded, paid, and have a $14,000 per year budget. On top of that, the company has even given them their own “studio” to practice in. Come on people, this is just down right insane! Brignac is such a friggen idiot! How is this justified? Sounds fishy to me.
Motivaman for president!
on May 26th, 2010 at 08:37
Odum’s letter to Birnbaum fails to mention that the rig being used in Alaska (Frontier Discoverer) was built in 1965 as a log carrier, and was converted to a drillship in 1975. The Frontier Discoverer is one of the oldest offshore rigs still operating in the world.
In spite of being patched up over time, it is still a 45 year old vessel being operated long after the end of its design life.
BP were paying about $500,000 per day to use one of the most capable rigs in the world. Shell’s subsidiary, Frontier Drilling currently operates just four rigs, all of which have been in use since the mid-1970′s. The dayrates for these rigs are about one tenth of the cost of current rigs.
In spite of costing so little, Shell/Frontier’s only clients are Shell and Petronas. The reason for using a 45 year old rig is that the cost is far below that of a current vessel. 45 year old vessels were not built to the same standards as current vessels, and do not incorporate the same safety or environmental features. 45 year old equipment is not as reliable as current equipment. Most rigs of this age have long since gone to the breaker’s yard.
on May 25th, 2010 at 13:41
Strong rumors that Shell is frequently making employees redundant; paying them off – and then re-hiring them as contractors. It’s to do with the staff numbers game. Contractors don’t count apparently. It’s happned before so it sounds quite likely. What a farce.
on May 25th, 2010 at 00:07
I can not see how you say that. Look at the GoM, Brazil, Arctic, thermal, tight gas … the US (or Americas) is not only at leading edge of Shell but really still of the oil patch. I have worked in many parts of the world and still would defend this point.
There are worry signs in Shell that there technical know how is in danger of significant erosion. Through a combination of retentions, retiring and excess of new graduates. However, this is not limited to Shell but Shell does compound it. I agree Shell management leaves a lot to desired. FYI I am not a redneck, a newbie, or brainwashed. I have not always worked for shell and have only worked in the US for a small period in my entire working life.
on May 24th, 2010 at 23:48
Well John, you are now making valid points that we can have a conversation around, albeit I still don’t agree. The question you posed is can Shell be trusted and I still contend that yes Shell can be trusted and out of all the majors they would be the ones I would trust the most to drill this well. There is another question of weather this well should be drilled at all and in light of BP recent blow out maybe we should have that conversation again, even though it has been argued to death at this point. Look at Perdido, look at Shakhalin, whilst neither of these projects have gone without setbacks (major at times) they are both well beyond what had been done before and were both executed successfully and safely.
on May 24th, 2010 at 14:49
My dear Daniel, the times when US was ruling the design world of the oil patch is long gone. You guys rely on API so you get away with murder and sloppy designs NOT fit for purpose. And your american managers who occasionally come to rule the North Sea honestly believe that North Sea standards are way over the top and API is better. Much time is wasted to educate these idiots and try to bring them up to standard.
So, you are either very young or brainwashed or simply a redneck. Americans cannot design and build anything anymore. They are good at consuming and hoping the rest of the world will give them money to keep consuming until kingdom come. That maybe quite soon actually.
on May 23rd, 2010 at 16:52
REPLY TO DANIEL: Isn
on May 23rd, 2010 at 15:58
I have to say that whilst this site can be a good source of information at times, it can also be a place for grown men to whinge and “spit the dummy”. I found Donavan’s last entry a tad much with wild claims of Shell selling Iranian crude to the US (as if the US state department would need your help). Citing obscure paragraphs from unknown sources dating back to the 1930′s as reason why Shell ought no be trusted … Also WIkipida is not a reliable source, specially when referencing pages you are most likely the main contributor. Why should the US trust Shell, as Donavan says actions are louder than words. Shell has an outstanding record in the US. They pioneered deep sea drilling and opened the entire Gulf for exploration and production. The US arm of shell is run by Americans and it is Americans that will be designing and executing the arctic wells. Not sure what you are implying but, having worked with these honest hard working americans I can assure that there is NO ONE else I would rather be drilling these wells. Yes Shell management has its shortfalls (great in some cases) and it is a painfully bureaucratic company. However, these continued links back to WW2 and Iran heavily undermine your credibility. In my opinion Mr Donavan it is time to grow up.
on May 22nd, 2010 at 17:57
Re the article of Shell and Iranian crude, Motiva, a subsidiary of Shell, has 3-4 cargos a week coming from Ras Tanurah to their facilities Convent and Port Arthur. It would be easy to move across the Persian Gulf and squeeze a load of Iranian crude in with the Saudi crude and make it look to the US public as Saudi crude.
on May 13th, 2010 at 22:42
Does anyone know if exist an official blog from shell?? because i’ve been looking in the internet and i can’t find it.
thanks
on May 13th, 2010 at 10:24
Dear John, I can save both Richard Wiseman and yourself the time, the video of the Niger Delta apology is a fake done by the Yes Men activist group.
on May 13th, 2010 at 10:08
A quick search of the web for the name “Bradford Houppe” reveals that the date of the press release is April 1st.
on May 12th, 2010 at 20:36
Hello all, OSHA is at the convent site and will continue to be there for the next few months. Its pretty funny because now they are trying to rush to fix things in the plant so OSHA won’t see it. I never seen the amount of work going on as I do now.
In some different late breaking news, A motiva convent employee was caught red handed, by an entire shift, secretly recording conversations. A person on the shift seen the employee turn the recorder on and hide it under a keyboard and walk out. 5 members of the shift went to look at the recorder to verify this and they all seen the recorder recording. They called their PTL and he reported it to H.R. Well needless to say, H.R. swept it under the rug and nothing happened to the employee. This is pretty amusing considering all the rules he broke and laws that were violated. Wonder how long this has been going on? I wonder what the purpose of the recordings were? May have been terrorist for all we know. Another fine example of the lack of knowledge, ethics, and education of Motiva’s H.R. and their management. I hope they call the Feds and report this.
Motivaman for president!
on May 10th, 2010 at 10:18
It is just not true for Shell in Ireland to say that they
on May 8th, 2010 at 11:01
Although we do not want to engage in censorship, we have deleted the last sentence in a comment posted on the article
on May 7th, 2010 at 13:06
Not directly related to Shell but an interesting piece on the oil spill which will have implications for Shell
http://oilprice.com/Environment/Oil-Spills/The-Cover-up-BP-s-Crude-Politics-and-the-Looming-Environmental-Mega-Disaster.html
on May 6th, 2010 at 17:22
I note that there is no denial from
on May 5th, 2010 at 17:02
REPLY TO JOHN JOHNS:
Mr Johns, or should I call you “Mr X”, bearing in mind correspondence by email in 2007 and 2008 with Mr X using that rather unimaginative pseudonym. The correspondence was odd to say the least with alleged incriminating Shell internal communications and documents dangled as carrots, but never supplied. Could be a good time to engage in some transparency. I still have the emails and can publicly point out certain common features if needed so that those interested can draw their own conclusions. Or we can cooperate if you are genuine and prepared to act accordingly. A paragraph from my email to Mr X on 26 February 2008:
on May 5th, 2010 at 12:38
Hello. Thanks to this website and Mr Donovan Jnr for acknowledging the RDS Forensics website and our existance!
Clearly your question on your comments on your page could have more rightly been –
What has Shell been involved in to restort to the need to fire a Audit Chairman in 2003?
We all need to look at the questions that investors and others may have close to their heart.
We all feel for the many in the 6000 were fired for reasons yet to be fully explained by Shell.
There are people out there who have many good matters which rightly need to be brought up.
Welcome to the forum at RDS Forensics.
We don’t see any need to moderate!
And we welcome all Shell people who have issues of fact and on evidence (what RDS Forensics is focused on)and where they seek matters to be addressed.
Let us all work together.
Have a blessed day!
John Johns
on May 5th, 2010 at 10:27
RDS FORENSICS
on May 4th, 2010 at 20:25
Hope somebody can help! Will receive my stage 2 letter as part of Transition 2009 this month and was hoping somebody could give me an idea on how the severance payment is calculated in the UK. For some reason this is a closely guarded secret up there with the Coke Cola recipe but hoping someone has some insight! Thanks in advance.
on May 2nd, 2010 at 18:05
Reply to USCitizen: Shell have been very lucky not to have had a major blowout in the news recently (but they have occurred in Brunei, Syria and other places). In other cases, Shell’s partners and government agencies have successfully blocked plans by Shell which would almost certainly have resulted in ecological disasters on a far greater scale than the current BP blowout.
on May 2nd, 2010 at 17:05
REPLY TO USCitizen.
I see from your posting that you are still hopelessly misinformed and blissfully ignorant of the facts about Shell employee safety issues. Check out the Wikipedia article Royal Dutch Shell safety concerns and the information available via the evidence verification links. It was not long ago that Shell lifeboats at a North Sea oilrig were found to be unserviceable. Despite all the pledges by Shell, including setting up a safety Czar, its safety track record, including fatalities, is horrendous. And what does it say about you repeatedly visiting a website you allege is run by crazy people? Why would you keep returning again and again, insulting other contributors, as you have done since October 2008? And you say we are crazy!
on May 2nd, 2010 at 16:05
Perhaps the angry Donovans should find another target – as much as we hate to hear companies struggle, you two clowns keep trying to convince the world how evil Shell is and how incompetent we are and now some Shell folks who are mad at the world also try to convince folks how bad we are, but meanwhile – we operate with integrity, technical savvy and focus all of our work processes on avoiding accidents – and meanwhile the company with the broken culture keeps having big accidents – wonder why Shell has not had any the last several years? Maybe it is because we are doing things right!!
on May 2nd, 2010 at 05:41
Retiree: Firstly, I suggest you look at the size of the flames (200ft high) which engulfed the rig – there are plenty posted on the web – and compare these with well tests which you have undoubtedly seen. Secondly, you are flowing a 20000ft (ie 10-15000psi) well through a 9 5/8″ production casing. Compare this with Bonga, for example. Also turbidite, similar water depth, reservoir depth just 10000ft MSL, and pressure perhaps 5000psi. Bonga Well flowrates are 50000 b/d through a 7″ production tubing.
on May 1st, 2010 at 22:28
Outsider, your figures cannot be correct. I know there is a big pipe in the hole but such rates would certainly lead to sandfailure of the turbidites and choke itself. Furthermore I cannot believe the BOP is wide open. Something must have partially closed or starting to close. However, the technical staff will have a hard time fixing this thing with all those hyperventilating politicians breathing down their necks and wanting progress reports. The green parties are very happy. But I predict that before too long the oil pollution is gone. Light stuff in a warm and choppy environment soon disappears. The crawfish etoufe maybe a little less tasty for w while.
on May 1st, 2010 at 17:09
Confirmation: The flow rate of at least fifty to one hundred thousand barrels/day given in my previous post is NOT a typographical error.
on May 1st, 2010 at 17:02
In 1969, Unocal had a blowout off Santa Barbara resulting in severe restrictions on offshore drilling which are still in force today. The current MC 252 blowout is far larger (at least 50000 to 100000 barrels/day), and threatens the entire Gulf Coast. Shell may come to regret their heavy investments in US offshore leases in environmentally sensitive areas. If the reaction to the Santa Barbara blowout is repeated, it may be 50 years before Shell are able to drill in their new leases.
on Apr 26th, 2010 at 18:19
I was told by Shell HR (The Hague and OpCo) that they always shared remuneration numbers with their “competitors” so that they (Shell) were never too much out of line with their peers. This comment from Shell HR was always used to defend the pay rises offered up each year. This “sharing” of company information was certainly going on back in the early 90′s. That said, I don’t have a major problem with this as it makes sure that indeed salaries within a certain industry don’t get blown out of the water every year by a certain Major.
on Apr 24th, 2010 at 12:14
A couple of decades ago Shell had five refineries in the United Kingdom
on Apr 23rd, 2010 at 08:03
Today is a new day – RDS Forensics
on Apr 20th, 2010 at 16:20
hello all,
Its been a while since my last post. I just want to start by saying that the consolidations at Motiva Convent are starting. Management says we will have to deal with it. They said we should learn to do more with less people. I believe these people are hypocrites because just a few months back they were shoving fatigue management down our throats. This is the same thing, more work means more fatigue and more stress. It will also cause more injuries and accidents, hope fully none will be fatal. I heard that Port Author had a fatality recently. With all thats being done to run our company in the dirt, its only a matter of time before we experience the same.
We recently had a visit by the accounting department to give us a pep talk/lesson on waste management. They seem to believe this is what will save our plant. I can tell them that they are stupid because this will not save our company. At best waste management will make us more efficient as a company and may save us a few dollars here and there. They should look at the real problem and stop trying to put the blame everywhere else. It is MANAGEMENT! They should look at themselves. If you want to make money, let the workers make you money. Start fixing things and stop threatening everyone. We can run this plant better without you. Moral at Convent is at an all time low. People are more worried about H.R. hunting them down for stupid things then they are about their jobs. A happy workforce can make a company! What don’t you understand about this. Motiva is running their refineries with fear. How about you go ask Hitler if that worked out for him. Oh, wait, Shell did get a few tips from him didn’t they! Work with us, stop fighting us, boost moral and the profits will come. Stop bullying us, cutting people, cutting jobs, stop micromanaging. We all can see that what you are doing isn’t working. Go put you PPE on and pick up trash and stay out of our hair. Quit looking for reasons to run good operators off. We made millions a few years ago with the same amount of people, even a monkey can tell you thats not the problem. The only difference between then and now is our management! Can you see this? Quit blaming others, admit you have problems! Its just like going to AA or counseling, to fix the problem you have to admit you have a problem. MANAGEMENT is the problem. From Purvis on down, all the way to our job scared PTLs. Moral is the key to making money. If the employees love their jobs and are proud of their workplace, nothing can stop us. Until we all unite, we will fail. I want to be the best in the world! I want us to succeed! I don’t believe putting lives in jeopardy with consolidations is the way to go. Start with the simple things, take care of your employees, care about them. The rest will come.
Motivaman for president!!
on Apr 20th, 2010 at 14:59
The cost of capital for manufacturing/petrochemicals will always be lower than for E&P simply because the market perceives the risks to be lower. Burdening downstream operations with Upstream’s cost of capital guarantees that downstream will not be able to compete with their specialist peers. For gas utilities the cost of capital is even lower than for manufacturing, justifying BG’s break-up.
on Apr 20th, 2010 at 10:06
There is a palpable sense that Shell is at the crossroads in so many ways at the moment. The broad strategy, “More Upstream, Profitable Downstream
on Apr 19th, 2010 at 08:20
American expats are indeed about twice as expensive as European expats due to the US taxation scheme on worldwide income. Likewise both are more expensive than any local staff equivalent (not just in Asia). I do however disagree that Asian’s (in Shell) work twice as hard on a direct comparison with the expat in a similar position. I never experienced this when working in Asia for Shell.
on Apr 18th, 2010 at 03:27
So much about American vs European pay, how about their capability and competency in this challenging World. It is outdated model. It is also a case of a Pot calling a Kettle black. The Asian’s pay are 30-50% lower or even more but working twice as hard. Look at both the Top and Middle level management in the last 1 year, who has delivered more businesses. Shell should learn from the Asian and put them in key positions but instead they are sending more Americans and European to Asia. It only increases the cost and reduces productivity. So much about diversity, why not include an Asian in the EC to start with. Time to wake up. Vision 2010.
on Apr 15th, 2010 at 17:00
Wilt Staph, good story, I could not have worded it better. But you were incomplete, the story is worse. What of Boynton who was sacked albeit with a large severance payment. Was she an incompetent and token woman like Cook, or an incompetent american or both or simply corrupt? We will never know. And what of our friend Botts, the cowboy from Wyoming? He ruined EP Europe with his silly ideas and was not sacked but kicked to do something managerial in downstream. All the while raking in humongous american pay. He has gone quiet and this is worth a lot of money! One midlevel engineer american expatriate (say graduate with 10 yrs experience)in the Netherlands costs as much as 4-5 dutch PhDs. The latter ones may not be so flamboyant and gung-ho nor always in agreement with the boss, but they certainly could provide value for money.
The days when Shell Oil would provide good old technical competence are long gone by.
But occasionally there is a good one in the senior ranks, I think I know both of them. One retired, one resigned from Shell as he could not take the crap anymore.
So WIlt, thanks for your heads up, perhaps others can complete this staffwork on crooked and overpaid americans? Personally I think you were far too kind on that idiot Hofmeister. He ruined Shell for good and spent enormous amounts traipsing around with the HR community and on himself. All the while pretending to be a sober living Amish. Pretending is an understatement…
on Apr 11th, 2010 at 22:46
Brinded’s lecture will be either on ‘Ali Baba and the 40 robbers’ or ‘Aladdin and the King of thieves’. Most likely the latter if he still thinks of his old pal evil Watts.
on Apr 10th, 2010 at 08:18
Posting by “xintrance” on the article: “Todd Monette departure:
on Apr 8th, 2010 at 15:07
PAR/SDPR may have something to do with a helicopter and rebuilding a beach house!!
on Apr 3rd, 2010 at 14:12
Shell International to power Growth….
Adding 600,000 bopd sounds a lot but will not be sufficient to bring back the production level from 3 to 3.5 mln bopd. The reason is very simple: the current production declines by 10-15% per annum, so in 2012 the existing fields will produce (optimistically speaking, we are all followers of Brinded) not more than 2.4 mln bopd. Adding 600,000 therefore merely keeps the production level constant. We all know that Brinded is so smart he thinks he can defeat laws of nature. But oilfields are very stubborn and may not do what Brinded wants them to do… So, he better starts adding a lot more bopd if he wants to reach his earlier stated goal of 5-6 mln bopd in 2013. Time is running out fast.
I suggest that we from now on start every speech or statement of Brinded with “Once upon a time, long ago…..”. Lawyers will like that too.
on Apr 2nd, 2010 at 20:49
Anyone know when the PIR on GSAP is scheduled to take place?
on Apr 2nd, 2010 at 12:03
If the rumours are to be believed, the alleged fraud in Brunei reported on this site in February were also attributable to misuse of SAP.
on Mar 31st, 2010 at 16:38
GSAP DATA QUALITY
“X” works in the Nordics and holds multiple positions in the GSAP Sales Hierarchy. A stack of reports are regularly produced on the Sales Performance of “X” and subordinates. The reports look plausible. So what’s wrong ?
“X” LEFT SHELL A YEAR AGO. Not only has GSAP failed to spot this, but the error remains uncorrected even after multiple escalations. “X” is a complete fiction. But in the zero-diligence world of GSAP, nobody acts and nobody cares.
What does this tell us ? My reading is that the business are often boycotting the million-dollars-a-day GSAP solutions dumped on them from above, and using local workarounds instead. This suggests a reality-disconnect that won’t be resolved without a proper inquest (requiring more self-honesty than RDS seems capable of). So we blunder on. And GSAP’s nation-builders start work on a “data quality tool”…
X’s name and the working context are quite distinctive, so even a simple GOOGLE search verifies this person has left Shell, and traces them to their new firm. There really isn’t any excuse !
on Mar 30th, 2010 at 20:33
And my last comment for Today . . . . .
Shell is/was a good Company with a lot of good hard working people.
Unfortunately in today’s world, there are also a lot of useless unworthy people in the organization too, and with today’s short term focus (I want results now!), things won’t change for the better anytime soon.
A strong house is built upon a strong foundation and plans, and ours have been crumbling for some time now.
Hope it gets better . . . . . eventually!
on Mar 30th, 2010 at 20:26
Shell Management . . . . . .
Reducing Costs . . . . (at least where they say to!)
What a Joke ! Wish I Could Laugh About It ! But Its Not Funny.
Lets start with these “Preferred Vendors”.
Companies that “partner” with Shell to sell us their products and services at a “preferred” price (Shell thought that meant lower?) so that we don’t have to go to other Companies (usually called COMPETITION) to buy these items.
How many items are we overpaying for? ALL of them!
We create books of documents for some of the simplest purchased items and wonder why we pay 2X, 3X, 4X, or more for that product. Its this way from office supplies to production equipment to contract labor and services.
The only “preferred” part of these deals are the Companies collecting these premium prices for all these items.
Now when someone at a location tries to buy the same item for an advertised cheaper price, what do you think happens? The Purchasing Nazi come out and fight diligently to prevent that from happening, because somewhere up the ladder someone else made that sweet deal and might be benefitting from that agreement.
How about a game of Golf? Dinner? Oops
I have personally seen 25 cent items purchased for $1.25, other items for $2.25 purchased for $6.00 and was frowned upon and fought against to stick up for what I knew was right (and wrong).
Now can you imagine in the entire Shell Company how much that would add up to at that magnified expense!
That my friend, is just the tip of the iceberg of things like that. Waste and Greed
on Mar 30th, 2010 at 20:07
Shell Management . . . . .
How about this statement from a few years ago. We’ll pay average salary for our people, but expect top results.
Hmmm, I’ve seen the people we hired in the last decade, not quite the Top Talent out there, the Top Talent has been hired by the Companies paying the Top Salaries!
So we’ve hired average talent in the last decade, and we’re finishing up the process by laying off experienced (aged) talent. Now where will that leave us?
But we can expect better results . . . right?
Expect and Attain don’t mean the same thing in my book!
on Mar 30th, 2010 at 20:01
Shell Management . . . . . .
In years past Shell looked at the long “cycles” in the business. Staying diversified meant when one part of the business wasn’t doing well, the other side of the business was. Being diversified kept the Company afloat.
Today’s Management Philosophy is a short term 1 to 2 year focus period, if results are not achieved in that short span of time, make changes quickly and expect better results. Change, change, change, change.
Peoples heads have been spinning so much from changes in the past 15 years they don’t even know what their job scope is anymore!
No Company will ever be successful with this type of Management Philosophy. But seems people running this Company for the last several years can’t see that?
on Mar 30th, 2010 at 13:25
Really interesting series of posts – particularly on the role played by over-centralisation and sprawling IT initiatives in bringing Downstream to its knees.
But the board just don’t get it, do they ? Perhaps in the end, RDS just has one problem: its inability to hold senior people to account.
on Mar 30th, 2010 at 13:13
There’s no difference between socialist system and Shell management in our region. Only posters and loud applause are important.But what will happen with the business?
on Mar 30th, 2010 at 01:55
Wilt’s comments are really interesting, and certainly sound as if they come from someone with a decent grounding in the issue and the organisation.
For me, I wonder whether they point to a simple turning of the chapters in Shell’s history.
The difference in income terms now between the Upstream divisions and the Downstream is significant, even at low oil price (where perhaps in previous years the ‘hedge’ came into play) and although there is clearly an advantage to having a strong brand for relationship building, in an era of NOCs and host governments who are more experiences and powerful than 30 years ago, pehaps the Downstream needs to wither.
The materials issued on the Group’s strategy were pretty clear on this i think, losing a bunch of retail businesses that between them make a profit that is a tiny fraction of the company’s overall, then why would Shell keep it on?
on Mar 29th, 2010 at 13:00
Totally agree that standardised IT systems imposed from the centre have made life more difficult not easier. Of course in order to centralise and remove power from local operating units it was necessary to have centralised IT, accounting, management information etc. As I point out the degree of aggregation that results from ever higher levels of decision making compounds the problem. One CEO of a highly profitable Shell Marketing company (a local not an expat) resigned when he found that his business
on Mar 29th, 2010 at 12:18
Personally, I would be very sad to see Shell pull out of the Downstream business – and it doesn’t have to be that way.
Traditionally, one of the advantages of being an ‘integrated’ oil company is that it can offer a ‘hedge’ against volatile margins e.g. a sudden drop in crude oil prices can lead to a corresponding improvement in refinery and/or marketing margins (or vice versa) as the industry adjusts to the new supply demand dynamic.
Nor is there nothing intrinsically wrong about being in the downstream as long as you can keep your margins healthy.
I see no sign of Exxon/Mobil (Esso) or BP pulling out of the Downstream business and there are plenty of independent players who seem to make a nice living out of it. The problem is that it is increasingly difficult to charge a premium for your products where consumers don’t perceive there to be any added value – which simply means that, unless your costs are on a par with the pacesetter in each market, you will be unable to compete effectively.
If Shell is considering exiting (say) mature markets where it is unable to operate profitably, this is, in effect, an admission that it is unable to reduce its costs sufficiently. If BP, Esso and others can make some of these markets work for them, why can’t Shell?
I suspect that the IT initiatives mentioned below were an attempt to reduce local IT spend through standardisation – the problem is that Shell has an appalling record of managing these large projects and they end up costing way more than they could possibly save – and when these huge costs are set off against the revenue generating parts of the business, hey presto, you are worse off than you were before! Then it’s time to do some ‘tail-end’ analysis and get rid of those parts of the business (or countries) that are now less profitable as a result.
What happens then is that the fixed costs of running a Global retail network (say) get shared by fewer and fewer real businesses, whose profitability suffers as a result… and so on with the Downstream ‘death spiral’.
My suggestion is for Shell to ‘swallow its pride’ spend some time and money finding out EXACTLY how Exxon makes its business model work for them, shamelessly copy it, and implementing it flawlessly.
That shouldn’t sound a ridiculous suggestion to even the most humble economist, but I suspect that to most readers of this blog, it is no less than ‘pie in the sky’.
Why? Because the people with the responsibility and power to make such an audacious move have the most to lose from it i.e. by virtue of being in the ‘centre’ (including Shell Centre of course!). So it’s back to death by a thousand ineffective cuts and yet another round of open resourcing, which gives the appearance of going through radical change… but without actually changing anything at all.
Ho Hum….
on Mar 29th, 2010 at 08:21
I do not take issue with any of your points, but would suggest that part of the problem stems from working practices dictated by the imposition of standardised IT systems (SAP?) by the centre rather than local business logic. Smaller, local competitors are unencumbered by IT systems and the associated “processes” developed to reflect US or European business needs and accounting practices.
on Mar 27th, 2010 at 11:24
The slow demise of Shell
on Mar 26th, 2010 at 12:33
Nigeria LNG Limited (NLNG) is a Nigerian Joint Venture Company whose Shareholders are the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (49%), Shell (25.6%), Total (15%) and Eni (10.4%).
on Mar 26th, 2010 at 12:32
There is a culpable short-termism about Shell at the moment. But we have seen it all before. It is mind-blowing that one of the world’s largest corporations cannot:
(a) Decide what its strategy is
(b) Use its huge resources to stick with that strategy over the medium to long term.
I would humbly suggest:
(1) Concentrate exclusively on upstream and midstream oil and gas.
(2) Get rid of activities that fall outside the competances of those at the top (Refining and Marketing especially).
(3) Don’t kill the downstream with a thousand cuts – sell it as a going concern (which it is). There will be plenty of willing buyers.
(4) Get out of petrochemicals – again plenty of willing buyers.
(5) Consolidate to one Head Office. Close Shell Centre.
(6) Look for good upstream acquisitions.
(7) Really learn from the failures in Nigeria, Ireland and Russia… Get out of delusional mode. Try always telling the truth!
(8) Never, ever again make the same mistake that you made with Linda Cook. It’s a scandalous story which the shareholders ought to tear the Board to pieces about.
(9) Create a culture at the top which is less about Lottery-win type rewards (Cook again!) and more about pride in achievement. Shell was like that once. Is Voser really worth ten times what M M-S was paid? I doubt it…
on Mar 23rd, 2010 at 22:22
Musaint, you dispute that most top technical staff was dutch. Your memory appears to be fading, there has been a time when all the top echelon in EP2 under that bastard Jan van Dam was Dutch. I know, I was there. True that many explorers were swiss. And Sprague was indeed an American but he did Operations first although he could have done any other job equally well.
on Mar 23rd, 2010 at 20:12
REPLY TO MUSAINT: You really do seem to have an obsession about the Royal Dutch Shell Hitler connection. Another dark chapter in Shell’s history that it would prefer to forget. We did not work it into the Fortune magazine article. It was already there. We have not added or deleted a single word. You complain about the article being a rehash of old stories yet felt sufficiently stirred to comment on what it said. And you were not alone in deciding that the article merited comment.
on Mar 23rd, 2010 at 18:07
If there’s limited news then rehash old stories, e.g. those of Shell from umpteen years ago. Of course the (now tediously repetitive) connection to Hitler had to be worked into the story!! I dispute that “all technical directors were Dutch” – most exploration ones were Swiss, Sprague was American etc. I do however believe Shell was more successful in this period because there were far, far, less non E&P “initiatives” that now suck in so many technical staff and take them away from their main job of finding and producing hydrocarbons.
on Mar 23rd, 2010 at 17:37
Nice to read a 13 year old article again and see it confirmed what many said during the heady transformation days: this is not going to work. The article is well written and the writer very well informed. But he fails to state that it was common knowledge that one of the few who could really think in the top, Bob Sprague, was dead against the transformation. He was loyal enough to go along with it but internally he was written off by the politicians at the top. And in came the useless characters such as Boynton (token woman, fired), Malcolm Brinded (most clever but only overpromise and underdeliver), Cook (useless czarina and mother of all token women, finally dumped with a big bag of money; this should have been solid gold tied around her neck and… the mind starts wandering). Watts the evil bully boy came in and was fired. Ethics went out of the window. Reserves scandal was a direct result. Royal Dutch was sold off to become a British company. And the performance never recovered after the golden period of mid 70s to mid 90s. It may have been a coincidence, but in this period all the technical directors in EP were Dutch while the Brits handled HR and Finance. And in the process the in house technical ability was destroyed. When is someone going to write a book or good case study about all this???
Thanks John for refreshing our memory again!
on Mar 22nd, 2010 at 12:22
Your somewhat illogical thinking would make me think you would like to see Shell withdraw from all operations where there is a corrupt government in force. This would also include the likes of the UK, USA, Nigeria etc. etc. Not an option unless of course you want to shut down Shell completely then what would you do with you time? Sorry Mr. D. I cannot agree with your logic on this, albeit that some governments should be shut down (e.g. Nigeria and the Labour party in the UK).
on Mar 22nd, 2010 at 11:13
I agree with Mussaint, we have seen the Nazi party story and the far fetched link between Shell and roadside bombs undermines the credibility of the site.
on Mar 22nd, 2010 at 09:29
The continuing use of the Nazi story at the top of the page and now the tabloid add-on about “hinting” Shell is involved with Taliban and road side bombs is a story too far Mr.D. Way over the top and downgrades this website very badly indeed. Yes it’s your website but trying to taint Shell for all the worlds problems by linking them to governments they operate in is ridiculous.
on Mar 20th, 2010 at 14:04
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.
on Mar 19th, 2010 at 23:24
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!
on Mar 16th, 2010 at 17:05
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.
on Mar 15th, 2010 at 12:58
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.
on Mar 11th, 2010 at 16:57
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.
on Mar 10th, 2010 at 17:45
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.
on Mar 6th, 2010 at 10:20
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
on Mar 5th, 2010 at 17:20
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.
on Mar 1st, 2010 at 23:53
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!!!
on Feb 27th, 2010 at 22:32
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.
on Feb 27th, 2010 at 21:41
Oh dear, regarding this collaboration between Shell & IBM – it does not appear to have started off very well if I read the press announcement. I refer to the following: “Shell can reduce the educated guesswork and extract natural resources with more certainty and efficiency, thereby optimizing the recovery of oil and gas”. Shell used to employ geoscience & petroleum engineering expertise. Is reserve estimation and production forecasting now in the hands of “educated guess workers”? That ought to really worry shareholders.
The fundamental lack of understanding of the business gets even better with comments on geophysics: “For example, geophysicists must examine time-lapse seismic data from subsurface rock formations; reservoir engineers receive well and laboratory data, and geophysicists receive information – sound waves – covering wide spaces between the wells”. Errr – what’s the difference between the two geophysical activities quoted? Is this some IBM person speaking who has just bought a book “E&P for beginners”, or is it the level of understanding within Shell now much of the real technical experience and expertise has been cleared out?
on Feb 27th, 2010 at 15:20
Agree completely with Guest1. IBM once bought (and subsequently sold at a huge loss) a company called Tigress, and had plans for integrated Corporate Data Bases based on POSC. Unfortunately Schlumberger and Landmark know that part of the business rather better than IBM ever will. If Shell can’t find oil with the help of Schlumberger and Landmark, what hope do they have with IBM?
on Feb 27th, 2010 at 10:19
What a load of nonsense in the Forbes article. Shell and IBM to team up etc. We HAD all the expertise but that was removed by the HR and FN idiots that run Shell now. What does IBM know about oil and gasfields? This surely looks like another project, doomed to fail, whereby IBM is going to suck a lot of money out of Shell. Presumably Brinded bought a lot of stock in IBM. RDS appears more and more like an overweight blob, unable to move, being sucked out by the service industry and governments and waiting to die. The sooner someone takes over RDS, splits it up and gets on with the business, the better. The fact they accept all the abuse by the Donovans and are unable and unwilling to defend themselves speaks volumes. If RDS cannot even handle two old codgers with a website, how will they handle real competition????
John and Alfred, perhaps you have to increase the pressure and speed up the demise of RDS.
on Feb 26th, 2010 at 17:53
A number of people both inside and outside Shell seem to share your view. A commonly held view inside Shell is that while decisions often turn out with hindsight to have been wrong, a far greater problem for Shell is their inability to make timely decisions when required.
on Feb 26th, 2010 at 16:44
I read this site and others all the time as I am a retired employee and an owner of RDS stock.
Question: Is it just me or does it seem like management is graduallt selling off assets whilr making one bad decision after another? that is the sense i get from my reading. Thanks for your comments. EXSF
on Feb 24th, 2010 at 17:15
REMOVED AT THE REQUEST OF THE PERSON WHO SUPPLIED THE POSTING
on Feb 24th, 2010 at 16:22
REMOVED AT THE REQUEST OF THE PERSON WHO SUPPLIED THE POSTING
on Feb 24th, 2010 at 15:20
The Ormen Lange reserves that have been downgraded are predominantly on the Shell side of the field, so the 25% cut is much worse than it sounds – at least for Shell.
on Feb 24th, 2010 at 10:48
Ann Pickard’s comment about Angola’s production exceeding that of Nigeria sounds like an attack on Bichsel et al who pulled Shell out of Angola a few years ago…
on Feb 22nd, 2010 at 15:21
REPLY TO MUSAINT: Contrary to your assertion, there was no expansion, but rather a shortened version of this sentence from the article in question: “Today, Shell, Chevron and others talk about cutting offshore incidents to zero.” Shortened so that it was appropriate for a headline on a Shell related blog. According to the source article, Shell has talked about cutting offshore incidents to zero. So I don’t know what you are complaining about? Shell could make a start by ensuring that its production platform lifeboats are all seaworthy!
on Feb 21st, 2010 at 19:08
Hmmmmm. Me thinks that well known peddler of news (The Houston Chronicle) was aiming it’s article at helicopter incidents (hence the concentration on HUET exercises etc.) and not incidents as a whole. You / the newspaper are going somewhat over the top if offshore targets are (“in the future”) going to be set at zero. Let’s be realistic here Mr. D. and not “expand” some of the statements again!!
on Feb 20th, 2010 at 18:58
I’ve said many times on this website that the Shell slogan (no doubt thought up at an expensive HR away day) that “staff are our greatest asset” has absolutely no truth in it whatsoever. Nevertheless, it is a fact that staff numbers in Shell still remain high in some functions that contribute little to the bottom line. I also have to say that even in high profile and major contributing functions & OpCo’s there are staff who contribute little and need the Shell expat to cover for them (e.g. Shell Nigeria).
on Feb 20th, 2010 at 13:04
Information I have is that the package in the UK has been slashed when compared to only a year ago which in itself was a major reduction on that offered prior to 2005.
on Feb 19th, 2010 at 22:04
People are our most important asset and that’s why we kick out 6000 of these “assets” (and alienate a large percentage of the rest of the workforce) in an attempt to boost the share price after our exorbitant profits have come down to more normal levels. Newsweek of 15 February carries an interesting article on the generally negative effects of mindless mass redundancies on longer term company performance.
on Feb 18th, 2010 at 19:47
With 6000 or so redundancies announced worldwide does anybody have any idea of the sorts of packages people will be receiving and whether these are uniform across the Group and across salary/job groups etc..? If you do know the basis of the paclkages, what are they..and how do they compare with the bonus deals Shell execs have been paying themselves?
on Feb 15th, 2010 at 00:23
Corrib for sale…any takers?
on Feb 13th, 2010 at 23:55
What interests me about the Directory Leak story is that any competent scripter could have done this at any time in the last 10 years using just NOTEPAD and maybe 20 lines of VBS code. That’s because Active Directory (parts of it anyway) have been left open for use by RDS’s diverse collection of systems. So why didn’t it happen before ? And why doesn’t this sort of thing ever happen at GOOGLE ?
on Feb 11th, 2010 at 20:48
probably the biggest Joke company in the canadian oilpatch. I love the hyprocracy in the CEO saying we didnt meet targets and when the board defined them. this jackass then goes on to say profits werent as good as 2008.. wow good point sherlock! and then had the audacity to say we are capital constrained and then goes off on a 4B deal in brazil ( in a market that is saturated but developing) , gives himself and the exec commitee a huge raise and increase thier massive dividends ( which are higher than any other growth oil and gas company)
Atleast we turned a profit.. if he had any balls he would axe the HR and soft areas of the company, reduce Overhead because Transition 09 was a Major dissappointment and make the bonus scheme more vague like a bonus pool at the discretion of management. then it wouldnt be such a joke. I for one have a week left here then its off to EXXON who do what they say and agree on.
on Feb 8th, 2010 at 16:59
Is it my imagination or does Wiseman start to look a bit more tired than usual?
on Feb 7th, 2010 at 21:07
Fully agree with MUSAINT…the performance is very poor; we are lucky to get some bonus. People who complain should look around.
on Feb 7th, 2010 at 18:55
Do please excuse by poor spelling Itchy Woman but the point still remains you/team/Group clearly failed on targets. Be grateful to have a job, and no I did not get released but did work for Shell for 30 years with them. I do not always try and condone / agree with what is on this website either. I believe your minging in this present economic environment is poor. Consider those who hae lost jobs (not just with Shell). If you don’t like Shell then just leave or is that not your real problem?
on Feb 7th, 2010 at 17:43
REPLY TO ANONYMOUS: Even Richard Wiseman, not known as our greatest fan, has acknowledged that we have acted responsibly on this matter. Related correspondence is still in progress. As will become apparent, Shell is trying to shut the stable door after the horse has bolted. The situation is already dangerously out of control. It is Shell that has acted in a cavalier way with other people’s personal data, otherwise the Shell Address Book could not have been circulated to hostile parties, including Nigerian activists. So the situation is much more serious than you were aware. This news should ring alarm bells with Shell employees in Nigeria. More will be revealed when the current round of email correspondence has concluded.
on Feb 7th, 2010 at 16:57
John appears to have acted responsibly in alerting Shell and their employees to the availability of this sensitive data outside Shell. What more would you ask?
on Feb 7th, 2010 at 14:55
John, given your oft-expressed criticism of Shell’s supposed lack of concern for safety and disregard for its legal responsibilities, can you explain why you chose to trumpet the theft of Shell’s employee database on your website and even made facetious offers to pass it on to others? You must surely know that this information is a) stolen property and b) a potential threat to the privacy and safety of the thousands of people whose personal information it contains. If Shell had behaved in such a cavalier way with other people’s personal data, you would no doubt have jumped all over them. So why the double standard? And since the database is stolen property, will you be returning it to Shell and will you provide information to the authorities to assist them in investigating the theft? After all, you can’t expect Shell to respect the rule of law if you aren’t prepared to do so yourself.
on Feb 6th, 2010 at 16:20
Musaint
It always shows lack of class when you have to resort to name calling, but I suppose that’s your misogynistic upbringing.
Once again you get the facts wrong, you should apply for a job in Shell, or as I suspect by your anger you were one of the ones released.
on Feb 6th, 2010 at 12:43
A cynical view might be that Voser has deliberately used his first year to create an atmosphere of crisis within Shell to justify the lay-offs and salary cuts, and to “encourage” those remaining. Some 2010 costs will have been accrued and booked in 2009, while some 2009 income will have been deferred to 2010. This time next year Voser will be
on Feb 6th, 2010 at 04:13
Just a comment on those that think we are being denied an extra 15% on our bonus due to Vosser’s downgrade – your math is wrong. We dont actually get 15% less on the bonus as a whole – that factor is a multiplier.
on Feb 5th, 2010 at 20:00
we are lucky to get a bonus at all. in fact, we should not be getting any bonus until we reach top 3 on tsr. so those who are moaning about the reduced bonus should shut up or move out.
on Feb 5th, 2010 at 13:43
Bitchy Woman why should the plan be wrong just because you got a lower than expected bonus? Your Shell Group sector may have met most plan criteria but not all. Otherwise was your OpCo or yourself underperforming? In this day and age count yourself lucky to receive any bonus – many do not depsite performing very well. Some even loose their jobs – perhaps time for you to jump ship?
on Feb 4th, 2010 at 23:39
Related to SafeyPro’s comments.
I read the following article with great interest by Bobbi Mooney. Ms. Mooney has been a leading diversity advocate within Shell for 10+ years now. Despite all the professed advances, you can see in her article that it’s still not enough.
http://www.bnl.gov/diversity/linkable_files/pdf/Newsletters/Div%20Man%20Newsletter%20final.pdf
on Feb 4th, 2010 at 23:00
Musaint
Next time get your facts right before spouting off. You seem to make a habit of that.
on Feb 4th, 2010 at 20:53
Actually, the group scorecard was 1.25, so it did in fact meet the plan in many cases. The results tell me there may be something wrong with the plan… and even more so, whoever made the plan.
on Feb 4th, 2010 at 20:11
The company set the targets, we hit them and more, but Voser has taken it upon himself to reduce that result by 15%.
He wonders why staff fell sceptical that leaders routinely tell the truth.
on Feb 4th, 2010 at 14:14
It has nothing to do with respect Witchy Woman. If you, your team, your company all fail to meet targets you’re lucky to get a bonus at all!!
on Feb 4th, 2010 at 12:44
Thank you Peter for cutting my bonus by 15%.
Where does that figure on the “respect for people” scale?
on Feb 4th, 2010 at 11:54
Tip for Voser: if production is declining for the seventh year in a row while predicting all those years it would increase, thereby justifying the enormous investments, what does this say of your head of upstream? You know the bald fellow with the facial hair? Him with the same senile smile as Tony Blair? The mother of all micro managers? The one who did the same when he was the boss of Expro? The one being accused of criminal behaviour resulting in the death of two workers on Brent? The one who ‘manages’ some 200 projects personally? The one who surrounds himself with sycophants? (FYI a sycophant is a self-seeking, servile flatterer; fawning parasite). Yes, I mean Brinded. And to be more explicit: you should fire him asap. Shell will next year probably go below 3 mln bopd if we extrapolate your performance. And you think so too with the remarks of freezing the dividend. Firing another 1000 is not going to help, you should fire Brinded. It is quality that counts, not quantity!
Or does Brinded know something about you and is he blackmailing you? I almost start to think so.
on Feb 3rd, 2010 at 21:04
Is anyone knows what are the plans for Downstream in africa? in case Shell expects to move out from the continent, is any communication from the company possible, like for Greece, Australia etc??
on Feb 3rd, 2010 at 18:01
John, it would be a good idea to send Bill Campbells “final statement” not only to the English MP’s but also to the Dutch MP’s, especially with the court case against Shell for polution in Nigeria coming up.
on Feb 3rd, 2010 at 10:44
Shell now growing in biofuels? A few years ago Shell was going to corner the solar cell business. That has been closed down. Then Shell was growing the hot air of the windmill business. They also withdrew from a huge UK project. Shell needed reserves so expanded in the tarsand business. The (negative) environmental impact is beyond belief. So that project is scaling down as well for some obscure reason. Of late oilshale is becoming popular again, Shell even recruited a corrupt US official for it so they must be serious. But I predict this will also soon fizzle out. And now strong growth in the biofuel. This will destroy Brazilian rainforests, pressure from environmentalists will be mounting and before too long this will also be scaled down. Billions of capital destruction and no consequences for the people at the top. They resemble exactly like modern day politicians, only good at surviving and reaping personal benefits while it lasts.
Why doesn’t Shell learn from Exxon: remain focused on producing oil and gas and do it profitable. Every year a bit better than the year before. Steady and relentless. But I fear the internal know-how has been replaced by woolly language, political correctness and dependence on contractors who will steal Shell blind because if you cannot do it yourself anymore, you also cannot manage it. There has been no coherent policy for future business for years. About time Voser wraps it up and sells off Shell in large parcels and get it over and done with.
on Feb 2nd, 2010 at 16:19
John, pardon me for posting to the front page and here but I know that my co-workers that read this site link directly to this blog and may or may not read the home page.
Safety is #1! Goal zero! Life Saving Rules! I
on Feb 2nd, 2010 at 10:46
Does anyone know what is happening with Shell’s exploration porgramme in Libya? All seems very quiet.
on Feb 1st, 2010 at 12:54
Bitumen Bob
It would have been more but they wasted too much money tearing down newly built offices to make them cubicles.
on Jan 29th, 2010 at 13:37
Well, well, the severance packages keep flowing over here in Port Arthur.
But this time, the packages were handed to a couple of good ol boys, Ted Thornal and Leroy Royer, both disciples of Uncle Tom Purves.
Looks to us over here on the ground that Tom is just taking care of his boys one last time….. possibly?
This clears the last of the Texaco leadership regime, other than Mr Poulter as we like to call him over here.
This gives the Funkhouser open door now to run his operations the way he wants, which will show his lack of capability ultimately on the start-up. It’s hard for Jeff I’m sure being a start-up manager and a de facto plant manager, since we don’t have one over here.
Tom just keeps doing his thing, spends alot of time over here in Port Arthur. Doesn’t he have other plants to watch…..
I do…
on Jan 26th, 2010 at 17:05
Shell follower, this interview may provide the information you are seeking: Shell
on Jan 25th, 2010 at 02:07
Can somebody point to where the Vosser Plan is located :
- International and USA EP,
- Less people and costs
- where is the future HC business is it DW, Middle East, unconventionals…
- It must be laid out somewhere in some shareholder or other documents I just cannot find it ?
So can some other shareholder or staff memeber show how these bits fit together ?
on Jan 23rd, 2010 at 03:43
NEWS: Shell donates $100,000 USD to assist Haiti.
As a 30 plus year Shell employee I am so disappointed in Marvin Odum’s announcement. Sure times are tough for us and we might not make $10B this year. 100K is an embarrassment and an insult. UPS donated a million and they are not making as much these days either.
Shells announcement went on to say they would organize employee contributions to help Haiti.
The people of Shell are good people and will do the right thing. The corporation is showing signs of moral bankruptcy.
on Jan 14th, 2010 at 01:32
I’d like content articles and commentary beyond the Qatar (U-tube), share of Gorgon and Iraq stuff around where Shell is managing to add new EP businesses to replace the steep declines in N Sea, Asia, GoM DW and apparent planned divestments in Nigeria etc. Is Shell steadily slipping towards 2.5 MLN BOE/D of equity production rapidly, its not clear yet? Contracting an EP business is not difficult, in contrast growing one or sustaining one profitably at the 3 MLN BOE/D
is! Maybe this site could have more discussion of this critical topic for staff and shareholders ?
on Jan 13th, 2010 at 14:50
Witchy woman, In Asia we send staff to HSE for “confinement” in order to rejuvenate them.
on Jan 12th, 2010 at 21:15
Clearly the Scots are the safest race in the world, why else would three of the top 4 HSE people in RDS be from North of the border. Unless…….no that is unthinkable.
on Jan 12th, 2010 at 09:03
Seven continuous years of falling production. And Brinded has been in charge for about the same period. But this is obviously just a coincidence. He will certainly start to explain to everyone that after the 7 meagre years, the 7 prosperous years will commence. But anyone who believes this also may believe that pigs may fly. Presumably Brinded still received huge benefits because he tried so hard.
on Jan 7th, 2010 at 16:27
Have not seen a full listing of the business leaders for Americas Upstream – saw the HR one on December 8th but am interested to see who has been given the “honour” to do all the non HR jobs….
Has it been posted somewhere and I just missed it?
As a long term Shell Canada employee who got punted in an earlier reorganisation it is sad to see the continued discarding of so much experience and talent. Guess the expats are just better…..
on Jan 6th, 2010 at 14:50
I remember the performance of Herkstroter in 1995 or thereabouts when business TV became the thing to do. This autistic banker sat there in a dark (prime teak) and empty boardroom, telling everyone about the future and that we ‘must have fun’. Never blinked an eye or even attempted a grin on his face. Bichsel must have studied this performance in detail. My theory that gorillas breed gorillas is proven once again.
on Jan 6th, 2010 at 13:30
very greatful to shell, this is an institute which taught us how to screw people and get benefited. How to talk about people, SGBP’s, honesty, integrity and responsibilities for almost a decade and just run away one fine COB on a telecon.
on Jan 6th, 2010 at 12:52
I think the video is a good example what happens when management does not tolerate corrective critisism. This is like the emperor and his clothes, everybody involved in the production of this tape must have seen the terrible product and performance, but most likeli told Matthias this was his best performance ever.
Although just 2 minutes and 30 seconds, I lost track after 1 minute and 15 secs, but woke up again when he said with the saddest face ever “I am truly exited…”. At least now I know how he looks when he is exited.
on Jan 6th, 2010 at 09:40
Having seen the crap by Bichsel I have little to add to the others. He also looks like a worn out old fart, ready to get a heart attack any moment. He lives a stressful life: always lying and manipulating so always looking over his shoulder who may attack him and always remembering what he said to whom and when. Very tiring. The only politically correct words this swiss idiot forgot were ‘sustainable and/or green’ and ‘diversity’. Could this mean a turning point in Shell’s thinking?
He read the words from a teleprompter and it was clearly all written by a young snotnose with an MBA who has never in his life done any real work, and all straight from the thousands of textbooks. I must admit it was an achievement to use so many politically correct words in such a short space of time. Bichsel could be working for General Motors or any other major corporation that is collapsing when you hear ‘his’ story. And if Mahdi Hassan is the real Mahdi Hassan, we have a genuine project manager speaking who has delivered and better on major projects. And all without this jargon bs. But then Mahdi was one of the last proper project managers in Shell. I know of only one at the moment so let’s give Shell the benefit of the doubt and assume there are 3 great project managers around. Is that enough?
What a happy and close bunch this top echelon of Shell must be with characters like Bichsel and Brinded around, pity the Cook woman has gone, she would have added more happiness. This is meant cynically. And bastards like this are looking after the interests of millions of shareholders, responsible for over hundred thousand staff and dealing with governments, both decent and corrupt ones. It is worrying.
Thank you Donovans for posting the video!
on Jan 5th, 2010 at 22:00
Musaint – sorry, wrong; the decision was made by Bichsel; Parsley was gone from the scene by then. The You Yube video featuring Bichsel probably reflects why the decision was made. When you come across as so unbelievably uninspiring there is a fair chance you will make incredibly uninspiring decisions. It is a long time since such a bad advertisement for Shell has come out. This one will become a classic and will be referred to when the inevitable birds flock home to roost as witness to the destruction of subsurface cabability “engineered” by Bichsel and his sycophants. Mahdi – you hit the nail right on the head.
on Jan 5th, 2010 at 18:24
REPLY TO USCITIZEN: The brief postings relating to the alleged wrongful dismissal at Shell Geismar have no relationship to the substantive postings from several separate individuals making allegations about Tom Purves and his alleged cronies. We do not normally try to trace the origin of Shell Blog postings. We only do so if we become suspicious. The person responsible for the multiple postings under different names about the alleged wrongful dismissal was engaging in deception in an attempt to damage Shell
on Jan 5th, 2010 at 14:28
The decision to sell the Rajahstan oil field in India rests totally with Alan Parsley and Tony Wildig. The former as head of exploration had no balls to take risk even though the geophysics was brilliant. Wildig as a petroleum engineer hadn’t got a clue and hadn’t the courage to defend explrers on the ground who wanted to keep the field. Wildig was one of the most slippery characters you could ever meet in Shell – totally untrustworthy and unsupportive.
on Jan 5th, 2010 at 13:24
We tried to tell you 8 months ago when the disenchanted 2 % of the hourly workforce started whining on this page that you were posting stuff with no credibility – told ya so!! Libel is your middle name!!
on Jan 4th, 2010 at 23:12
Bichsel’s video is a joke! The man has never managed a project in his life. Seems like he swallowed a lexicon though! What a crock of techno-bs from the Swiss gnome!
on Jan 4th, 2010 at 18:54
We have received another posting relating to an alleged wrongful dismissal at Shell Geismar, this time from “Pitbull”. All of these postings under various pseudonyms actually come from the same source and consequentially will no longer be posted.
on Jan 3rd, 2010 at 19:50
thanks john donovan shell lost a good man because of that termination. I’ve heard the termination has torn his life apart. He was a intern who came out and busted his but while he was in school. We are still shocked at what happened
on Jan 2nd, 2010 at 10:50
Musaint: as a Shell Nigeria veteran I agree wholeheartedly. We did a lot of good, one could always do more and better but on the whole standards were kept as high as feasible. Never have I seen or condoned deliberately damaging the environment. But the endemic corruption in Nigeria effected everyone. I know many Nigerians who fled their own country since they could not stand the corruption anymore. But I also have seen a decline of % of quality expats going to Nigeria. After Brinded, v.d.Vijver, McFadyen and many others simply refused to go there, the rest followed and only the dregs remained. This is obviously a bit of an oversimplification but Shell should never have allowed this to happen. I am less worried than you about the invasion of the Chinese. They will bring economic activity which will benefit many. But in the end the Nigerians have to sort themselves and their government out. They are high energy and very capable people. Look at all the great gangster running the real estate in London. The whole taxibusiness in Houston is Nigerian. If led properly, they can do great things. Otherwise they remain corrupt and only care for their own extended family, at the detriment of the rest of society. I have no idea how to solve this puzzle.
on Jan 2nd, 2010 at 10:24
Well said chedderc – I have long said that Shell is blamed for all the sins of the corrupt Nigerian Government. Shell is much easier to attack (physically and verbally) compared to Governments, e.g. NNPC, DPR etc. having worked myself there for 6 years it is the oil industry (particularly Shell) who donate millions of dollars every year to the communities, where NNPC and other Government organizations provide nothing. Truth will show when Shell slowly but surely withdraw from the Delta, then seehow the locals suffer. All the bleating by Amnesty etc. is poorly thought out with scant evidence of truth behind their arguments. People should go to Nigeria and stay for more than a few days before pontificating on about Shell. Shell provides a great benefit to the communities that the Nigerian Government (and Amnesty etc.) do not.
on Jan 2nd, 2010 at 00:56
musaint – it is the same across the globe.
on Jan 1st, 2010 at 18:21
Just a question, Shell in Nigeria gets bad press sometimes righlty and sometimes wrongly, yet looking at wiki SPDC is composed of Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (55%), Shell (30%), Total S.A. (10%) and Eni (5%). NNPC are the main shareholder…why are they not tarred with the same brush?
I worked in Nigeria recently for NNPC and was very suprised at the lack of gripe against them…and also fully understand the issues in the delta .. some due to lack of initial investment in setting up wells (oil rather than oil and gas capable) causing the flaring..but also the fact that the locals cause alot of damage by trying to hook into pipe lines etc
I do not blame anyone other than the nigerian goverment in not sharing wealth in nigeria
on Jan 1st, 2010 at 14:34
I have also worked in many countries around the globe with Shell uscitizen and my experience is that US staff were overpaid in comparison to what they delivered and compared to other nationals. Your last sentence also highlights some of the American euphemisms that continually irritated folk as being incomprehensible – a translation please. My real point is that once Shell Oil (as was) was incorporated into Royal Dutch Shell the Shell Group was suddenly inundated with poor US performers, many of whom still survive to this day and then complain bitterly when challenged over their performances.
on Jan 1st, 2010 at 06:43
The whiners are mainly the hourly folks at the plants – and they simply do have a very small vocal minority. I managed many of them for over 20 years and the vast majority are bright committed folks. I have worked all over the Globe Musaint – and you have shown alot of your ignorance with your generalizations. I will tune you out more on the future.
on Dec 29th, 2009 at 19:00
Wish Shell would sell it’s US components – it just might stop some of the whinging and moaning from the overpaid Yanks. On a person by person basis they cost far more than almost all nationals in the Shell Group and provide a somewhat limited added-value in many instances. Too often they are stuck in the pre-takeover ideology with an attitude of “we’ve done it like this for years and we’ll continue that way”. “Over paid and over here – unfortunately.
on Dec 29th, 2009 at 16:45
John, your comment on the Bloomberg news was BULL’s EYE. As a CEO Voser has to say something, so he sticks with platitudes. Good he is not a leader in the military, he just might get hit by some friendly fire. I predict he is preparing Shell to sell off a large part, e.g. the US bit, cash in a humongous amount and retire to the Suisse mountains. The man with the beard is praying daily for this to happen, because he is the gordon brown of Shell…
on Dec 29th, 2009 at 16:44
The employee fired at Shell Geismar could either send an email to richard.wiseman@shell.com seeking his intervention, or obtain advice from an attorney dealing with wrongful dismissal.
on Dec 29th, 2009 at 16:28
im a employee at shell geismar my ex coworker was wrongfully terminated 3 weeks ago, how can I help him
on Dec 29th, 2009 at 16:05
REPLY TO MUSAINT: The extract is taken verbatim from the Business Week article. If you feel that it should not have been in their article, feel free to take it up with Business Week. Anyone in the least bit interested can easily look at the whole article from which the extract is taken. This site is focused on Shell. Hence if there is a reference to Shell in a news story, I am automatically alerted by Google News and will likely feature that reference as an extract. That has always been our standard practice. Surprised you have taken up that minor issue rather any of the more controversial issues brought up in the Voser BS story?
on Dec 29th, 2009 at 15:34
“Suspected terrorist tried to blow up plane US says” – then all you show under this headline is something about MEND terrorists attacking a Shell pipeline. MEND has nothing to do with the Nigerian who tried to blow up the plane – he has admitted to being a puppet for al-Qaeda. So why attempt such a “link”? – rather cheap shot in my opinion. It is as cheap as inserting under the headline “Manchester United thrash Chelsea 4-0″ and immediately talking about Stockport County beating Colchester United 4-0 !!
on Dec 28th, 2009 at 05:22
More results on how Mr. Matula’s outsourcing is working.
Data center in Houston suffered power outage this weekend. The three service providers spent most of the time trying to ensure Shell management knew it was not their fault.
Total chaos.
But I’m sure Mr. Matula will chalk it up as another success story. Or at least that’s what his mouthpieces (e.g., Mr. Crotts, et al) will be doing.
on Dec 25th, 2009 at 14:48
hey desi what you think about that incident that happened at geismar where a black technician was fired 3 weeks ago
on Dec 22nd, 2009 at 22:44
REPLY TO DESI: Earned what money from what shady business? All of our website activity has always been entirely non-commercial. No subscription or any other charges. No advertising revenues. No donations solicited or received. We have never sold a domain name. All our services, including access to over 25,000 articles, are entirely FREE. There is no business involved. I retired from business years ago and have never worked from home. This is an unpaid hobby. We operate this way to avoid any allegations of the kind you make – that we are out for commercial gain. Shell is free to take legal action if anything we say is untrue. They could have the site shut down tomorrow by obtaining an interim injunction on grounds that we are making allegations which have no foundation. It should speak volumes, even to an ignorant person such as you, that Shell does not challenge us in the courts. One other important point. Our comments about Shell are made openly under our own names. You on the other hand are a coward, making totally false allegations under a cloak of anonymity. Others can judge who is unhinged and lacks integrity. On your last point, I do not need to visit Nigeria. I have insider sources and documents to keep me well informed. For example, a confidential Shell internal report in which Shell admits that its activities have fueled corruption, poverty, violence and pollution in that Country. Have you forgotten that in June of this year Shell paid $15.5 MILLION to settle a lawsuit alleging that it was responsible along with the then Nigerian military regime for the torture and murder of Nigerian activists who engaged in a peaceful campaign against Shell. This is the company you wish to defend. You should hang your head in shame or stick it back in the sand.
on Dec 22nd, 2009 at 19:58
John Donovan is loosing his marbles, he has earned enough money by this shady business working from home all his life. This continuous, filthy attack on Shell is pissing me off. I am a Shell exp hire and have worked in many different companies in my life. It is all same elsewhere; no oil or engineering company is doing charity. If J.Donovan has balls then he should go and live in Delta (Nigeria) to understand the problems & stop his addiction of Shell attacks
on Dec 21st, 2009 at 16:17
what grounds does a non union shell site have to fire an employee still in training
on Dec 20th, 2009 at 21:00
REPLY TO MUSAINT: I am pleased to see that you are not contending that Shell does not act in breach of its own ethical code, only that others do likewise. That is not an acceptable excuse. And as you know, my interest as a long term Shell shareholder, is in Shell. Leaving that to one side, your efforts over recent years to provide balance are much appreciated and very welcome. All the best for Christmas and the New Year, when we both hope we see the back of Gordon Clown – your description I believe.
on Dec 20th, 2009 at 19:55
I guess all / most companies should scrap their Business Principles as most transgress their statements, not just Shell. Have a Happy Christmas, I am off for a couple of weeks now.
on Dec 20th, 2009 at 19:38
Why does Shell have business principles that it does not abide with? They are a sham and have been so for many years, designed to fool the gullible, including ethical investment funds. Scrap the ethical code and get on with business. Or keep the code and enforce the rules. Shell cannot continue to have it both ways without attracting continuing criticism.
on Dec 20th, 2009 at 19:07
I would have thought that most serious companies have a form / type of Business Principles or equivalent. I know that Exxon and Agip had. My point is that Shell and other companies who have dealings with Governments (particularly sub-Saharan African countries) will invariably been seen as doing business with corrupt Governments despite have certain written principles in place. How are they supposed to progress? – 1. pretend they do not have principles in place OR 2. just stand still and stagnate? I for one would prefer that Shell and others did not have to sign signature bonuses (which merely go into the “big boys” Swiss bank accounts) but shareholders are key when they turn the blind-eye on this.
on Dec 20th, 2009 at 18:22
But MUSAINT, Shell is different. It has the Shell General Business Principles. This is the introduction:
on Dec 20th, 2009 at 17:45
“Mounir Bouaziz, Shell’s VP for making deals with corrupt Governments” – so what? I reckon this is Sunday tabloid titilation Mr. D. – let’s face it ALL governments are corrupt to varying degrees, just look at our bunch of bandits in Whitehall. I also guess that ALL major oiul companies have such a VP, so Shell is no different.
on Dec 19th, 2009 at 12:01
With regard to the postings by Sceptical Joe, I note there is no denial of past sinister activities directed against this website from the same party. I also note that once again the postings come from more than one IP address. Same questions, same tactics, same extremely hostile source. Same response on realization that we have taken action.
on Dec 19th, 2009 at 10:25
I was only asking a question!
Ok, never mind.
on Dec 19th, 2009 at 09:42
Skeptical Joe: In order to view any website, the IP address of your PC must be known to the website – how else would it send you data? If John chooses to pay his suppliers in cash that is surely his prerogative? With Shell’s reputation for underhand activities many suppliers might prefer not to be on record as working for John – especially if Shell is amongst their other clients.
on Dec 18th, 2009 at 17:01
REPLY TO SKEPTICAL JOE: Since you are asking precisely the same questions as a person or team who made multiple postings on our former Live Chat facility around March 2008 on a 7/24 basis and got up to all manner of trickery and deceit, you are clearly one and the same. We do not track incoming postings unless we believe the site is being subjected to an organised attack. As you will recall, I wrote to RDS Plc Company Secretary Michiel Brandjes on 28 March 2008 bringing the attack to his attention. The correspondence is posted on the site. You will have read it before. As Mr Brandjes is aware, related information has been brought to the attention of a UK police force. A High-Tech Crime Unit has made enquiries. Special Branch and Covert Investigations have considered certain matters in the light of revelations
on Dec 18th, 2009 at 15:12
also, i found this on your site:
“On 27th October 2005 my son John was the victim of an assault and robbery in Chelmsford a few minutes after £3,000 in cash had been collected from inside a Lloyds TSB Bank in the Town Centre. The cash was intended to fund our campaigning activities against Shell”
I think you have told people regularly that this site merely costs a few dollars a month to run – so could you explain what you needed 3000 in cash for? I wonder what inference you would draw if a Shell exec was to pay someone 3000 in cash for “services”…
Surely an internet operation uses electronic transfer etc?
Look forward to hearing from you as I know you publish all comments.
on Dec 18th, 2009 at 15:08
Great to hear you don’t delete legitimate postings.
Can you tell me, in line with the stories about Shell’s spying activities (alleged) – do you track the identities (e.g. locations etc) of your users via their IP addresses?
Thanks.
on Dec 18th, 2009 at 08:13
“Shell to move jobs from US & Canada to India etc.” No major story if true anyway! Many, many, major companies have and are doing this to cut costs. Been many comments about how Shell should cut costs and as soon as they do people still moan! About time they indeed got rid of some of the excess US staff, most of whom are overpaid.
on Dec 17th, 2009 at 16:54
Skeptical Joe: I have posted many times and never was one letter changed or the post rejected. I assure you the Donovans are not a secret branch of Shell…
on Dec 17th, 2009 at 12:54
REPLY TO SKEPTICAL JOE: We changed to the current system in August 2008. All postings related to Shell, the Donovans or this website are posted unedited. The only exception in the past year being two postings from the same sick individual who made threats of violence against Shell in Nigeria mixed with unprintable profanity. We delete all postings submitted which are adverts, not comments. This includes daily postings of Russia origin, often in Russian language, promoting pornography sites etc. We will not allow our website to be used for such purposes.
on Dec 17th, 2009 at 12:32
Contributors to this site used to be able to post their comments instantaneously. Now all submissions are apparently ‘moderated’ by persons unseen. Just out of curiousity, what was the reason for the switch to a ‘moderated’ discussion? How do visitors to the site know that you’re posting all contributions? How many contributions have you rejected in the last six months, and for what reasons?
on Dec 15th, 2009 at 00:30
Howdy, its been a few since my last post, but I guess its time. Motivasux, you forgot the most important pieces. First we kept an entire shift over to work 18′s to help out, but David said it was not neccessary. We didn’t need to do that. During that upset, a SO2 release occured, which they called a level 1, but was reported outside our gates which would be a level 3. Wonder if it was reported to the correct agencies. This release also made some operators sick and had to be deconned and went to medical. But David said all this didn’t happen.
Finally, after all of the time we have been waiting, the time for the consolidations is here. I said it months ago that it was coming, it was even put on the front page of this site as RUMORS. Well its here and it sucks. We will be working at one of the most dangerous places in the world after this change finishes. People like OSHA and other agencies are quick to point fingers when people get killed, but will do nothing to prevent accidents from occuring. We WILL have a major accident with many fatalities if the company is allowed to do what they want. We will be operating a time bomb because we don’t have enough people there to properly run. Shortcuts will be taken, people WILL die. Where is our democratic working mans president now? He sure doesn’t care about us. If these consolidations occur and MR. PURVIS gets his way, I don’t think that Shell will survive after the accident that WILL occur. I just hope I’m not there when it does happen. We cannot operate a 300 man refinery with 150 people.
I’ll help out the FBI and OSHA and NIMSHA and DEQ and LDEQ and everyone else with their future investigations. It was David’s fault, He was to scared to stand up to Tom Purvis!
Motivaman For President!!!
on Dec 14th, 2009 at 13:41
Interesting last couple of weeks. Convent has avoided disaster by the operators staying over for 18 hour shifts and calling people out because the plant continues to have problems. The whole plant either cut back or went down last week and reports are that last night the alky had major problems with an acid leak. Can’t wait until the job cuts that Brignac is doing come in. The future looks grim for Convent with this regime in place.
on Dec 11th, 2009 at 17:41
REPLY TO MUSAINT: Shell has apparently involved the US government in its spying operations against Shell employees, many of whom you have acknowledged (probably the vast majority) are not bound by confidentiality. And whistleblower legislation in the U.S. and the UK might take precedence over any such confidentiality, subject to the matters being disclosed. Covert activity is totally at odds with any claim to openness. Why bother with an ethical code if the core principles are set aside when it suits Shell senior management. As to Shell turning a blind eye, there is no evidence whatsoever in the Shell internal communications of any interest in investigating the serious allegations made against Shell Motiva VP Tom Purves and his alleged cronies. The only interest is in blocking postings, stopping leaks and closing down this website. In other words shoot the messenger. Does it not speak volumes about the incompetence/impotence of Shell executive directors that they have allowed the Internet activities of two old codgers in Colchester to result in Shell being caught red-handed spying globally on its entire workforce. And as promised, there are more astonishing revelations to follow.
on Dec 11th, 2009 at 16:34
Although not particularly pleasant, the fact that Shell is attempting to find out who is leaking information is not unreasonable. Most companies, governments etc. would for sure do likewise. The fact that you suggest it is against some of its principles does this mean that Shell should turn a blind eye to those who leak information??? It titialtes and helps fuel this website, but, Shell is well within its rights to unmask some of the people leaking information, some / many of which have signed a confidentiality clause in their contract.
on Dec 11th, 2009 at 11:37
So Shell will go develop a huge field in Iraq but they have just fired all the competent oldtimers who had experience in these remote areas. I predict many of them will be hired as a contractor. The current generation is good at talking about diversity and sustainability but to go to hardship postings is something for others…. Have we seen this before?
on Dec 10th, 2009 at 19:20
After 6 years working for Shell I have made the decision to leave the company. My manager did not even say goodbye. I wish everybody all the best.
on Dec 10th, 2009 at 10:40
As the names emerge of those who have not secured a position in the no doubt careful, honest, open and un-biased open resourcing process for the new Swiss Shell you cannot help but suffer a frisson of doubt. Has the company made a determined effort to retain a diversity of view and opinion within its ranks? Is there still a place for committed employess to express a personal opinion at variance with that of infallible (by definition) management? There is just a suspicion, no more, no less that an article by John Kay in the Financial Times of 8 December may be closer to the truth. In his article “Reality Check for Fiscal Pollyannas” he writes:
“But loyalty is today valued more than competence. Advancement is better achieved by telling your superiors what they wish to hear than being the bearer of unwelcome news. The economic world is necessarily uncertain and there is usually a range of estimates that can be defended. But always to choose the best from that range is to create bias, and the bias may be very large”. Let us hope this is not so in the new transformed Shell.
on Dec 10th, 2009 at 04:01
Talk about SSB, I have recently decided to leave despite being in the company for a relatively short period of time. You would not believe how bad I was treated. I submitted the resignation on Monday and HR already contacted me the next day to arrange for my repatriation! No exit interview nothing. The department manager played like I was invisible when he walked up and down the corridor. They didn’t even want to act like they care about losing a person in an already lean team. “Employees are our greatest assets” my foot! More like “Employees are bags of garbage that I can’t wait to get rid off”.
on Dec 9th, 2009 at 17:42
In response to AsiaDragon, one should not be surprised by the current situation in Shell as it was well planned since the EPA (Europeans Punishing Asians) era some years ago. In a way, the transformation was somewhat accelerated vide “Transition 2009″ due to some local selfish traitors within the organisation. The “divide and rule” tactic was clearly used amongst Malaysians! Shell’s top leaders have poor judgment in many ways – unfortunately they can only judge people based on first impression and not on technical contents anyway. What is currently in the system are politicians than technocrats and naturally there is the sure way to extinction. Perhaps 5 years is too long a time frame to expect this once upon a time great company heading towards extinction! Good luck to the stayers as you may get a fat payout sooner than later – be patient as 99% of Shell trained staff possess the attribute to screw the company for personal gain and glory.
on Dec 9th, 2009 at 15:13
Fred and Rockdude- It has nothing to do with age. It’s pure discrimination of Asian. I believe you are Asian. Asian are known to be patient and tolerant. With Asian power, we shall rule the World. As Shell doesnot need you now, it has chosen to retire you early, just leave and make the best use of your time to groom the younger generation. There is also greener pasture out there. Just give Shell five more years to realise their mistakes. It takes time, however it may be sooner than later.
on Dec 8th, 2009 at 09:34
IT espionage. Great reading. “We do not want to give him more ammunition and aggravate the situation further…”. So there are still dinosaurs around who believe one can stop information in these modern times. And should dirty laundry not be washed and then dried in the sun? The incompetence within Shell is becoming pervasive. This is understandable because the staff that is allowed to stay usually follows the “leaders”, this has been beaten into them for many years. Well done John, keep up the good work and I hope you just shrug it off that Shell thinks you are a naughty boy!
on Dec 7th, 2009 at 20:36
I fully agree with rockdude1950 since I have been observing all this from the sidelines and also find myself in that position. Having been with Shell for 31 years (and being 55) I find that my performance has for the first time in my career deteriorated from high to below average in the short space of 6 months. I have also been unsuccessful in obtaining a position at EC-1 to EC-3 level. I would also like to add ethnicity to the equation since it has also played an important part in the decision-making process regarding retention of staff. After all just look at the ranks of EC-1, EC-2 and EC-3. At least 95%+ are white. Just shows what an ethnic diverse Company Shell is and what decisions were made at EC level. The Swiss after all are not known for their racial equality.
At this late stage in my life it will be difficult to find another job. I have no choice but to take the package when it gets offered but I am contemplating legal action. Anyone know any good lawyers? There is a very good chance that they can make a bundle out of this. Maybe we should pool together and have a class action suit on the grounds of discrimination. Any takers?
on Dec 6th, 2009 at 14:51
Shell encourages anyone with knowledge of activities that go against the company’s code of conduct to step forward and bring those activities to the attention of the Ethics and Compliance manager. The reorganization has provided many examples of actions that violate not just the code of conduct, but the laws of several countries in which Shell operates. I use this way to bring these actions to the attention of the Ethics and Compliance manager since I do fear retribution and a witch hunt, even with all the assurances to the contrary. The violations permeate throughout the process and come down from the high level in the EC.
Now that a new round of open resourcing has finished and that the annual ranking sessions are in full swing it is even more clear that one of the objectives of the reorganization is to weed out everyone over 54 years from the ranks of higher management, EC-1, -2, and -3. Since openly discussing age is not polite and it is in violation of the code of conduct, the HR organization and the hiring managers use code words. The marching orders are to take potential, meaning youth, and demographics, meaning youth, as criteria that can trump experience, performance, skills, expertise, and ability. I have witnessed the manipulation of information to move youth up the ranking scale and into coveted management positions. Some HR managers have been so dumb as to publicly acknowledge that rebalancing the demographics means moving younger staff to higher positions and trying to off-load the older generation.
Age is not the only blatant discrimination that I have witnessed. As someone has already pointed out, diversity of opinions was the first casualty in the early resourcing rounds. The new command and control structure needs people that will tag the line, and anyone that can challenge the EC has no room in this structure. But while seeking uniformity is bad business practice, age discrimination is also illegal. Many old timers decided not to fight it and take the packages. Bless their souls! Not all are happy to become redundant because of age. I expect many court challenges if this policy is not reversed.
If the Ethics and Compliance manager monitors this site, you are now aware of what is going on. If you look at your own HR statistics you will see a disproportionate number of people above the 54 year barrier that have been let go or have seen their ranking dropped. If you think I am wrong just publish the numbers and let an independent assessor look at the factors that determine chances of success in getting high performance ranking and higher grade jobs.
on Dec 5th, 2009 at 14:44
To Norco’s finest, don’t know this Joey character… but I’m sure if Jeff Funkhouser is involved, it is as you say. We saw this relationship between Jeff and the Purves for many years even up to the point when Jeff couldn’t last with Conoco and Purves saved him by bringing him back into Shell. We saw how the Purves undermined his own managers up here by staying connected with those up under him, we remember the breakfast club where Tom would have the gang of merrymen meet him for breakfast so that he could get the scoop on his managers and who weren’t following his command. The bottom line we took from all of this is Tom really has no stroke with his peers or his direct report because they don’t respect him. So… he goes down a level, hides it by saying he is staying connected with the people on the front line, and then uses their need to please him with getting information and controlling decisions from behind the curtain. When he gets caught or is called out, he calls that person an idiot and gets rid of him.For Tom, he likes the FUNKs and the Joey’s of the world because they listen to him, not because they are worthy of leadership roles. Same old Tom…. but man it must be getting old.
on Dec 4th, 2009 at 15:17
Well it seems my getting canned was a good thing. I don’t have to put up with all the BS thats going on at Convent. The workers are miserable, moral is the lowest it has ever been, and I hear that the managers are scared of their own shadow. I get calls from former workers complaining about how bad its gotten, and I’ve only been gone 3 months. They tell me how much they miss us, and by us I mean the real supervisors who stood up for their people, not the self serving liars that took our places. I can only say that those of you who took a staff position after our departure are fools, and only have yourself to blame when shit hits the fan and you are gone, we warned ya’ll. I’ll tell you straight up, no one is hiring anybody over 50 years old, Marathon as much as they were looking for experienced operators, is practicing age discrimination and so is Dynamic Fuels. Roxane, and her cronys screwed a lot of good people and I only hope that one day they too get screwed like we did. David’s legacy will be the man who turned Convent into the worst place to work, and he is suppose to be so religious and rightous, he’s like all the other false prophets if you ask me. I rank him with Jimmy Swaggart, Jim Baker, etc.
on Dec 2nd, 2009 at 22:23
Well, having read a few post a few weeks ago about Joey D at Norco, I can also attest to what was said is true. Joey skated along through his career at Shell by kissing ass and using his “Gift of Gab”. That man can talk the panties off of a nun. He did get promoted cause he kissed butt to Anne Marie, she was the his only backer, and now she is gone, everyone is hoping he gets what is coming to him “THE BOOT”. He has no degree and definitely does not belong in the position he is holding (Refining East CAM). He doesn
on Dec 2nd, 2009 at 16:49
Staff, people should check out your PCs and see what files are on their PCs drives (do a search). Look for files with the name ‘msg*.*’. Have found files with SITI staff names in the code and with copies of my own Shell confidential emails using some code . Is Shell spying on you too?
on Dec 2nd, 2009 at 12:25
Presumably the flotilla of storage tankers off Southwold is just another mechanism by which Shell and others reduce the supply of oil to the spot market, forcing up oil prices. But what happens when all the tankers are full, if demand does not increase?
on Dec 2nd, 2009 at 09:14
Stu, read the comment more careful. It says one TOKEN woman only. As it happens there also are women who have earned their place. But not enough. Hence the ranks are filled with token women.
on Dec 2nd, 2009 at 01:09
John, not just one female. Maybe check your knowledge of non british names before making sarcastic comments
on Dec 1st, 2009 at 23:36
THE CORPORATE HACKER
The story of Gary McKinnon (the Scottish hacker who penetrated US defence security) reveals different attitudes on either side of the pond. The prevailing US reaction might be caricatured as “Guantanamo is too good for him” while in the UK, it’s more like “OK it’s a crime, but remind me again why all those military computers didn’t have passwords ?”. If tried in the UK, McKinnon would likely face the judicial equivalent of a chinese burn. Extradited, he faces a lengthy jail sentence.
What’s this got to do with RDS ? Well, the case may worry those for whom “hacking” is now part of the day job. Many Business Applications need “administrator” access to the GIH servers on which they are forced to run. The CIO’s empire denies this access, one of many “Big Rules” enforced with total rigidity. Faced with business systems failing, support staff resort to “hacking”. One little trick is to turn temporary administrator access (granted for an install or a problem-fix) into permanent access. Another is to borrow a powerful “service account” who password is known but which can’t normally be used “interactively” (by a human). A quick hack makes the account “interactive” and gets the job done. This trick is favoured because it leaves no trace – unlike Garry MicKinnon, who was caught not by some brilliant CSI-style forensics operation but because he left his email ID on screen.
What you think about ‘corporate hacking’ may depend on whether you sit above or below the fault line where top-down “strategy” meets bottom-up reality. Arguably, it is counter-productive because it hides the failures of strategy. On the other hand, it does keep local systems running. Even if misguided, this kind of hacking is at least well-intended.
Those tempted to send the the corporate hacker to Guantanamo at might save some of their outrage for the really bad guys. In March this year, 661 GIH servers were wiped out by a mystery “virus”. Word has it that this was actually not a virus but insider vandalism, hacking of an unambiguously hostile kind whose perpetrator did not obligingly leave their email ID on-screen.
on Dec 1st, 2009 at 19:33
You like to titilate just as the UK tabloids do Mr.D. – perhaps in the new “senior” positions of the EU division only one female deserves a senior place in the new organization. Why should Shell pretend and try and be politically correct just to get some substandard female?
on Dec 1st, 2009 at 14:46
I think that these are really nice pages, but is it possible to get short list about Shell language.
For example these job levels 1-5 what they each include.
I follow these pages because of my friends. And sometimes it is difficult to read Shell’s insiders stories.
on Nov 27th, 2009 at 14:33
Stu
I’ve been an active blogger on a variety of sites over the years and I always use my own name and there are links to my own website for anyone who wants to follow them. This has never caused me any problems. I can see that some people might like to be anonymous – but it is quite surprising that many, many blogs, not just this one, are populated by anonymous bloggers. If you want to say something why not say who you are? Obviously whistle blowers who have something to lose are exempted!
on Nov 26th, 2009 at 19:57
John – to be fair, you and Paddy Briggs do use names before posting strong statements, criticisms etc. The majority of the negative (if not borderline harassing) comments are made by people called “golden triangle watchman” or the charmingly titled “NorcoScum”. Thus, I think the “Journalist”‘s point is a fair one.
on Nov 26th, 2009 at 19:39
Some fair comments Mr. D. (as usual I cannot agree with them all), however, who is this Michelle Obama?
on Nov 26th, 2009 at 12:28
REPLY TO ANONYMOUS: What kind of journalist would make derogatory comments without having the professional integrity to reveal their identity? We have the courage to make our comments about Shell senior management in our own names and are prepared to defend them in court if challenged. If you want anyone to take your comments seriously please reveal who you are. I challenge you to do so, otherwise some readers are likely to speculate over your identity if they have not already done so. To be frank, I don’t believe that you are a journalist. Prove me wrong. One final point. Censorship on the Internet is not an easy subject. It is extremely difficult as Google Images has just discovered in relation to Michelle Obama.
on Nov 26th, 2009 at 12:02
John, the fact that you and other participants on this site apparently believe that any excess can be justified in view of what you believe to be the far greater excesses of Shell says much more about your own integrity and reliability as a source than it does about the company. Journalists like myself and other watchers of the site will draw their own conclusions.
on Nov 26th, 2009 at 09:17
Anonymous, re your post….”Important matter of principle called living by the values you would hold others to”…. I’ll make sure to pass this onto the wives and children of the ones that Purves / Lauher let go so that they could save the jobs of some of their boys that came back off the project, which by the way had been screwed up because of their lack of skills on big projects. I’m sure that will make them feel better and accepting of the whole thing. Thank you for your kind and assuring words.
on Nov 26th, 2009 at 00:15
REPLY TO ANONYMOUS: Do you expect anyone to take you seriously when you lecture on transparency while hiding your own identity? That really is the height of hypocrisy. I have no intention of revealing any information/evidence supplied to us by insiders. This site thrives on Shell leaks. We have not spent millions as Shell has over many years pledging honesty, integrity, transparency, etc. Shell cited its Business Principles on the FORM 20F returns filed with the US Securities & Exchange Commission which led to the reserves scandal. This was done to instill confidence in the information provided. The SEC later declared that Shell had committed securities fraud in respect of the filings. The SEC and the UK FSA fined the company $150 million for fooling the markets. I have already commented on the personal remarks and raised the subject of the intimidating tone of some postings, which you have now mentioned. Regular visitors are free to draw their own conclusions about who is most transparent and holds the moral high ground – ruthless, unethical, greed driven fat cats at Shell (such as Malcolm Brinded), who have a track record of deceit, exploitation, putting profits before employee safety, arming militants and creating deadly pollution on an epic scale (and support/encourage IP theft and corrupt practices), or my father and I, who have always operated royaldutchshellplc.com on an entirely non commercial basis.
on Nov 25th, 2009 at 23:15
John and the other contributors to the discussion are either missing the point or simply cannot bring themselves to admit that they apply one standard to Shell’s conduct and another to their own. The tone of the language used on this site. from the personal attacks based on supposed ‘evidence’ which no one but John and the anonymous accuser seem to have seen, to the mention by name of totally unconnected family members, to the veiled warnings of ‘I’m watching you’ is clearly intended to be menacing and intimidatory. It’s not about individual cases at all, it’s about an important matter of principle called living by the values you would hold others to. If this site is afraid to embrace basic standards of integrity and transparency and simple common decency then you can hardly expect to be taken seriously when you demand it of Shell.
on Nov 25th, 2009 at 20:38
NorcoScum — couldn’t AGREE with you more — no doubt the poorest management I’ve seen during my career. Like you, I am also able to look myself in the mirror — knowing that my actions on the job always adhered to company policy, procedure and what was best for the company — that’s how we were taught. Scary to think of the company’s future under the present regime.
on Nov 25th, 2009 at 00:04
To Anonymous:
I’ve provided a lot of the information on Mr. Funkhouser, so I feel compelled to offer a response.
First, as to having a personal vendetta against Jeff or Mr. Purves, that is untrue. I’ll readily admit I would not be sorry if Jeff were dismissed, but only because I believe it would be a step in the right direction for this company and for all the Gulf Coast refineries.
Much has been written and reported here regarding the unethical and corrupt practices of people in this company, and I offered facts on similar behaviors and actions at a lower level than much of what I read on this site. My only intent was to offer the facts and perspective that it is not only at the top of the company or “other” parts of Shell / Motiva, but is pervasive throughout and at every level. I included information that went down to the hourly (relief staff) level when I discussed Camp Mo, and included information about how Human Resources is complicit. And be sure you understand that this is not hearsay, it is all factual and can be proven very easily in a court of law if necessary.
As a long time employee at Norco I can tell you that I have seen some questionable dealings, but when found out were dealt with appropriately. Those days are long gone, and the real deterioration began with Mr. Funkhouser’s arrival. And they continue today because he still has his hands in much of the goings-on at Norco. Mr. Purves is responsible for this continuing ethical problem because he is Jeff’s sponsor and has shielded him from disciplinary action.
I did mention his wife in one of my posts, but thought it was relevant to the topic, that of his sleeping with an OSE and then promoting her twice after. It was never my intention to besmirch his wife or any of his family – they are not responsible for his actions or behaviors. If it was perceived any other way then I sincerely apologize.
Finally, if anyone had told me five or ten years ago that this company would become as unethical and corrupt as it has, I would have called them liars. Maybe I’ve been naive for a long time, but I was proud to say I worked for Shell / Motiva. This is no longer how I feel, and I can’t wait to get out of this snake pit. It is a struggle to go to work every day feeling the way I do. I get no satisfaction from being part of the “team” that makes Norco and Shell / Motiva successful as I used to. I have to be satisfied with knowing that I have maintained my ethics and do my job very well and see positive results from my efforts. Not succumbing to the “new” unethical way may have hurt my career, but I can look myself in the mirror every morning and feel proud of the decisions I make.
on Nov 24th, 2009 at 13:48
John is very clear re the purpose of this website. Anonymous, if it is as you say, then just click to another site. You don’t have to read the information placed on here. The sad part or broader message is that Shell has created a culture that no longer feels like they can raise these issues within the company. We have some bad managers and Shell leadership is not dealing with it. Examples of this are helpful and like you, the HR leaders, a major part of hte problem, find themselves reading this blog quite frequently. My hope is someone finally wakes up and deals with the right issues. We have lost some excellent talent b, not because of performance issues or share price impact. They left because of dirty handed tactics by the likes of Purves, Funkhouser, and Lauher. At all levels. These guys are losers, there is no leadership out of this trio, and the sad part is we just continue on like business as usual.
Anonymous, the point is The Donavan’s are clear re their intent and purpose. I have been clear re my intent in my postings. What is your intent? Surely more than protecting the likes of Funkhouser. Surely you have a better example to highlight than this one.
on Nov 24th, 2009 at 12:13
To Anonymous and John: you are both right. But I do side with John, if he would start to be selective in what gets posted or censure only a little bit, the barrier of free speech is broken and then you are on a sloping path. I fear in modern society we have to put up with ill adapted people. Or in clear english: people that are too stupid to see what they are doing. Apologies for the blunt language to some contributors to this post.
on Nov 24th, 2009 at 11:53
But John, don’t you see that justifying your attacks on these individuals on the basis of ‘a trusted insider source’ smacks of precisely the kind of lack of transparency for which you regularly criticise Shell? It’s not enough to hide behind high minded expressions of regard for freedom of speech – wittingly or unwittingly you are complicit in the kind of tactics that sites like these are supposed to stand against.
on Nov 24th, 2009 at 11:18
REPLY TO ANONYMOUS: Your allegation of character assassination centers on postings about Jeff Funkhouser. If you look through the Shell Blog postings you will see that there have been countless postings from multiple sources directed at him and his sponsor/protector – Tom Purves. We receive more negative comments about this duo than any other Shell managers/executives on the entire planet. I have had extensive private correspondence with a trusted insider source – a person of high integrity – concerning these two individuals. The insider has worked closely with them. I have invited Purves and Funkhouser to respond to the many allegations made against them. It is against this backdrop and with high regard for freedom of speech under US law that such postings are allowed to remain on our Shell Blog. You say that I have made a “career” of highlighting the gap between Shell’s words and deeds. I don’t think that “career” is the right term bearing in mind that our so called anti-Shell websites have always been entirely non-commercial. No subscriptions, no paid advertising, no donations accepted. In short, there is not a penny of income. And we say what we think under our own names. Just to make it clear, I do not dismiss the main thrust of the points you are making. I would prefer if the intimidating tone of postings about these individuals was dropped along with the gossip. Both elements do downgrade this blog, which does contain some highly informative postings.
on Nov 24th, 2009 at 10:38
John, the responses to my post simply underscore that for many of the participants on this site the name of the game is character assassination rather than serious analysis Shell’s business. You say that anyone mentioned on the site has the opportunity to defend themselves with an unedited response, but of course what you are suggesting is that a named individual defend themselves anonymous critics brandishing innuendo and hearsay. You seem to think that there mere fact journalists scan the site for gossip about Shell justifies an anything goes editorial philosophy. In fact, it is precisely because this site has such a profile that you have a special obligation to fair play, especially when it comes to smears against individuals and their families. You have made a career of highlighting what you say is the gap between Shell’s words and deeds, but frankly the way you allow debate to be conducted on this site is no less hypocritical and abusive.
on Nov 23rd, 2009 at 21:53
Anonymous, I find it interesting that you focus on Jeff Funkhouser when you mention your point. Firstly, everyone knows that Jeff is nowhere close to being a senior executive. He has been able to move up to JGA level only, and I repeat only, because Purves, through others, was able to get him promoted up to the level he is now. Jeff is actually frustrated, as he shares quite openly, because he wants to run one of the plants and he knows that the HR gods will never let one “up through the ranks” sit at a JGB level. He even states that it is because of him that Purves is where he is…. I have always laughed when I hear him state that because, and it doesn’t take much to watch this play out, that the only reason that Jeff, and Forrest Lauher for that matter, works for Shell/Motiva and has the opportunities they have is because of Tom Purves. He worked behind the scenes to get Jeff hired at Global Solutions and then worked him into a plant leadership role when he had the opportunity. He brought Forrest in directly off the street, which is where Conoco was getting ready to place him, and through the Motiva leaders created a role for Forrest leading one of the largest projects in Downstream’s history, only to see him ride it over the edge. You are not going to find anyone in the plants that Jeff has worked at feeling sorry for the Funk. He is a bad man, lost his family due to not staying at home, and only cares for himself. No tears here. The sad thing is the length of time that it takes our senior leaders to cut through the BS and deal with the issues at hand, while others take the heat or get forced to leave the company.
Tom and Jeff, I’m watching you. Forrest, no need to.
on Nov 23rd, 2009 at 16:56
I just saw that Shell stated the costs vor Pearl are estimated to fall between 18-19 billion dollar. And now it comes: this is in line with the planned budget! I do not have the stamina nor inclination to look back in the files or on the Donovan site, but I remember that the plan was around 4 billion. Exxon was bigger for a similar project, but they withdrew in time. Nice spin: 4 fold increase of project cost and then with a straight face say this is in line with the planned budget. Must be invented by the Brinded the Beard.
on Nov 23rd, 2009 at 15:49
Greetings!
Anonymous, you bring up a valid point in regards to bringing Shell Managers families into a discussion. I do however disagree with your assertion that this site has become nothing more then a place for disgruntled office workers to air their beefs with Managers. When you have managers and executives such as Mr. Funkhouser, and Mr. Purves running amuck within Shell with such apparent disregard for the code of ethics and business principals that these two have displayed. Where else do people voice their contempt and displeasure in the hopes that Mr. Botts, Mr. Williams, or Mr. Voser might finally wake up and put a stop to their gestapo type and totally un-ethical behaviors? What other forums exist? Many of us have expressed these concerns to The aforementioned leaders of Downstream in emails with no response.
on Nov 23rd, 2009 at 14:20
Adolf Hitler and Royal Dutch Shell: I mentioned Shell
on Nov 23rd, 2009 at 12:14
John, it doesn’t say much for the credibility of this site that you allow contributors to pursue what are obviously personal vendettas against individual managers. The insinuation about Mr Funkhouser (stooping so low as to bring in his wife, who has nothing to do with Shell at all) indicates to me that for all your claims of providing a useful public service you are really just becoming the vehicle for unhappy office workers to pursue petty grudges, not a place for serious commentary about Shell.
on Nov 21st, 2009 at 21:37
Would be nice to know your background Mr. Salmon before trying to defend the woefully outdated requirements of the SEC. I believe that Iain Percival has also mentioned that the SEC move away from their rules for reserves replacement.
on Nov 20th, 2009 at 19:52
Mr.D, your article “Shell jobs restructuring mess” based on an “insider” is all fine and dandy, HOWEVER, why add the irrelevant (to THIS article) the bit about Adolf Hitler. I feel you should stick to the headline of the article as some who visit this site and are 50:50 Shell might think what has A.H. got to do with JGA/B job losses. Anyway, cronyism has been widespread in Shell (and other large businesses) for eons unfortunately. A clear example is Bichsel who loves nodding donkeys all around him.
on Nov 20th, 2009 at 17:33
Regarding the discussion on Open (i.e. behind closed doors) Resourcing, the cat was out of the bag already in July when Voser said “an interesting exercise because we could really select those we are keen on”. If ever there was an indication of selection based on “who you know rather than what you know” – this was it. In Voser’s e-mail to staff sent whilst Jeroen was actually still in charge he referred to a number of Shell “firsts”. In his next letter in similar vein, he may wish to consider including another first “the devaluation of the notion of open, fair internal resourcing based on skill, competence, capability, and track record of delivery”.
on Nov 20th, 2009 at 15:04
John
As a MOR applicant, I can confirm the number of lobbying and cronyism. Its so time consuming and wasteful. The telephone bills in the office would surely increase these few months. I hope there is no fatality or major safety incidents as almost all staff lost focus.
At the end of the day, it is the incumbent or those who has higher up “Friends” who get the job. Its who you know and not what you know! I am applying outside at the same time. If I get both , rest assured, I shall go. If I do not get a job outside, I stay till I get a job, how about that! In worst case, I get a Christmas bonus.
on Nov 16th, 2009 at 23:41
Musaint, we have news alerts set for Shell, not for any other oil companies. We published articles a year ago, which named Shell in connection with the Buncefield explosion e.g. accurately reporting that Shell faced related HSE charges. I assume that Shell
on Nov 16th, 2009 at 19:53
Might have missed it in the small print Mr. D., but, I did not notice any reference to Total being found guilty of the Buncefield disaster. I remember that a number of times you liked to link Shell in articles on this awful disaster, but, not when found innocent!!
Whilst I’m having a Victor Meldrew moment – I for one am absolutely pleased that Shell IT has been farmed out. I do not believe much has been lost with this move as Shell IT always thought that contributed to the bottom line however all they contributed to was their own bottom. For the most part they are / were lazy and self opinionated.
on Nov 16th, 2009 at 05:28
Does anyone know why Jeff Funkhouser would be meeting with Sabrina Cox, Motiva HSSE lead, in a secluded restaurant up in Beaumont, all by their lonesome? Jeff, eyes are everywhere dude. How would Heidi look upon this? Sabrina, tsk tsk.
on Nov 15th, 2009 at 17:59
Morale at the Convent site is at an all-time low. Job consolidation among the operators has really turned things topsy turvy. Again, I have to reiterate the credibility of the Shell/Motiva Core Values, or should I say, the lack of credibility to these hollow words?
Eliminating board jobs, where 2 operators have always been required should be viewed as a statement by Shell/ Motiva that they are more concerned about saving money than they are about worker’s safety.
And to prove it, they’ve located the new control house well away from the refinery’s blast zone…as well as the new administration office. Could it be that they value only certain lives?
If I had my way, I’d locate the admin. offices within a 50-foot perimeter of the units- then we’ll see how many operator jobs are abolished for the sake of money. I’ll bet their perspective would be a lot different in that case. I am ashamed that I accepted a staff position and have to wallow in the mud with these infidels!
on Nov 15th, 2009 at 14:52
Shellwaarbenjijnu – No argument from me! Obviously knowledge loss in EP is a much more worrying than IT (a background service function you wouldn’t normally even hear about). It’s perhaps even a shareholder issue.
on Nov 15th, 2009 at 11:02
IT4me – interesting post but in response to your point regarding “destruction of all that knowledge” my question is – so what’s different with the rest of the business? Shell is about to dispose of several thousands of staff with heads full of knowledge and in any case appears to have developed a view that development / preservation / dissemination of petroleum knowledge is of secondary importance in the great scheme of things. I have heard it said by disappointed recently retired Shell staff that the company has no interest whatsoever in enabling transfer of their knowledge to less experienced staff despite all the blah blah about the “big crew change”, loss of knowledge, etc. The reason given that of cost & contractor management. In terms of knowledge destruction then does that indicate a company which knows the cost of everything and the value of nothing?
on Nov 14th, 2009 at 20:43
IT OFFSHORING: AFTER THE GOLDRUSH
You might expect Shell IT people to bitterly resent their offshored rivals. The reality is more subtle. Many of those expecting to be replaced actually weren’t. They were quietly absorbed by the business, or re-engaged further up the food chain as “architects”, a new IT role which seemingly emerged just in time. Also, RDS was once 40% British and many Brits have an odd attitude to India – a lingering sense of guilt from the days of empire nicely caught by comic Alexei Sayle when he apologised for the massacre at Amritsar while ordering a takeaway curry. Offshoring may be India’s just reward.
When the goldrush started, there was immediate concern for Shell’s Business Systems. These depend a great deal on KNOWLEDGE held in people’s heads, a quirky Shell-specific mix of business/technical understanding gained over years. The CIO’s empire had never run Business Systems before, so did they even understand this ? Their answer was “KNOWLEDGE TRANSFER”. To this day, nobody knows how it works, yet all the “KT” boxes were ticked after just a handful of international phone calls. I suspected use of the “Vulcan Mind Meld”, but according to the Star Trek website, this requires face-to-face contact, which almost never happened.
These box-ticks anyway count for little, given the phenomenal offshore “churn” rates. Half of any Wipro/IBM team you put together today will be gone within 2-3 months. Insiders are now fearing the demise of “FASTER”, the cheap and effective publisher of Downstream Financials since around 1998. The knowledge needed to implement the annual structure changes in 2010-Q1 has apparently been lost.
Back among the marble palaces of Bangalore’s business district, trade continues despite the recession. A hotel-night here can cost USD 400, more than almost anywhere on the planet. Indian Offshoring is no longer cheap, and now depends on sub-contracting to China and elsewhere to keep prices down. In 2007, Wipro made the headlines and brought us full circle by announcing a new development centre in a low-cost location nobody had ever thought of, one where the inhabitants even speak pretty good English: Atlanta, Georgia !
Can we blame the CIO for not thinking beyond the goldrush ? Perhaps not, given so many other execs had the same idea. But the destruction of all that knowledge is another matter…
on Nov 12th, 2009 at 16:41
Not just Shell refusing Poppy Appeal collections. Also heard that Costa Coffee have refused at a number of their outlets.
on Nov 12th, 2009 at 15:52
Poppy Appeal.
Disgraceful. The Company should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves. Pathetic.
‘PC’ ness gone mad!
I served 21 Years dealing with Shell Company owned and Dealer forecourts and NEVER any trouble. Whoever thought this one up should be sacked immediately!
on Nov 11th, 2009 at 12:34
Joey D is starting to sound alot like our own gab meister, Mr. Jeff Funkhouser. Jeff can spin more yarn and lay it on more it thick than many, which says alot for a boy with no degree who has come up through the ranks with his main skill being to suck on to Tom Purves and then let everyone know he is connected. Not much of a talent if you ask me but works none the less with the big ego Tom has.
Speaking of Tom, sure see him over here alot. Is he just working for Motiva or does he still have responsibilities with Shell? He always seems to be parked between PAR and La. Hmmm
Tom, I’m watching you.
on Nov 10th, 2009 at 22:11
Well in Norco as many of you may or may not have heard, we have a glove policy that is different throughout the refinery. In Refining East Mr. Joey D (CAM)(Got here cause he has the gift of the gab not because of what he knows) decided that after someone burnt themselves on steam tracing that every operator in refining east has to wear the long cuff gloves. Not maintenance, just operations. This was done in an attempt to show upper management – hey look someone got burnt so I will make them operators where these long cuff gloves- In Refining East only that is (Why not make us wear Fire Fighting Gear when we are working an outside job). The site procedure was not changed and this is only applicable to operators in refining east. Now let me as you operators do work in the unit, but who does more in the unit… Maintenance right? Well they only have to wear work gloves. Over the past month or so it has been brought up to CTL’s and Mr. Joey several times by several employees that these gloves are causing a safety hazard. When climbing, the cuffs get caught in the ladder cages and caused a few near misses (operators almost fell down the ladder cage). Now the operators did not put in a FIM because FIMS of this nature puts a HUGE Mark on your forehead and you are looked at as a troublemaker. You will never get an assignment or be looked at as a good operator again. This is just one of many things Mr. Joey is doing in refining east that is bringing it back to the days of 4-5 years ago when no one wanted to work in the east. He says tell him what
on Nov 9th, 2009 at 18:31
Shell Media Release
The important words in the media release below are “We apologise”! Well done Shell!
“Having reviewed our policy and listened to customers, we are happy to immediately endorse collection boxes for the Poppy Appeal at Shell petrol stations.
We realise our customers have been upset by our original policy. We apologise.
Our policy for some years now has been to have no collection boxes on site. The main reason for the policy was to reduce the risk of robberies that sometimes occur at site and hence minimise on-site risks for staff and customers, as we take HSSE very seriously.
We support The Royal British Legion and the Poppy Appeal. We have collections in our offices. Furthermore we had already arranged with The Royal British Legion for a projection of poppies onto our building in central London to help publicise the Poppy Appeal.”
on Nov 9th, 2009 at 10:40
Reply to jlmfrance: Thanks for the kind words. For more information about the Poppy Appeal, click on the link placed at the foot of the Paddy Briggs article.
on Nov 9th, 2009 at 09:57
Paddy: well said, all your arguments are spot on. It proves the top of Shell has lost it completely.
on Nov 9th, 2009 at 09:41
Has Shell forgotten that many of their worldwide E&P operations are directly supported and protected by HM armed forces? In Nigeria, Brunei, Oman and Iraq, Shell’s operations are protected by the Gurkhas, SAS and military secondees. Shell’s E&P operations would be severely curtailed without their support.
on Nov 9th, 2009 at 08:46
Inasmuch as I enjoy reading your blog, it is sometimes difficult to understand.
Now, for example, what is is this poppy story all about? Could you post a small explanation for non UK readers please.
Thank you for your understanding and keep up the good work
on Nov 9th, 2009 at 08:05
Gl
on Nov 8th, 2009 at 11:18
SHELL IT’s ‘IDENTITY CRISIS’
One of the more intriguing IT projects running at the moment is “IAM” – IDENTITY and ACCESS MANAGEMENT. Shell has always had poor quality ‘people’ records. Identity Theft is all around us. So an idea now exercising senior minds is that that “Corporate Identity Theft” could become a reality.
Far-fetched? Remember that computer viruses started in science fiction. Many Shell people now work from home and never meet anyone face-to-face. Some have never even met their bosses. So “IAM” sounds like an idea whose time has come, and is perhaps even overdue. Could this even be chance to enforce a set of standards on ALL Shell systems ? Even those that persistently ignore them?
Reader, how did you know I was talking about SAP? And what have they done this time?
The “I” in IAM is for IDENTITY. Every new Shell SAP system creates its ‘people’ records from scratch. SAP is foreign to Windows, so its reconciliations with Active Directory (Who’s Who) are occasional and half-hearted, like 3rd world crackdowns on crime. Open SHELL PEOPLE and you see hundreds of identity errors. Open GSAP and you see sales figures for reps who left months ago. Escalate either and you are a troublemaker. Shell/SAP culture institutionalises poor data quality and low diligence. Nobody cares.
The “A” is for ACCESS MANAGEMENT. Walk into any Shell office with a laptop purchased 45 minutes earlier and you can access live SAP servers without a SMARTCARD. This arises because:
(i) Network security is turned off to allow Global Roaming, allowing foreign laptops in.
(ii) Smartcard protection itself only covers Windows systems.
(iii) The Shell/SAP community are ‘above the law’.
There is still a significant password barrier to overcome, but security standards the Group claims compliance with deem this insufficient. What’s more, this security hole has been there for the best part of a decade, known about and ignored. What we have instead is a ban on foreign laptops, effectively a sign on the chicken coop saying “No Foxes Please”.
Conclusions ? I would suggest that IAM is a good idea provided no SAP technology is involved because in Shell’s hands, it’s sloppy, insecure and ruinously expensive. And errm, guess what…
on Nov 7th, 2009 at 18:22
From what I hear while I’m out and about at Convent, the union members respect and appreciate their local chairman, Padu.
His dedication to his members is exemplary and his integrity should be envied by Motiva staff employees. Core values at Motiva is a joke! Respect for all and honesty/ integrity are all elements that have faded into oblivion. Management lies constantly and accuses the union leadership of creating disharmony. How can anyone with a fraction of common sense buy into this management bs?
My advice to hourly workers at Convent: Save your money and don’t get into a lot of debt because you will need it for the next contract negotiations…That’s when we draw the line in the sand with a STRIKE!
on Nov 6th, 2009 at 19:43
Someone wrote:(1): Is it true that Shell has invested heavily in downhole electric heating technology for heavy oil to the tune of at least $800 million plus the cost of mega licences in Canada, only to find that it does not work in practice? Is this another case of the technology lunatics running the asylum?
This should not surprise you. If they have ten projects they would like to put in and each project cost 5 million nbut they only have 20 million in their budget, they will spend 2 million on each project knowing none will work so they can get it in. Next year they will spend another 2 or 3 million getting the project to work because that comes out of the run and maintain budget and not the project budget.
on Nov 5th, 2009 at 12:58
Does anybody have any dirt to dish on two senior Shell so-called senior managers w*****. Im referring to Eric van der Meer(Retail whose only interest is his own career and two fingers to making the right business decision) and the other w***** Nicholas Chong (Supply & Distribution in Singapore (has a tendancy to falsify HE records when people get killed so he can keep his performance reviews relatively clean. The reason for asking is that both of these guys are up to their old tricks while the axe is about to fall on 5,000 of my colleagues. These buggers need to be front off the redundancy line … if only I had the power…
on Nov 5th, 2009 at 10:30
POSTINGS RECEIVED FROM “guesswho”:
(1): Is it true that Shell has invested heavily in downhole electric heating technology for heavy oil to the tune of at least $800 million plus the cost of mega licences in Canada, only to find that it does not work in practice? Is this another case of the technology lunatics running the asylum? (2): You would think that Shell Upstream being run by a facilities engineer (“TFA” Brinded) that they would get their major facility projects right. The major project track record over the last five years is abysmal – Bonga offshore Nigeria, Sakhalin Russia, Khashagan Khazakstan, even Harweel Oman all have huge cost blowouts totalling $billions and delays in both first production and in reaching plateau and country stakeholders dragging back ownership and control from Shell.
While project managers are getting shot, does no one on high realise that the system is broke, that Shell just cannot manage such projects as most of its senior people grew up in the low cost era 1987-2000 when very few of these projects happened.
When will it appoint managers who understand the business and not just how to climb the Shell ladder?
on Nov 5th, 2009 at 04:55
I am interested in Buying Canadian Refinery
Who can sell it to me.
I have a good relationship with Quebec Government in the past they have provided funding for Projects of over 2.2 billion dollars.
Please contact me
Roger Langille
Nicklan Resources Ltd
rglangille@gmail.com
on Nov 1st, 2009 at 23:24
First off…very interesting site, I enjoy reading the commentary. I am not a professional with a degree. Just a contract supervisor (Not for Shell) in good times and a lowly worker that worked for a wage through a contractor that has Shell work when times were not so good.
I am posting because although the commentary is interesting there seems very little of it that deals with the lowest rung on the Shell ladder; that being the workers who actually do the hands on work. It may or may not be interesting to some, but if anyone wants to know about how the average worker feels about Shells’ HSE program then read on.
Several months ago I had the opportunity to work on Shell jobsite. I was orientated and introduced to the 12 rules. It seemed like common sense and I agreed with them all. As part of our work proceedure a daily morning safety meeting is held and the crew submits Job Observation Cards. In my alternate work for other Oil entities I assumed that these cards would be for near misses or to point out opportunities to improve on worker well being or performance. One day at the morning meeting our Shell rep reiterated that the 50kmph rule on Shell operated road systems would be strictly enforced and any violators (meaning every single crew member in the vehicle would be terminated). A few days later I submitted a card that said: “I warned my driver that he should slow down as we could be terminated for going over the speed limit”. Within 2 hours that card was scanned and sent to the head office in this particular country and the word sent down was: Find out who was driving and terminate their employment. When asked by my foreman who it was I refused and offered my own dismissal instead. Long story short I remained onsite and never revealed who the driver was. At some point my ethics and my own moral judgement and experience in dealing with hazardous situations would not let me be the “rat“
As a crew (or team) we all agreed that the Job OB cards were to be considered “rat” cards and nobody ever took them, or Shell in general, seriously again. I was later told by my manager that Shell had a sit down meeting with them before the job started and stated that if an unsafe act or violation was corrected by a fellow worker that no further disciplinary action would be required. Well lo and behold we found out that Shells’ word doesn’t amount to much.
While I agree with the 12 rules, it is Shells heavy handed corporate management of their safety program that makes them the laughing-stock in the industry. The Shell reps I have seen have their hands tied and are constantly in fear of their position and untimately their jobs. As a contract supervisor I had heard of some ridiculous HSE strategies by the larger Oil Companies, but in my opinion Shell has one of a kind and it is not repected by the workers so how can it be a good one….
on Nov 1st, 2009 at 14:46
And like I told senior managers (much to their annoyance): SAP is like concrete, extremely flexible when it is in the mixing phase, zero flexibility after it has set. Companies like Aera adjusted their organisation to suit SAP, not the other way around. Not necessarily bad, but in the long term it wastes good money. The 10 billion dollar I estimated is money to SAP and the various consultants. The in house effort at least doubles that amount but is easily hidden.
on Nov 1st, 2009 at 13:30
Guest1, my apologies for the jargon ! I think the Herkstroter decision is interesting because 1994 is 15 years ago, a long time in the ephemeral world of IT. The ravenous SAP “BW” didn’t even emerge until 1998. So you might suppose that any decision taken back then has limited validity today, but the SAP habit seems unshakeable !
You also touch on a serious weakness of these big “lock-in” deals, the suspicion that senior people might hold shares in suppliers like SAP and Microsoft. I have no idea if this happens, but the scope for abuse is considerable. And, by the way, I would guess your USD 10 Billion is not far off !
on Nov 1st, 2009 at 11:20
Hello IT4me, I recognise all you state! Since Herkstroter decreed in 1994 that Shell would go completely over to SAP, he had no idea how it would pan out. (Perhaps he had shares in SAP? As a banker he had no scrupules. He even tried to push Shell out of Petroleum Engineering because ‘we have Schlumberger’. Only a minor coincidence his son worked for Schlumberger? I nearly start to digress in his extremely poor role in ING so will stop here). And nobody in Shell is willing to make an estimate of the costs todate or the benefits todate. I bet the costs are a magnitude higher than the benefits. And costs are tangible, I would not be surprised if Shell had spent more than $10 billion on SAP related nonsense alone over the past 15 years but perhaps IT4me can be more specific?), benefits much less so. It all appears very similar to what is happening in the Dutch politics. Some politicians want to know the cost/benefit of all the immigrants in this country. Other politicians want to be silent over this at all costs. The ‘silent’ majority who has a lot of common sense simply knows what it is. Just like in Shell. Your great posting would even be better without some of the specific jargon.
on Nov 1st, 2009 at 08:26
GSAP/GMPR: THE MARCH OF THE DINOSAURS
With COST-CUTTING now everywhere, where are the cuts in IT spending ? The ‘dinosaur in the room’ of Downstream IT has long been GSAP. Why after 5 years of heroic spending for such pitiful results has GSAP not been stopped ?
One reason is undoubtedly the “Star Wars” effect. But another factor may be that GSAP was a pet project of the current CIO Alan Matula during his Downstream days. Mr Matula has a fondness for IT ‘spectaculars’, vast schemes in which everything changes at once and nothing ever has any track record. Mr Matula is also something of a Dick Fuld, a man with whom disagreement is unproductive. So GSAP blunders on.
Ingenious ways are found to bury costs. One simple trick is pushing work into the future. Another is to manoeuvre difficult bits into the “Connected Application Portfolio”, the family of systems that GSAP was supposed to replace, but which is actually still growing. But the most flagrant example must surely be the “GPMR” system. GPMR was launched to provide a NEW layer of Management Information – except it wasn’t NEW ! GSAP was originally going to replace all the MI with fossilised reports, dramatically sweeping away an entire portfolio of “Legacy” systems (which were mostly working just fine, and something of an embarrassment to the strategy). The GSAP MI plan failed comprehensively, so GPMR is a disguised 2nd attempt. Lessons learned? No. A new approach? No. Another dinosaur? Seemingly.
If you must build Jurassic, then MI cries out for a Velociraptor: fast and adaptable ! Instead, we have the full T-rex, built around SAP BW. GPMR’s one innovation was a new package from Business Objects, recently acquired by SAP so a small opportunity to simplify supply. Brilliant ! Trebles all round ! BO XI was duly crowned as the new MI standard, just in time for the first project to discover that it didn’t work with BW. Nobody had checked, and there was no track record. As GPMR approaches its 2nd anniversary, hundreds of millions have been spent with little to show for it.
Is there any escape from this Strategic Disneyland ? We desperately need the CIO’s self-serving empire pruning back, and the business to re-assert control. Neither seems likely. Perhaps the estimable Paddy Briggs is right: this a good time to start selling Downstream !
on Nov 1st, 2009 at 01:12
Tom Pain, I agree with you if you you mean that it’s time to get rid of those staffers and managers who can polish a dog turd and sell it as a fine piece of art. Risk is that these people somehow still manage to hang on to their jobs, but I think we should give the new CEO a chance…
on Oct 31st, 2009 at 02:03
I went through the demeaning re-application process in 2004. Decide to take a package and leave.
on Oct 30th, 2009 at 22:05
After so many years of laying off others (which I realize is an unpleasant duty) your time finally comes. Can’t say I feel too sorry for you. You took care of your buddies and suck-ups as long as you could, now it comes down to them or you, or them AND you. What did you expect? Making work for your mangement buddies can only go on for so long. I dodged lay-offs for 15 years when the Dutch took over in the States before it finally caught up to me, so don’t expect too much sympathy for your poor “office floor atmosphere”. You middle managers must have known for a long time that there were too many of you for too few jobs. Of course this is a bad time to be kicked out into the real world, but no time is good. What goes around comes around.
on Oct 30th, 2009 at 14:35
John,
I dips me lid to you for your email to Voser yesterday; an accurate reflection (I believe) of the office floor atmosphere here in Perth. Damn right the comments contained in your message should be of concern. Last line of your email is a minor classic; it’d be funny if it weren’t so tragic…
on Oct 30th, 2009 at 00:38
I Have been reading the blogs regarding the poor workers on grade 5 and above having to reapply for there jobs. As one of the lower grade workers who has gone through this process 3 times in the last 5 years I actually agree with the way this is being handled. For many years it was the lower grades that always took the hit when jobs were culled.The management were never effected and were just moved to another position. Most of these jobs never really existed and were created to keep the “boys club” going.
As the song goes “Dont fear the reaper” its about time he came to shell.
on Oct 29th, 2009 at 22:25
Good letter John. To let everybody re-apply in order to get rid of only 5% of the jobs sounds like a ridiculous, and potentially self-destuctive solution for a (real) staff “over weight” problem. Most likely designed to spare some gutless leaders from having to tell the poorest performers face to face that they are selected for the cull. Bad news for 5% of course but at least you allow the other 95% to focus on their jobs.
on Oct 29th, 2009 at 17:16
John, your letter touches on a real concern. vd Veer tried to introduce a “business first mentality”. Peter Voser has managed in less than 3 months to change this to a selfcentred survival mode for most of the current Shell employees. Politicians and buddies clubs survive under the new HR recruiting policy of “no interviews”. I wish all my colleagues who have to post for their own jobs, all the best in these incredible stressful times.
on Oct 28th, 2009 at 17:28
Looking at Hayward’s achievements over the last two years at BP, it’s easy to see how he might just be the man who could turn Shell around…
on Oct 28th, 2009 at 02:40
WTF, what you speak of is true and happened. Brignac has done nothing and if you read what Padu put out, it covers all of this.
on Oct 27th, 2009 at 23:37
So glad to have found this useful informative, trust worthy site..
lets keep snapping at the heels of company’s and corporations and government’s who go about with no care of law, humanity, environments, people…….. greed, control, power are the true beliefs for the ruling rulers of this world.
IT NEEDS TO STOP
on Oct 26th, 2009 at 21:01
I read with concern that apparently the use of President Obama’s name might cause confusion? Here’s hoping people wouldn’t seriously think that it was the real man himself?
on Oct 25th, 2009 at 19:47
REPLY TO “PRESIDENT OBAMA”: The posting was not from Gale Norton but someone using her name. The person in question claims to have evidence relating to the U.S. investigation involving former U.S. Interior Secretary Gale Norton. Hence the use of her name, which unfortunately causes confusion, as your posting in the name of President Obama is also likely to do.
on Oct 25th, 2009 at 18:56
I wonder whether some people actually believe that figures in the public eye would reach out to a gripe-site to ask for advice and protection? Surely nobody would be taken in just because of the name the person used? Surely?
on Oct 23rd, 2009 at 18:37
Oi WTF read your first sentence – what does a “simple” E&P man (or even a refiner) make of that gobbledeegook?? Speeky plain English please so that more can enjoy your contributions!!
on Oct 22nd, 2009 at 18:07
Word on the street is Convents newest East A PTL (RB) may be fired due to breaking a makor SI during the H-Oil pitstop. Seems RB was in such a rush to save time that safety took a back burner and he told Ops to cut locks and chains off of isolation points instead of following the rules and unlocking the safety devices with the proper keys. Words is Jeff M found a pile of chain and locks on the slab and wanted to know why. Now will the uppers and Convent do the right thing, or will this be sweeped under the rug? Hate to see someone loose there job but this person is known to have the attitude that rules are not for him and he knows better than the ones making the rules. If they let this one go it will strengthen the others cases that where fired for breaking the cardnal rules.
on Oct 21st, 2009 at 15:37
Bill Cambell’s findings are applicable to large parts of the oil industry and are certainly not limited to the North Sea. Just a few years ago a shell senior HR manager proudly reveiled that 70% of all senior safety positions in Shell were filled by high potential candidates who had to do 2 years in HSE. Unfortunately high potential and competence are not linked, and the minority 30% competent professional HSE staff, have a hard time keeping the safety performance at a level that is more or less acceptable. The other 70% work hard re-defining incidents and updating statistics. And in the end we all got a nice big bonus in 2008 for our excellent TRCF performance…(just don’t ask questions and take the money please)
on Oct 20th, 2009 at 10:08
on Oct 20th, 2009 at 05:53
Gale Norton. Your best beat is to talk to a Lawyer who gives you protection. Any discussion with anyone else allows Shell to sue for defamation by obtaining emails and meeting notes which can not be held back. I advise all to seek legal counsel and not to trust non lawyers. Mr Donovan can not give you any “protection” as he has no legal rights in law to such.
on Oct 20th, 2009 at 01:27
REPLY TO “GALE NORTON”: Please contact me by email as suggested. I am sure you will be completely reassured with what I have to say. I look forward to hearing from you.
on Oct 19th, 2009 at 21:42
To Gale Norton: I have posted a few times on this blog and outside this blog I have had contact with the Donovans. Initially I was extremely careful and holding back. After meeting John I can tell you: have no fear!
on Oct 19th, 2009 at 19:48
Before taking that step John, can you please confirm that I will be plugging into an existing relationship where trust between you and the US authorities has already been established? That situation, if the speculation has foundation, would greatly encourage me, as does your reputation for protecting sources. There must be less risk in supplying evidence through you than trusting my security and future to US authorities with their own agenda.
on Oct 19th, 2009 at 19:16
“Nigeria offers ‘revolutionary’ oil deal to the Delta” – oh that the money would reach the coal face in the Delta!! Those of us that have worked there will readily realise that of the 10%, ALL 10%, will go to corrupt local officials and State Governors and their cronies. Meanwhile the likes of Shell will continue to pay milions & millions of US$ every year to communities who will (via the rebels, who I am sure are stirred into action by Government officials) still complain that Shell does nothing. Corruption in Nigeria is a cancer. Unfortunately it also is a problem within SPDC & SNEPCO.
on Oct 19th, 2009 at 16:26
REPLY TO “GALE NORTON”: I am of course very interested in what you are suggesting. You are welcome to email information to me via john@shellnews.net. Alternatively, for enhanced security, start a free hushmail account at hushmail.com and send your information to johndonovan@hushmail.com. It will then be encrypted. I think its best we continue this discussion by email.
on Oct 19th, 2009 at 11:59
John, love your site and your leaflets. I have seen your article about issues surrounding the award of oil shale leases, the hiring of Gale Norton and the current investigation. I have what may be important information but being a shell employee puts me into a hazardous situation, I am not protected by US whistleblower law. There is speculation here that you are the source of shell emails supplied to the investigators. Since I do not want to put myself in jepardy by supplying information direct, can I use you as a conduit to pass on evidence while retaining my anonymity?
on Oct 17th, 2009 at 19:14
I agree with you Guest1, but, there was / is always the proviso that you had served 27 years service so that you were able to maximize your pension. I also feel empathy with your comment on “difficult” people being forced out.
on Oct 17th, 2009 at 11:30
On the dirty little secret: Shell has always made allowance to preferentially remove older people (i.e >50) for two reasons. The first: it improved the age profile (traditionally the workforce was relatively old). And second, it was MUCH better for the incumbent as the redundancy package was much better if above 50. At least until a few years ago when a redundancy above the age of 50 was often seen as some form of early retirement. And the closer the incumbent was to retirement, the cheaper it was for the company and pensionfund too.
Yes, one could call this discrimination but the bulk of the staff was very happy to be discriminated in this way! Many times the redundancy was held up a while to enable the incumbent go over the 50 year line. What was much worse in my humble opinion was that in the ranking criteria ‘attitude’ started to play a very dominant role and was the vehicle to remove ‘difficult’ people. You know those people that were right but not politically correct. Or put the directors in a difficult spot. Now that I call genuine discrimination!!
on Oct 17th, 2009 at 00:01
Musaint… no waffle here, the only thing you probably couldn’t interpret was GT, which stands for Golden Triangle. The rest is just fact. Tom, we’re watching you.
on Oct 16th, 2009 at 09:09
REPLY TO INTERESTED: We have not contacted the LA Times or the US authorities in relation to the Gale Norton matter. The LA Times contacted us.
on Oct 16th, 2009 at 09:01
“Unloveable Shell, the Goddess of Oil” – why are you now digging up age old news items (in this case from that lousy left wing paper). Surely there is more recent articles both in favour and not with Shell activities?! And, whilst on my soap box, can I again request the contributers such as “norcoproud” write so that more of us can understand some of the pseudonyms etc. I’m sure there might be something relevant “norcoproud” but I can’t see through the waffle.
on Oct 16th, 2009 at 08:54
Mr Donovan, you confirmed that the Los Angeles Times had been in contact with you regarding the Gale Norton scandal. I also read the recent postings about the Shell emails you supplied to the Russian government which cost Shell its ownership stake in Sakhalin2. Have you also supplied Shell internal information to the US government relating to the Norton scandal?
on Oct 16th, 2009 at 08:51
Ref. “The dirty little secret of Shell’s reorganization” – I can very well believe that age has / does play a part in choice of candidate. I know for a fact (as I was involved with it) that in the reorganizations / redundancies of 1999 & 2001 age most certainly was a criteria that we had to include in the ranking of all staff.
on Oct 14th, 2009 at 00:18
Dear norcoproud,
Thanks for the response. I had already similar about Motiva. Though it seems, many folks in Norco will not have a choice – if the rumors are true, it would become an all or mostly Motiva site. I am interested in seeing how the site consolidation plays out.
on Oct 13th, 2009 at 18:44
What really irritates me about the Amnesty International call for action in the Niger Delta is the fact that there is no mention of the 70% partner in all the onshore operations – namely the Nigerian Government. We all know Shell could do better in Nigeria – but I am getting sick and tired of all the campigns that just target Shell – the operator, but NOT majority shareholder in the Niger Delta – that is NNPC – the Government owned oil company!
on Oct 13th, 2009 at 12:23
JohnDoe, I would recommend that you do not even think about Motiva. Firstly, it is cash strapped with all the money they are throwing into Port Arthur. They can spin the news stories like the recent one here all they want. The bottom line is they had lost control of the project due to inept leadership of Forrest Lauher and his team to keep it in control. The project was almost cancelled and now it moves forward on an “adjusted timeline”. Only because Uncle Tom sold the Saudis on an 8.5B project instead of 7B. My sources tell me it is not a penny less than 9-10B. Albeit with a new project director.
The leadership in Motiva is weak. The 3 stooges who are plant managers have been covered here already. No “upside” with this group. Forrest “Lie”her deserved to get fired and only got to stick around because he knows the Uncle Purves and is his little boy, actually roomed with him for awhile and on weekends still does at the lakehouse. You have Brignac, who is just in over his head. And you have Hermie, nice guy as pointed out,…but cmon. Hermie only has a job because he worked with Uncle Purves as a peer over in the gold old GT area and got saved when Huntsman dumped him.
You got Uncle Tom Purves, the biggest liar of them all driving the ship. This man is juts down right dirty and has no ethics, he is a control freak who thinks everyone else who doesn’t follow his lead are “idiots”, and oh by the way has never delivered results anywhere he went. Just look at the scoreboard of any site he went to. Never delivered a dime. Yet somehow he moves up.
Peace and the rest of the clowns supporting Tom are just jokes.
Stay where you are until Shell senior execs fix the leadership problems in Motiva.
on Oct 13th, 2009 at 04:26
Dear all,
What do you make of working for Motiva as opposed to Shell? I am looking for differences in culture, differences in leadership and overall viability, and differences in opportunities for career progression. Can anyone weigh in?
on Oct 12th, 2009 at 17:59
Dear Mr Wiseman can you please let me know if Shell used asbestos in their coal gasification plant in Dong Ting. If yes, did Shell decided to remove the asbestos (providing a safe working environment) or did Shell decided for cost reasons to take no further action? Who will take care of the asbestos during operation and maintenance?
on Oct 10th, 2009 at 21:40
Following on from the post by Iain Percival the observation by Peter Voser in an address at the Woodrow Wilson International Centre for Scholars on the (implied) importance of petroleum engineering is of interest “Improved oil recovery rates also will be increasingly significant, he predicted.
on Oct 10th, 2009 at 17:47
I am somewhat bemused by the fact that although Shell has always been regarded as an industry leader (at least internally!) that so many of the key jobs are being taken by folks from outside who are not career Shell. Those that particularly come to mind are the top PE and Drilling positions, Daly came from XOM in 2006, and Sharpe from a position as a consultant in the late 80′s I believe. As you look across the EC-2 positions the number of folks with 10 years or less with Shell is staggering. We are either a) Clearing house of the old empires, or b) we are unable to fill these positions with candidates of a suitable level from within shell. Either way not particularly reassuring.
on Oct 10th, 2009 at 07:24
Iain’s article captures not only the PE community’s concerns. I wish we had such a strong advocate and champion in my discipline. Unfortunately in my area you only make promotion and VP jobs if you know how to handle mirrors and blow white smoke (and of course the creative adaptation of definitions also helps ..). When vd Veer told the investment community that the Reserve issue was the only optimistic reporting problem in Shell, I couldn’t stop laughing for two days! Anywhere you look in Shell there is “optimistic” reporting, in HR, IT and of course HSE!
on Oct 9th, 2009 at 15:46
dutchdude – and your real point is………?
on Oct 9th, 2009 at 11:59
At the working level there are no problems between Americans and those from across the pond, it is just that management from both sides, including Brits and other continental managers, have a terrifying lack of knowledge how to run a business. I am willing to bet that 90% of them would not even be able to run a dry-cleaner with profit. Let alone understand how to operate a washing machine and what the true cost of detergent is. Too much time is spend in nice conferences and workshops…when was the last time any of them visited a construction yard or production site in earnest (say for a week or so)and actually got oil on their hands….
on Oct 8th, 2009 at 23:34
Uncle Tom… A very simple analysis you make. Yet if that was the full truth, we might be able to live with it. The reality is your true Unlce Tom has used the guise of market conditions and need for competitiveness to “rid” the house of people that actually had a head on top of the shoulders and knew what they needed to do. When it wasn’t in the same controlling direction that TP wanted, he writes them off as “idiots” and moves to replace them. It is well know all the way back to his tracks at WR when he got his first big job, he wanted total control and is willing to undermine his direct reports to get it by going around them to their direct reports. Then up from the ashes come the likes of Funkhater and Hartsock who haven’t a clue other than to satisfy the controlling one. He then rewards them all the while eliminating the true leaders under his wake
on Oct 8th, 2009 at 22:21
What is very clear from the comments below is that both RDS and Shell Oil sustained significant damage from the efforts to merge their incompatible cultures. Perhaps this has even been understood by the people who are now trying to reorganise Shell on the basis of distinct entities for the Americas and the rest of the world. The question is whether it is too little, too late.
on Oct 8th, 2009 at 21:49
Shellwaarbenjijnu: Well said, I could not have improved on your post!
on Oct 8th, 2009 at 21:30
Well the ways of “Hitler Heidi” are back in Refining East at Norco from what I am hearing. Evelio put a stop to that when he took over and let the operators operate and the CTL’s be CTL’s. Joey already put a stop to that. He is “MICRO MANAGING” the department just as Heidi did (the only way he knows). He is doing what he always does, talks to the Engineers before meetings, and brings back what they say to the big meetings and says it like he actually thought of it…. YEAH RIGHT JOEY… You are not that bright! He also is doing what he did best at Norco “LIE” straight to your face. That man can lie with the best of them. He is also a good smooth talker. That is why he is in the position he is in, He has the gift of gab if you will. Hopefully this will not last long now that Anne Marie is gone. She was his only backer and he knows it. No one else in the plant likes him and it is surely showing. Hopefully with the shake up in upper management they will see what an IDIOT Joey is and how he is not deserving of the position he holds. Maybe Hermie knows Joeys past and will take care of it before the new leader comes in or the new leader will take care of him when he gets in. In closing, keep lying Joey, it will definintely catch up with you.
on Oct 8th, 2009 at 20:19
Uncle Tom – you are obviously an American to make such a comment about the arrogant Dutch taking “you” down the tube. History will record that the robust, strong, technically superior RDS was totally derailed by the Americanisation of the company as a quid pro quo for the buying out of the remaining Shell Oil stock in the 1980′s. The dreadful “transformation” of Shell was driven by Shell Oil parented personnel who brought in the short termism and such nonsense as Kotters “7 Habits of Successful people” and Senge’s “5th Discipline”. True insights such as those of Charles Handy were not only discouraged, they were essentially banned. Almost overnight Shell was turned away from being a successful technically strong company functioning on a core of motivated, loyal employees, a long term vision and core beliefs to being a Enron Wannabee. Many of us who had grown up in Old Shell were appalled by the arrogance, hubris, hype, hypocrisy and crass greed of the new breed of colleagues who were focused on one thing only – the end of year merit rise and bonus. Ridiculous and unsubstantiated claims on performance were the norm – a far cry from the modesty, even humility of the traditional RDS employee. The seeds of the what became the proved reserves issue were sown at that time. So please Uncle Tom reserve the word arrogant for the Americans who truly believed that they and only they knew about the oil business and had to come over to teach the hapless, ignorant Europeans what to do and how to do it. The once strong company has never recovered from the insights and assistance foisted upon it during the transformation years and, as you put it, has been going down the tubes ever since.
on Oct 8th, 2009 at 14:03
My comments on a few things . . . .
I like this website, its amusing to read as time permits.
Its full of facts, fiction, lies, gripes, belly aching, and some revealing details about people in Shell and Motiva that they thought no one would ever know about. Amusing!
Fact #1
Since the arrogant Dutch took over command of Shell USA some years ago, we starting going down the tube. If you work with many Dutch people in Shell, you will soon realize that they think they own the Company and rules are not made for them, but for everyone else. I watched them discriminate, lie, cheat, and steal from the Company because they (because they were a Dutch employee) owned the Company.
Fact #2
3rd World Countries, wise up. Shell is there because you are cheap, and that
on Oct 8th, 2009 at 11:59
We all know why Anne Marie left. Tom Purves had a vendetta out against her because he thought she was the link to his old boss. Elsenhans never respected Purves and he knew it. So in typical Tom fashion, he used the Funkhouser to undermine what Anne Marie was trying to do at Norco. She finally learned how to accept it and just live with what she had. I guess she finally got tired enough of the disrespect she got from Tom. So now Tom really has his Motiva team set…. the A team….. We have Lost in the Forrest Lauher at PAR( and trust me, he is lost), Convent has the Purves child David Brainiac, and now Norco has the interim site manager Mr. Hermie Bundick. Last time we saw Hermie over here in the Golden Triangle, he was getting run off by Huntsman because of the plant explosion in 2007. Now that is the A team….. of course don’t forget the bench…. Jeff Funkhouser( wonder how he is doing in China or if he even was able to get a passport) and the bag carrier Jim Hartsock…. watching pipe modules from his little old home in St Louis….. I wonder what the boys in St Louis think of Hartsock now….. Big time Jim…..
Tom, you suck. And I’m watching you.
on Oct 8th, 2009 at 07:22
Thanks “
on Oct 6th, 2009 at 22:51
EXTRACT FROM A SUNOCO PRESS RELEASE: Sunoco also said that Anne-Marie Ainsworth would rejoin the company as Senior Vice President, Refining, effective November 2, 2009. Ainsworth most recently served at Motiva Enterprises LLC, as General Manager of the Motiva Norco Refinery in Norco, Louisiana.
on Oct 2nd, 2009 at 20:06
Maybe you can ask Mr Wiseman if Shell is still using asbestos in new plants or have they banned these kind of practises (all according the SGBP).
on Oct 2nd, 2009 at 10:58
….. and so the good news (for other IOCs) continues. BP announces the 19th deep water hit in deep water Angola. Where is the Shell name associated with adding reserves from real exploration and appreciating material volumes from real petroleum engineering? It would make such a refreshing change from the association with scandal – real or imagined.
The core issue is touched on by ex-insider in his observations on Botts. He is typical of the men in charge now. It’s all talk (US inspired “MBA B/S” which is bringing Shell to its knees. He is the one who announced the 25 mln pound global centre to be built at Tullos, Aberdeen. He was the one who talked up the mythical “yet to be produced” 25 bln barrels from the North Sea at Offshore Europe in 2007. The first vanished as quickly as it came, the second lives on as a silly pipe dream of those (like Botts) who confuse hydrocarbon molecules in the subsurface with “reserves”. In addition, he has bequeathed a legacy of over promoted yesmen to Shell whilst causing competent staff to resign in disgust. He was one of the worst “my way or the high way” types (and there is a lot of competition for the title “worst”) ever to have been visited on the company.
on Oct 1st, 2009 at 14:53
Interesting topics.
on Oct 1st, 2009 at 11:47
I find some of these blog-comments about petroleum and reservoir engineering quite interesting. As I reported in my last issue, TAQA expressed great hopes at the Pelican field where recovered reserves to date have been just 11% of reserves in place. Although it seemed surprising at the time, reading these comments puts it all in perspective.
Anyone with any other comments can send them directly to sen@btinternet.com
on Sep 30th, 2009 at 21:45
In jan 2006 Botts stated EPE was a cash engine for the Group. Strange that with much higher oilprices Expro will be posting quite a loss this year. Could it be that his policies have not achieved what he wanted? This is bad news for the Downstream which he can go and wreck now. And only 2-3 years ago McFadyen was telling all the british politicians how much Aberdeen would grow with their unique skills and talents and therefore we needed another building of 25 million pounds. That also has been quenched in the meantime. Could it be that our leaders suffer from a lack of vision? Could it be they prefer delusional targets and hollow words? I believe so. Expro people better watch out for their jobs. McFadyen and Botts have looked after themselves and forgotten about the masses.
on Sep 29th, 2009 at 22:19
Yes Anne Marie did a great job. I am just wondering what Joey D will do now that she wont be there to suck up to her every minute of the day. Yall all know that he did get the job with NO DEGREE and that when he was in operations he had TONS of trouble qualifying on any job that he trained on. By the way all of you complainers out there if you think it is that bad just LEAVE already, I did it and LOVE BEING OUT! The grass is greener and very fluffy if you were wondering!
on Sep 26th, 2009 at 15:45
Outsider: well spotted! In Henry’s presentation he mentions a 5% decline from existing fields. This is hope over reason. Just look at viewgraph 8 of the famous overpromise-underdelivery presentation in 2000. I am sure you can get hold of a copy. In those days the decline of existing oil assets was 10% per year and this was based on very detailed and thorough work by professionals.
If anything, the decline will now be steeper because Shell has trained and developed people good at behavioural skills and preferably working in finance or HR and much less in the mundane fieldmonitoring and dreadful reservoir engineering. That is something the service contractors will do for us. (Remember that Jennings was of the opinion HR meant Human Remains, a scandal ensued and he apologised. But we were all wrong and he was right!!!).
So, if Henry thinks we will decline by 5%, this means gasassets are infinite and will not decline. Therefore I humbly suggest Simon to go speak (or more important, LISTEN) to some reservoir engineers who will explain it slowly to him. These should be reservoir engineers who are close to retirement and have nothing to fear. There should be one or two left… And don’t tell Brinded you spoke to a reservoir engineer because he might blow a fuse!
Couple all this highly optimistic forecasting (other people might call it lies) to the recent inability of Shell to deliver on major projects and the 3.25 mln boe/day becomes very dodgy.
No doubt we will be following the production endeavours of Shell on the Donovan site.
on Sep 26th, 2009 at 14:24
How much did Shell pay Bloomberg to misquote their production forecasts?
It is unbelievable that two of Bloomberg’s journalists have put out a story, reprinted around the world again and again, which is completely false. Shell’s own forecast in the Deutsche Bank presentation is that they will be producing 3.2 MMBOE/day in 2012, while BP expect to produce 4.1 MMBOE/day.
Shell overtaking BP? I don’t think so. Some of the articles even attribute yesterday’s increase in Shell’s share price to the claim that Shell will increase their production by 30% – could it be that someone is deliberately trying to manipulate the share price?
on Sep 25th, 2009 at 23:31
Anne Marie, you did good. We will miss you. At the same time, we here knew this was coming if you read the “tea” leaves. Tom Purves in the last few months has replaced the GM at Port Arthur( Monnette) with his buddy Forrest Lauher, he has allowed his buddy Jeff Funkhouser to run rampant here at Norco while Anne Marie had to protect her job by giving in and letting Jeff run the show. You obviously have read all the posts about Jeff. Bottom line, he is no good. Tom then moved Jeff into Port Arthur to as Jeff says put a fork in it. People get wise to Jeff and then he mysteriously needs to go overseas and help on the Houdini start-up for an olefins plant that the Funk has no clue how to run. Hmm, how does that work? Tom brings Brainiac in at Convent and we all see the mess that he has created there almost daily. David, you sent out any emails lately? And now Anne Marie has left the company.Anybody want to guess why?Is HR tracking the impact this guy is making across his region? or are they allowing him to run amuck via GG. Tom, you are really making a difference. Wait until the formal complaints start happening. Tom, there is alot out here that people know and will come forward with if the company shows it will act. You stink Tom and you know it.
on Sep 25th, 2009 at 19:28
I see Downstream assets in greece are for sale…following on from the imminment sale of same in New Zealand. Paddy Briggs I think is right…Shell is slowly getting out of the Downstream business.
on Sep 25th, 2009 at 09:50
Outsider: your remarks are right on the money! If you have heard lies for many years, why should you trust them suddenly now? Any company embarking on those major projects would be keeping technical staff. Voser et all are just hoping the shareprice will go up based on hard cost cutting and nice stories.
on Sep 25th, 2009 at 07:53
The Bloomberg article of September 25th seems to echo a very familiar concept from the Watts/Enron era – promises, promises and more promises. But where is the additional production promised by Brinded repeatedly over the past few years? A remarkably prescient presentation entitled “Overpromise and Underdelivery” was published on this site a few years ago. We seem to be repeating the process. Shell is shedding staff precisely because it does not have enough projects to justify current staffing levels. In the medium term a lack of development projects can only lead to a decline in production.
on Sep 24th, 2009 at 21:31
Nice hoax on the Pectina Devastatis!
But do not forget it was true then and it still is true today! And history always repeats itself, also in Shell.
Remember the heady days in the early 2000s when Reservoir Engineers were deemed to be a bunch of overly conservative
intellectuals and evil Watts and his bully boys were going to sort them out and teach them what ‘real’ business
meant. The process of rewarding promise and penalising realism was implemented with great vigour. We all know what
happened next. Watts fired in disgrace but with a handsome pension. Huge fines by the SEC etc.
One would hope we had learned from this. But not so. Of late bad man Bichsel is sending out his hit squads to all
operating units to sort out those same stupid Petroleum Engineers who are not increasing the reserves quick enough.
Threatening language is used and this just before there will be mass redundancies. This will make many reservoir
engineer more open to suggestions from on high. Naturally all looked upon with approval of very bad man Brinded. No
written instructions, they have learned…..
And it will work to a certain extent because the formal reserves reporting is solidly in the hands of lawyers who
have no clue and only insist on a piece of paper -preferably 1 A4 – stating that the reserves might be higher and
signed by anybody. This signature is important to pass blame sometime in the future.
The exodus of the younger and better petroleum engineers is now in full swing and there is hardly anyone left to put
the brakes on. Until the next scandal breaks.
on Sep 24th, 2009 at 13:12
Just a comment on Insiders post: I attended a meeting with an EC-2 appointee, and his comments were directly 180 degrees from what we had been given to understand about the staff reduction. His comment was that ALL Contract positions were 100% safe, and 100% of the staff reductions would come from Shell Staff. Quite a change from what we had heard previously….
on Sep 23rd, 2009 at 13:39
Having seen all the EC-1 and -2 appointments and from many discussions I have with colleagues, it has become clear to me that Voser and Brinded et all want to get rid of critical thinking people in general and Petroleum Engineers in particular, i.e. just the people who have know-how on essential matters such as reserves and production forecasting. The reserves reporting is now solidly in the hands of lawyers so easy to manipulate for Brinded. The overoptimistic production forecasting, a great hobby of our beloved and surpreme leader in Upstream, will now go unchallenged by people with genuine know-how.
Mr Percival wrote a while ago he had full confidence in the technical capability of Petroleum Engineering in Shell. I am curious if he is about to change his mind.
And as Shell goes deeper in dept and the gearing goes up, the rating can only go down. It is very obvious that Voser is trying to sell off Shell in bits and pieces to prop up his cashflow.
Anyone out there taking bets on how long Shell will exist?
on Sep 22nd, 2009 at 00:51
First off Nomad comments are ridiculous! There are alot of people at convent that might not like Todd, but he is ther to help us. He and Padu are NOT fighting! He is not campaigning against Padu. Sounds to me like “NOMAD” is a salary person posting comments on here to try and stir things up!( oh i forgot they dont do things like that ) I sure hope that the other people at convent do not believe the trash that some people say. Your Brother at Motiva!
on Sep 21st, 2009 at 18:27
Nomad, As for the Obama thing, Yes, unions did get him elected. I never said everything the Union does is correct, sometimes they do things some of us don’t agree with just like the company. The union is a democratic organization and it wouldn’t have mattered whom the warm body in that position would have been, the Union would have endorsed them. But that is exactly the power they have when they unite! If everyone pulls together, things will happen on our terms.
As far as the other comment about our committee, You have to realize that the union belongs to us, the workers. Not to our elected leadership. They are like other elected officials, they are here for us. No matter what they are doing among themselves, this is our union.
Lastly, I will never give up, if we roll over, do you really think you would still work here? Our wages and benifits would be no better than a burger flipper( no offense to anyone). Every company, which meets together every year or so, would start dropping pay rates and benifits.
Friend, you can roll over and give up, but its people whom stand up and fight who made the workplace what it is today. I stand for something,I will not roll over like a spinless jellyfish. I have morals and ethics, I know right from wrong, I will continue my cause to make my company one which I enjoy to work for.
I hope I didn’t offend you because this was not an attack on you, only I was stating my position on everything going on.
Motivaman for president!
on Sep 20th, 2009 at 00:42
Reply to “Interested”: Given our reputation as a source of inside information about Royal Dutch Shell, it would be surprising if the Los Angeles Times had not contacted us about the Gale Norton situation.
on Sep 19th, 2009 at 23:29
The LA Times broke the Gale Norton story. Mr Donovan, has the newspaper been in contact with you recently on the subject?
on Sep 19th, 2009 at 03:02
For MotivaMan in Convent. Give up, brother. The so-called union at Convent Refinery is dead. How can you truly expect the membership to “unite” when the Vice-Chair is undermining the hard work of the Chairman? It is no secret Todd desires to become Convent’s next Chairman, and he is actively campaigning and working against Darrell in order to get the job. Unity starts at the top. When the Committee can unite, maybe the membership will unite. Unlikely to happen because as you stated, no one cares unless they are directly affected.
Next, I would like to comment on your Obama health care statement. When YOUR president obama (bought and paid for by the unions) creates an opportunity for our company to “get out of the insurance business”, please look into the mirror for someone to blame. The unions helped in no small part to install barry as the prez. Now the unions should lay quietly in the beds they made and take everything the democratic party has to offer.
Now I have to ask. Where should an employee turn for direction and support. Our company has made it very clear that it does not care about its employees. The union is busily squabbling amongst itself (membership and committee). Our company and union are at each others’ throats. Maybe, just maybe, if we all focused more on the jobs we were hired to perform, Convent may actually stay in business.
Somtimes we may have to juct eat the turd sandwich in order to continue providing for our families.
MMM…tastes good.
on Sep 18th, 2009 at 18:22
Now with the most senior Malaysian WYH leaving the company, (more will be leaving), Shell has chosen another high potential Malaysian MAT to be MD in Shell Malaysia EP. He has no executive power whatsoever. His main task is to help Shell explain its policy and actions to Petronas and Government. The other Expat VPs are all hiding behind the scene in Singapore.
Shell- Remember it is no longer the colonial days. We have been patient long enough. We also like to remind Malaysians- do not be used as puppet only. Malaysian Bolih!!!
on Sep 18th, 2009 at 08:29
I don’t understand why it is so difficult to prove madam Norton is guilty as hinted. Shell must keep records and it is absolutely certain that somewhere on some harddisks there is email correspondence of discussions with and/or about madam Norton. Those emails will have a date. And only corrupt lawyers (most of them) and corrupt politicians (all of them) will find incomprehensible prose to point out why she is totally honest…. But somehow I still have hope they will get her in the end. Maybe time to also go look into the records of Hofmeister, he must have been involved too.
on Sep 18th, 2009 at 00:41
LOL Shellwaarbenjijnu! I learnt enough dutch in my 5 years at NAM to get your drift. The point I was making was that eventually nearly anyone with the real explorer mentality in the GoM (yes there were a few left!) finally got fed up with the “ant fucking” you rightly refer to and walked. Not pursuing prospects like Tiber, where we actually owned a slice, was a typical “last straw”. Shell explorers can be divided into two fundamental groups: a small one, that has discovered oil & gas, and a large one (including most of the new EC2/3 folks) that has not.
And Rajasthan was sold for US$7mln (not 10mln pounds)!
on Sep 17th, 2009 at 16:51
Whatever about that lady’s culpability I think we will be waiting a very long time before seeing Shell make ‘hundreds of billions of dollars’ from oil shale. The world leaders in oil shale technology – Estonia- who generate 80% of their power by this means – are having to shut down their whole industry by 2016 on pollution grounds. Scotland closed its last oil shale refinery – back in 1963!
on Sep 17th, 2009 at 16:25
The decision to give Rajastan away was given during the Parsley reign. Both he and Wildig didn’t have the balls to progress much beyond the first exploration well. Why a unsupportive and weak character as Wildig (a PE through & through) ever got involved with exploration decision making beggars belief. I do agree that Bichsel is a waste of space as an explorer and should have been retired years ago or parked in Siberia.
on Sep 17th, 2009 at 13:48
ah Wooble – you mean world class explorers in the vein of blundering Bichsel (he who gave away the Rajastan potential to partner Cairn for a reported “massive”
on Sep 17th, 2009 at 10:38
The irony of shale oil is that the energy required to extract the oil is comparable to the energy contained in the fuel produced, the environmental implications are horrendous, and the requirements for water far exceed what is available. The only reason that Shell pursued shale oil was that it was perceived as a quick fix to their reserves shortage…
on Sep 17th, 2009 at 09:17
Interesting site! I finally left Shell last year after a >20 year (mostly) satisfying career. Now I hope and pray for the sake of my pension that things can be turned around. After the reserves crisis there were so many oversight committees, decision review boards (that’s a laugh itself), value assurance reviews etc., etc., that it failed to be fun any more to be a senior experienced professional wanting to apply experience and skill to solve problems and move business forward. I watched in EP Americas as the whole leadership of the Gulf of Mexico exploration group walked out one after another, mostly true geologists and explorers who could no longer stand to be micro-managed and second guessed by Dave and his cronies. Not many will be aware that Shell owned a slice of BP’s Tiber prospect (announced alst week as a giant discovery), I don’t know whether it was sold or given away, but the team that bought it was heavily criticized by the “new management” in any case for buying the prospect in 2006.
on Sep 17th, 2009 at 02:26
Norco Scum, hopefully your wish will come true. From what we can see her at Port Arthur, he seems to be packing some duffle bags and heading out the back door on 73 to go to Singapore to “help” out with some start-ups in Far East. According to the Funk, he will then move through the Kingdom and help SRI as well. All of this extra work for the boy that was planted in here by Purves to undermine the past GM and help get his foothold in place. Tom then found him a cush jobon the CEP as he was going to be the start-up and commissioning manager for CEP. Only to see him as a JG A have 1… let me repeat 1 direct report. I guess when the news about the real Jeff Funkhouser began to come out from Norco posts and the posts of our own inside Port Arthur, the brass may have felt like a little time away would help Jeff and more importantly help them quell the rumors. Jeff, enjoy yourself overseas. Hopefully it is a one way ticket! Tom Tom, you are a joke dude. I’m just waiting for Hartsock to be commisisoning manager next.
on Sep 17th, 2009 at 00:11
Regarding the “Jo Blow” comments on Tom Purves’ note of 8-29 and the Norco site integration, I agree completely with his analysis. The integration should help advantage Norco’s cost structure and chance for ultimate survivability and profitability. And it is also true that in this economic environment there will be some harsh realities that some have had to face and more will have to face in the next few months.
However, the devil is always in the details and the process used to determine who will stay and who will go. And this is one of my concerns – the process to be used and the politics that will play out. The last round of cuts identified were passed through Jeff Funkhouser. Whether it was for his concurrence, his comments, whether the list was revised basis his input/direction, etc., I don’t know. But having him involved will always make the personnel decisions suspect.
Jeff has his own “enemies list”, so one could logically assume that he could punish these people through the next round of reductions. It could take either of two forms. First, those that were not ready to leave but were or will be told to do so anyway and find employment elsewhere. Second, those that want to leave and an incentive package would make it possible for them, but he knows it and won’t allow them to get the incentive.
I don’t know the answer here, but hopefully the next round will be voluntary and not leave the doubts re: his involvement.
on Sep 16th, 2009 at 19:04
Whilst in a moaning mood, I also wish to say that I am aghast at the comments written by Bichsel (the prime prat of Shell) when he yet again compliments and pushes forward the new reorganization of 2009. I remember the git doing likewise with the van der Vijver led change of 2003. His support of this 2003 “initiative” was incredible – terms like “all exploration managers will be hot-wired at the hip” (his hip that is) almost destroyed exploration at the coal face. I also remember sitting next to the man in 1993 prior to changes then and he was “very supportive” of these! I think he is the prime example of a Shell nodding donkey. These changes in Shell remind me of Mao Tse Tung who felt change / persecution was necessary every few years in order to stay in power.
on Sep 16th, 2009 at 18:46
Some of these blog writers don’t half go on about American issues rather than some of the bigger issues. Some of the acronyms (e.g. from “scapegoat”) make the story they are trying to put across as total gobbledegook. Use terms we can ALL understand.
on Sep 16th, 2009 at 18:41
Paddy, hope that now you are one of the Trustees of the pension fund you can help some of the poorer members and change the unfair methodology of how they calculate / fix the annual increases. Using the BoE / Govt. index for the cost of living is unacceptable as almost every analyst agrees that this is way below what retired / pensioners have to use.
on Sep 16th, 2009 at 03:41
I want to post my feelings to all of my union brothers and sisters, mostly at Convent but also to all the Motiva sites.
Brothers and sisters, I attend my union meetings and sit there and look around. The same 30 people attend every month.
Brothers and sisters we need to wake up. We at Convent have a membership meeting every month. It is easy to remember the day, it is always the first Tuesday of every month. At Norco it is the third Tuesday.
Earlier this year we ratified a new contract. Some of you didn’t even read it, but voted for it. Yet you sit there every day and whine and complain about it. Shut up, its what the membership wanted, even if a few of us knew what it really was. I don’t blame you, it is our heritage. We along the river are all very friendly and most of us would give our shirts to help others. Some of us came from poverty and had to rise up to get the job we have. We love to ride in our new cars and have our big houses and all our other materialistic things. Some do not want to rock the boat and some think that they are lucky to have a job. Some just want to do the best for their employer.
Some people never go to THEIR monthly meeting, but show up only to ratify a sub par contract. You might as well stay home then too!
You did not read anything or attend any meetings during the year.
People we need to wake up, You need to go be an active member of YOUR union.
In a perfect world we would not have a need for a Union. Employer/Employee relationships would be wonderful and we would all be treated fairly and just! We do not live in a perfect world. Think about it, if you owned a company, wouldn’t it be to make money? Wouldn’t you try to reduce your costs to increase profitability? If you say no, your friggen stupid. So why wouldn’t Shell/Motiva do the same?
Every day that goes by, management is in their offices figuring out ways to reduce costs. Job consolidations, job cuts, less samples, more work on operations, contractor cuts. Believe me, they can’t wait for our president to pass a public option for health care, because then they can either drop what they offer or raise the employee cost and tell you if you don’t like it, go get goverment insurance.
We need to stick together! If we all do the same, no one can beat us.
If you do the math, we only have 12 regular meetings a year and shift workers might make 8 or 9 of them. You trying to tell me that you can’t go for 2 hours 8 times a year? Yet you sit and whine and complain. Everything the union does may not be right, but at least go to the meetings and express your discontent. You can make time to go to football games, basketball games, go to concerts, or other things, but how do you pay for these things? Your Jobs!
This is how we earn a living and have/do the things we do. When we hear about layoffs, a few others come to the meetings. Its ashamed that it takes a person being directly affected to make people wake up. If we are not proactive, it will be to late by the time people wake up.
We have about 300 union members, so 150 are able to be at these meetings, yet we get 30? I can understand 50 having legitt things to do, so we should bring in 100 ever month.
We need to start educating ourselves. Read a little about shell. Read that they said refineries break even at best and how they make their money at the well heads. Think your jobs are secure, believe that we should be happy with the constant headaches we get at work everyday.
Brothers and sisters wake up. Don’t sit at home on the first Tuesday and never attend a meeting, but come running to the union when you are affected in some way. Come to YOUR meeting, express your approval or disapproval. Think about the futures of our children and their children. Don’t wait until you need help and then come crying. Come stand up for our safety and rights!
Motivaman for president!
on Sep 16th, 2009 at 02:55
OK, lets talk a little about a few things going on at Motiva, Convent.
First, my last post, which was over a month ago, was about a salary person violating a few of the 12 rules and nothing being done about it. Well another salary guy was caught violating the 12 rules, he was caught taking pictures in a unit without signing in or having a permit. This time Motiva terminated the employee. He was caught violating only one rule unlike the prior incident. Why was this treated different? No one knows. We have a definite inconsistency in the discipline of these rules. I hate for anyone to loose their job, but I think this the handling of this is more along the lines of what should have been done with the prior incident. I have heard the guy whom was let goo last week has lawyered up and will sue because he was fired while others were not. Motiva management is playing favorites and I’m glad they are about to get burnt!
Second, A guy by the name of Ray Blank was forced into retirement because he questioned management on why he didn’t get a certain job he put in for. He was told that he could either retire or he would be retired.
Lastly, A employee by the name of Darren Miletello whom worked in PHA, quit his job after alot of his findings found that their were many unsafe and dangerous processes and equipment present at Motiva, Convent. He pitched alot of Ideas of how to fix these problems, but Management refuses to listen, they are just sweeping these findings under the rug. Darren Left and said he would rather quit than be sent to jail when something bad happens. He left on his own and doesn’t have a plan yet on what he will do, but at least he won’t be rotting in a cell and he had the gutts to do what he did.
Motivaman for president!
on Sep 15th, 2009 at 13:11
Hello MUSAINT, good to see you posting again. The photo (now changed) was my fault, it was relevant to the tankers drivers dispute, not the current situation at Stanlow Refinery, where no one is on strike.
on Sep 15th, 2009 at 13:00
I just love the picture showing striking union members at Stanlow with the caption “Shell squeezing drivers dry”. Seems like a couple of the fat so-&-so’s pictured could do with a little more squeezing!! With this awful Labour Government still in power it seems that these stupid unions continue to believe striking over everything and anything will help – it will only help increase the dole queues.
on Sep 14th, 2009 at 23:12
Time for another page in the history of Jeff Funkhouser at Norco, and the entrenchment of what I consider “corruption” at the site.
I referred earlier to a relationship between Jeff and a process engineer named Heidi (no longer with the company), who everyone considered an average to below average engineer. Their relationship started when she was an OSE (Operations Support Engineer). While the relationship was ongoing Jeff promoted her to a JG3 Refining East Capacity Assurance Manager, then two years later promoted her to JG2. Unethical as it gets!
During her tenure as CAM she was known as the Little Hitler of the refinery. She was literally a dictator, verbally abusing people with foul language, and would ignore any work process she did not agree with. Just do what she said to do with no questions. She was allowed to act in this unethical and abusive manner protected by Jeff. Everyone knew not to cross her or you would be in serious trouble, supposedly Jeff would take care of you.
HR was not ignorant of what was happening, and a number of complaints were made, but swept under the rug. However, one HR person (Patti T.) did some investigating of the relationship between Jeff and Heidi and supposedly had the “goods”on them. My understanding is that when she presented her findings and wanted to take them further, she was suddenly told she would have to find other employment. Patti subsequently accepted a job offer in California.
This doesn’t encourage anyone to raise legitimate concerns to HR or Shell Resolve (which is another issue that maybe sometime later I’ll comment on). Definitely not the company I once knew or want to be a part of any longer than I have to.
on Sep 14th, 2009 at 09:27
It seems clear that they are clearing the decks. But are they removing the bean counters so they can hit targets? Shell has a bad history of targeting to remove blocks. ala the ‘value teams’ of watts era. Is this just some scam to remove the good the boss can get his bonus without the shareholders scalping another elderly lad?
on Sep 14th, 2009 at 07:42
As one who went to E&P as technical support in the 90s, just in time for the bloodbath and dodged lay-off for 15 years, its amazing to see that it continues today. I guess its good that I am out of that mess.
What really amazes me is that these people can look at themselves in a mirror every day. There seems to be no limit to how much they can deceive themselves. When all of the E&P managers got up on stage to tell us about the beginning of the lay-offs it was amazing to me that they were all white men who had gone to the same college (South Dakota School of Mines) and belonged to the same fraternity. I knew then Shell was doomed. Linda Cook was seen as the one light in the darkness. Now she has been passed over and quit. It amazes me no end that with production off and exploration needed they select a bean-counter as CEO. Also the board set modest goals for themselves to be middle of the pack in profits and still reward themselves when the fail to achieve even that.
on Sep 14th, 2009 at 01:00
A long informative Shell internal email from a member of the Executive Committee will be published on this website later today, Monday 14 Sept.
on Sep 11th, 2009 at 20:06
Well well the drama at Convent continues. I heard A.D. got fired for using a camera without a permit, and the FCCU specialist quit. Engineers can’t manage people, and as long as they keep doing extra work on their own time for the company just to get ahead, doesn’t mean the the rest of the workers who aren’t engineers want to do the the same. How can someone be on vacation and be expected to be called out when there is a problem. They don’t do it at Norco so why is Convent different. K-Rob you are setting a bad example, let people enjoy their vacation that is what it is for. Didn’t you just promote S.H. because of his vast knowlege of the cat, why did you need to call Ray, can’t S.H. handle it. Now that one of your best experts on the FCCU quit, who is going to step up?, No one in operations if they have any sense. Ya’ll deserve being in a bind now for promoting S H over R. B. . Convent will experience lots of unplanned shutdowns in the future, especially when the control room moves and some of the dumbest board operators are on duty when shit hits the fan. Big mistake moving it offsite like that with the inexperience and stupidity within the plant. Quiit hiring and promoting based on race or gender and go back to experiance and knowlege and everyone would be better off. I’m so glad I’m no longer there. Looking from the outside in I realize that I hated working there and putting up with the idiots I had to deal with everyday. God did not create everybody equal no matter how society wants to jam diversity down our throats. If that were true everyone could be brain surgeons and no one would be working at McDonalds. Wake up people before its too late and you operators need to stick it to those idiot engineers who want yall to be like them because in their minds they are always right. I can’t wait to get all my money, then I will name names and events so if you did something you weren’t suppose to and I know about it, I will rat you out. May even report some inappropriate behavior, best hope your spouses don’t read this. The company screwed many of us, and now its going to be payback for those who contributed, so if you thought you got away with something, think again, I kept records.
on Sep 11th, 2009 at 00:32
Re the email about Purves andShelltiva Norco, this is so typical Purves. He throws crap out as premises, thinking he is providing leadership. When the premises become BS, he will be the first that creates distance between himself and those he leads. He just disappears in the background and you won’t hear from him while his leadership teams have to mop up the mess. Tom, if you are the best Shell has to offer, Voser should just pack up the goods and put it all on the market. Jo Blow, you are being way too balanced. You well know what Purves is capable of doing obviously. If you think he even cares about engaging with the employees on this one, forget it. My prediction…He leave AM there long enough to do the deed and then dump her like he does those he doesn’t like or that questions his tactics and ethics. She knows she is gone and has been even though her numbers are some of the best of late. We already know with some of the other moves that numbers and delivery doesn’t matter to Purves.
Tom, just give it up. You stink like a bad egg and you know it. Pack up the trail wagon and hook up your horses( Lauher, Hartsock, and Funkie Funkster) and get out of Dodge.
on Sep 10th, 2009 at 08:35
Based on the Times Online article (“Heavyweights of the black stuff…”) consolidation of the industry appears inevitable. Neither Exxon nor Shell are replacing reserves, and both face falling production. Exxon at least has enormous capital reserves to fund acquisitions if it needs to buy production and reserves. Shell’s capital resources have been drained by Sakhalin, Pearl, Bonga and the pension fund, and it faces a falling credit rating. Total has a strong reserves/production position and is almost the same size as BP and Shell. Conclusion: Exxon, BP and Total could all undertake acquisitions, and Shell, BG or Chevron might be interesting targets.
on Sep 9th, 2009 at 16:31
We will be publishing updated information on pending Shell Job Cuts later today.
on Sep 6th, 2009 at 09:43
Details from the Sun Newspaper after reading that 2000 Shell staff may be about to lose their jobs here in the UK and a possible 24,500 would be affected in some way throughout the organisation says the CEO Peter Voser.
Last year I was being made redundant from a training company because of the cut backs to our social funding and I was directed to this company called TEREC by a person who had just left prison who had said that they had helped him return into society by helping him start up his own buisness. He now runs a successful paving and decking company and employs 6 people.
I contacted them and they helped me plan my redundancy and I now have a better job and one which suits my needs and skills.
Maybe you should look into what they have to offer and it may help these people who are about to lose theirs.
The website is http://www.terec.org.uk I hope that this will give you some help.
You have nothing to lose to just go and look at what they have to offer and how they could help you if you feel threatened by being made redundant.
David
on Sep 5th, 2009 at 21:05
EXSF is correct about more cuts coming, particularly at Norco. The site was told to be at the Shell benchmark of SPI 100 by the end of the year. The cuts that were made a couple of months ago were to be followed by more at the end of the year.
The site just this last week got the okay from the Saudi’s to go ahead with the combination of SCC and Motiva into one complex again. This was to lead to the additional cuts from the duplication of staff. Now Purves has demanded an additional $2 million in personnel cuts from each of SCC and Motiva at the site by the end of the year, beyond the SPI target.
So, hang on, more to come.
on Sep 5th, 2009 at 19:31
SeeMeNo:
There have been numerous non management employees in downstream that have been terminated from their jobs. These jobs include technical, professional, support staff, operations and maintenance jobs and other non upper management jobs. Read earlier blogs from this Web Site and you will learn more. These cuts started before the4 upper management cuts and are a work in progress with more to come. The 15 to 20 % cut in Exploration and Production will, you can be sure, also include others besides upper management. I am sure we will hear from those affected on this Web site in the future. Regards, EXSF
on Sep 5th, 2009 at 17:30
Posted on behalf of “Norco Insider”:
I work in Norco which is a combined Motiva/Shell location. Tom Botts gave a town hall meeting stating Shell/Motiva has 41 manufacturing location across the globe. They are all up for sale. They want to reduce their assets to 25 locations. Each location must add more value to Shell’s assets then it does to someone else to remain a Shell assets. Look in the future for more surprises like Stanlow across the globe.
on Sep 5th, 2009 at 03:14
What staff cut are you talking about? Its just those high level managers in the Centers and those who have been feeding on Shell salaries doing nothing but generating wastes going. It should have been done long time ago. The new organisation is still too fat. It should have been less centric, reduce by 30% and job group is too high. For those of you in these positions, I am sure you know what I mean. Buckle up.
on Sep 3rd, 2009 at 17:20
Outsider, perhaps Stu thinks that since those Folks were not upper level Mnagement types, they do not count??
That would explaing why he repeated denies their existence (even after several fellow bloggers on this web site have testified about their treatment.)
I guess there is also the possibility that he thinks all those Folks are lying?
Just some potential explanations. Perhaps stu would like to enlighten us on why he obviously intentionally ignores what these fellow bloggers say.
Regards, EXSF
on Sep 3rd, 2009 at 09:09
The FT comment about the Shell projects recently started or coming on stream in the near future (to which I would add Sak2, BC-10, and perhaps Bonga) fails to point out that there is little in the project pipeline beyond these. Tar sands and oil shale might one day come into their own, but where are the next round of developments – the projects that will be coming on stream 5-10 years from now? BP seem to have found an answer to that question.
on Sep 3rd, 2009 at 04:14
Stu, you have already jad others that were part of the redundant package in the current re-org tell you that they were escorted off the sites, namely in Motiva and namely at Port Arthur and Convent. Why do you keep asking this? Drop it. You’re not getting the point. These folks were called in early in the morning, given a package, told to gather their car keys, their personal belongings would be mailed to them and they were walked to the gate with police sitting there to make sure nothing rowdy happened. For many, this was a disgrace. Severla had family momentos left in their office that was mailed to them weeks later, in some cases damaged. Now that is a class company( Motiva) led by class people( Purves, Pease, Liar, Briganock) Poor AM, she is trying to do good but is stuck in a place with bad boys.
on Sep 2nd, 2009 at 22:08
Guest 1, nice try. I even had the hat in the microwave warming through….but I was talking about people being made redundant in Shell’s current reorg, not people forced to resign. Thanks for the sauce suggestion though
on Sep 2nd, 2009 at 21:09
Stu, better start munching. Watts was not escorted off the premises because someone tipped him off and he never appeared. But v.d.Vijver was escorted out, not allowed use of his car and driver. His wife came and picked him up. He had to leave all behind.
I suggest some worcester sauce goes well with your hat.
on Sep 2nd, 2009 at 18:34
John, We can warmly agree that Shell, and others, shouldn’t deal with Gadaffi, no challenge to you at all. I wouldn’t trust wikipedia as it can, on occaisions, be hijacked by people with biased viewpoints. As I’m sure you know.
If you check your blog history you’ll find I’ve made the consistent point about brinded, and was right. You could make my day by demonstrating just a hint of humility and admit that, but I do agree with you it’s become a bit tedius now.
I would eat my own hat if anybody who has left Shell so far under their redundancy programme (all senior leaders who will presumably get huge payouts) has been escourted off of any premises…and I suspect you are too intelligent to think they have either.
You asked a question ages ago about whether I could say anything positive about the site – I don’t like the tone and direction which is mean spirited and trouble making (and far too pleased with itself for doing so) but you have a brilliant offering of news on this industry which makes for interesting reading.
on Sep 2nd, 2009 at 17:08
Stu, other contributors
on Sep 2nd, 2009 at 14:52
Hey good stuff…keep up the good work!
on Sep 2nd, 2009 at 13:25
John, ok, my final attempt.
You wrote a piece which suggested that people who were laid off had been “escourted” off the premises just like – according to you – Phil Watts. I just challenged you to say which person had been escourted off the premises. Your original points were in the Nazi connection article.
I don’t agree that Nazi Germany and modern day Libya are the same, or even similar. The extermination of a race and the desire to colonise 250 million people across Europe put’s Hitler’s Nazi party in a different sphere to Gaddafi, even though as we’ve agreed, he is hardly a pussycat. Your logic is that in both the Shell/Nazi and Shell/Libya relationships, it was “all about oil”…Well given that Shell is an Oil & Gas company, that’s hardly odd! If you accuse the USA of dealing with rogue nations over Oil then it’s news, but if an Oil company deals with anyone…it’s only ever about Oil!
You are,for what it’s worth, factually wrong about Brinded. There are three members of the “EC” who sit on the Board. One is the CEO, one is the CFO (a requirement I believe of UK Listed PLCs) and the third is Brinded. Thus he is the only employee who is on the board other that the 2 that have to be there by law. My point was, and still is, that he clearly isn’t out of favour – but if you’re going to be pedantic, you have to at least be correct.
Thank you for taking down the other message. I find you to be needlessly agressive sometimes, and slightly pompus, but your standards on this site are far too high for comments like those, good on you.
I’ve taken enough of your blogging space here, apologies to others who are bored of it!
on Sep 2nd, 2009 at 12:07
Reference the posting by Stu strongly objecting to the comments of an offensive personal nature made by “Scapegoat”, I have deleted the relevant comments and apologise for posting them.
on Sep 2nd, 2009 at 11:11
Stu, dealing with your numbered comments: (1) I still have not got a clue why you raised the issue of people being escorted from Shell premises. (2) Self-evidently you made your comment without bothering to check that you were using the correct spelling of the person central to the matter being discussed. (3) What you stated about Brinded was incorrect. Now you try to inject more confusion. (4) You were indeed trying to defend current day Shell from the past Shell connection with the Nazi. I have pointed out the connection; Shell is still willing to deal with the devil and for the same motive: oil. Only the name of the devil has changed. Just swap Gaddafi for Hitler. (5) So we agree on something. With regards to the Scapegoat posting, I am sure many people will agree with your views. As you may be aware, I try to avoid censorship. The posting was made by an American and was submitted for posting onto this website, which is located in America. The right to freedom of speech on the Internet is an important principle, particularly under American law. Bearing this in mind, it is sometimes difficult to make a judgment when deciding if a posted comment should be censored. The comments you refer to are unpleasant and over-the-top. It is therefore fair comment on your part to make your objections known. Stu, you are so consistently critical of this website that it seems appropriate to ask why it appears to have a magnetic attraction for you. Can you please indicate some of the positive aspects, which explain its hold on you? So there is no misunderstanding, we welcome regular visitors who take the trouble to post comments, even if they are almost always critical.
on Sep 2nd, 2009 at 09:23
John – Happy to clarify and then i’ll drop it.
1. You asked me to show you where, in your articles, you had claimed that people being laid off where being “escourted off the premises”. I copied and pasted the piece from one of your stories to show you.
2. Detterdink must be my mis-spelling of the Shell CEO’s name, the guy with the Nazi links.
3. My point about Brinded was that he is clearly still in favour, that’s all. One way in which this has been shown is that he is the only employee on the board who is NOT in a role that requires board presence (the other two being CFO and CEO). For example, the guys/gals that run the other business lines – e.g. his peers – are not on the board as I understand it.
4. How dare you suggest I “defended” Shell’s nazi connection. What a silly statement. I said that it was already known, nothing more. Of course I wouldn’t “defend” such an association.
5. On Libya we’re in agreement, I’m more depressed about the UK government’s role to be honest, but I agree no-one should do business with that administration in my view.
So, no riddles I assure you and if i have been unintelligible then my apologies.
on Sep 2nd, 2009 at 09:15
I trust the “moderation” that all posts go through means that you don’t object to your site publishing the individual’s views, in the same way you ask Shell lawyers to object or not to leaked emails etc and then when they don’t stop you, you infer they don’t disagree/challenge them. If this is true, then the decision to allow Scapegoat’s post in which he names 3 individuals, cites their damnation to Hell and mocks the infertility of one of them is one that should shame you John.
Russia with Love – if you don’t understand then learn.
on Sep 1st, 2009 at 14:10
For those of you who have lost your jobs, you have my deepest sympathies and prayers.
Some would say this web site is not for those who would air their personal issues with Shell. My response to that follows:
If not here and now, where and when are the appropriate places foe these issues, given the chance of a subsequent payback by Shell Management?
Some say that even Executives are human and I would agree with that. However, just because they are human does not mean they deserve sympathy or even understanding when they use their position in an overtly non- justified manner.
Waiting for Shell to realize their mistakes and be a self correcting corporate entity will probably be an exercise in extreme patience but it is what it is and you can only do what you can do and hope for justice (forgive the cliche).
I frequently told my children as they were growing up when they felt they had been treated unfairly they may have to wait get to heaven to be treated fairly. I hope and pray this is not the case with Shell Management.
I wish all of you the best and only wish I could say or do something to make you feel better. Regards, EXSF.
on Aug 31st, 2009 at 06:35
Well today is the day that some of the best people will get there final screwing from Motiva. The money that was supposed to be in our accounts last week has yet to be given as promised. The HR department is still clueless as to how to help us, and what seemed like a good package was good for some but bad for others. I am still pissed off about the way we were fired. Whether some want to believe it or not, it was a conspiracy by 3 Convent females, and I believe it was personal because of having dealt with all three of them on issues that we disagreed on has resulted in the termination of many who crossed them and let their opinions be know. They didn’t like that we took up for hourly workers, didn’t support stupid corporate programs that didn’t work, and voiced our opposition openly in meeting with them. I woke up from a dead sleep realizing that today was my last day, and that I still cannot tell these 3 sorry ass people what I really think of them in person because they are still can keep us from getting our severence package and or retirement if we said what we really wanted to say to their face.
on Aug 30th, 2009 at 03:23
Shell Senior Executives are also human. It is site like this that gives them and Shell open and free feedback to keep them or bring them back on track. This is more valuable then the 360 degree feedback in Shell internally as you can choose your raters and Shell has to pay for it.
on Aug 30th, 2009 at 00:50
The several exchanges between STU and EXSF have made this blog uninteresting. So whoever you are, please stop. Its becoming too personal. This site is for those who would like to express freely on Shell. By the way, I donot understad most of what you say.
on Aug 29th, 2009 at 21:52
Stu, I am a Shell Employee and have been for decades but that is all I will say. I am not one to say who I work for does not matter as you have in an earlier blog, especially when you have taken such an interest in this web site.
If as you stated in an earlier blog, it does not matter who you work for, why would you be concerned about me so much? I hope I have put your worries to rest.
Yes, I am a real Shell employee but I frankly am not sure what you are. However, your Management bias and twisting of information in favor of Management in this blog is obvious to even a casual reader.
Finally, I also think that you forfeit some credibility by saying your employer does not matter. Disingenuous is the word that comes to mind. Regards, EXSF
on Aug 29th, 2009 at 17:30
Stu, the way this is going I will have to give up trying to communicate with you because I don
on Aug 29th, 2009 at 16:14
John,
You asked where i got the quote about staff being escourted off the premises. Read the Nazi article…
“Like some Shell employees being culled in the Vosification process, Sir Phillip was escorted from Shell premises”
Shell’s (mainly the detterdink guy) connection to Nazi germany is a well known historical fact. I know that not being the centre of the universe is a struggle for you, but it was published before you came along.
No riddles in my posting (what an odd thing to say!) I meant Brinded was the only employeee (as oposed to a non-exec director, who legally isn’t an employee) who was on the board. A riddle, really?
Why you keep posting on behalf of the “EXSF” person I don’t know, but why is it that anyone who disagrees with you is “attacking the site” or works for Shell? I love the idea that the only two types of opinion that exist in your world are either: 1.Your opinion or 2. Lies, Corruption and some kind of conspiracy!
on Aug 29th, 2009 at 08:50
Claire, many people have ‘merely’ a job. But believe me, in large corporations where one makes a career or at least tries to make a career, a ‘mere’ job becomes a way of life. The same holds true for politicians, activists and the many who want to contribute to society or the corporation. That IMHO cannot be done by treating it as a ‘job’. So I conclude you are flipping hamburgers somewhere or have a parttime secretarial job. Perhaps even a husband with a good income? What you obviously do not understand is that many people develop a passion for what they are doing and passions are more difficult to walk away from. It also is true that deciding to devote oneself to a company, the possibilities for escape reduce somewhat, often this is a perceived threat rather than a real threat. And then it is stressful if you are in your mid 40s with a family, mortgage and good income to wake up that there maybe a big change lurking around the corner on which you have no influence. That leads to frustration and those frustrations also find outlets via sites like the Donovan’s.
Would you go fight with whatever means possible if your country would be under attack? Or would you simply walk out?
on Aug 29th, 2009 at 03:30
Coffee Bean in Shell Malaysia office is still booming with business, best sale ever. Business is as usual despite new EC-2 announcement in Asia. Singapore office is still open. Michel and few EC-2 members still like it there for personal reasons. So much lip service about cost savings and building relationship with Key stakeholders.
So nothing has changed except everyone distant themselves from Paul M and his cronies. ( Paul-you know who your friends are now ). EC-3 organisation will be out next week but the chart is already filled with names. The only small change maybe is in New Zealand where Rob J has to look for greener pasture. The good jobs are all taken up. Just to reassure everyone, business is as usual. Nothing has changed. Its so uneventful and boring. We thought we shall get a new Energised Shell with Vroooooom. sob sob!!!!
on Aug 28th, 2009 at 20:30
Claire, your superscillious and condescending attitude will be sorely missed by all.
I personally will miss you as much as some members of Shell Management with the same attitude that I have had the pleasure to work with in the past.
Please say it ain’t so!
on Aug 28th, 2009 at 18:55
2ndGen, I think we can safely leave others to read the relevant comments and draw their own conclusions on the points discussed (and the full stop). I cannot speak for Shell employees, but personally I would much prefer to know sooner rather than later about any decisions that could affect me. And if I worked for Shell I would rather get the basic facts as circulated between the top brass, rather than the same information at a later date, almost certainly in a less straightforward form, after it had been through the Shell HR/PR spin machine (what you describe as “filtering”.
on Aug 28th, 2009 at 17:41
John, I don’t want to get into a semantic argument, but there’s a full stop between the responsibility part and the Stanlow comments. I’m confident that gramtically, that’s important. Nor was I critical of the site – as I said already I like to have the data to hand. Just offering an observation on the consequences of breaking news before management are ready. Just to be clear though, are you claiming that you brought any benefit to either the staff or the public from “stealing Voser’s thunder” and breaking the news before it was filtered through the staff channels? Otherwise, back to my original question, why do it? Again – not criticising – just questioning…
on Aug 28th, 2009 at 16:55
That makes three visits Claire all within a matter of hours. I think its too late, you may be hooked. If not, I am, sure we will all miss your condescending comments.
on Aug 28th, 2009 at 16:38
Oooh, “counter attacks”, all sounds very exciting. This is quite an odd little forum really.
I’m just trying to understand what drives you all – not questioning the legality of the site, counter attacking, etc.
I may drop by from time to time John, but won’t add it to my list of hobbies I dont think.
Hope you all find whatever it is you are after (a wonderful Shell again, new management, greener grass, big payoff, someone to talk to, better pension, etc). You only live once remember.
on Aug 28th, 2009 at 15:49
Comment from EXSF posted on the article “Wow, just stumbled on this site and blog”
QUOTE: The current notes from Stu and Claire make me suspicious that this Web site is being counter attacked by Shell. I think they are attempting to use the Web page against its sponsors and at the same time make it appear as if Shell is not connected to the acts.
This kind of attack is well within the the limits of ethics and accountability not to mention transparency that Shell has shown in the past while bragging about those same values. EXSF UNQUOTE
on Aug 28th, 2009 at 15:11
Claire, thanks for your comments. Fortunately we live in a Country where we are free to do as we please providing it
on Aug 28th, 2009 at 14:43
Stu, I have not posted anything to show Claire is
on Aug 28th, 2009 at 14:41
Greetings,
Interesting round of discussion this morning!
Stu, you asked the following question “Also, which member of staff has been
on Aug 28th, 2009 at 14:22
Some quick responses there – must indeed be a 24×7 operation.
In reply to Guest1; perhaps I am being simplistic, but it is a fairly simple situation in my view. This is just your job, not your life, your family, your health, your religion, your vocation (which would be harder to just walk away from). I agree you should try and improve things if they are that bad, but constructively and working with your company, rather than these public attacks. And if that really is not possible because your company no longer wants to listen, then what exactly is stopping you leaving? I don’t buy this “pride and wanting to stay to make it great again” line, so perhaps you are all hanging around for a big payoff? in which case surely all this restructuring talk is actually good news for you?
On my second point, I hope you are right John that this is just a “hobby” and that you do have something else very positive in your life to balance all this with, as to me it does appear like a rather drawn out bitter obsession that should have been put to rest many years ago. Whilst I’m sure you’ll get some satisfaction and support from the few vocal disgruntled types, there must be thousands more who read or hear of this life long campaign and just feel pity that you have not managed to move on.
on Aug 28th, 2009 at 13:34
Sorry to hog the blog…one last point. The Shell/Germany linkages are well known and clearly have no link to current day or current staff. Your attempt to somehow link that behaviour to Watts and Reserves crisis is weak and silly in my view. Also, which member of staff has been “escourted from the premises” under their current restructuring. Please name one.
on Aug 28th, 2009 at 13:31
Claire is a great example. She posts a view, so you produce an article to show her how she is incorrect.
As to your question, I don’t think the Brinded “wanted” poster is that clever or witty. Also, my understanding is that they have just had a golden chance to get rid of him and yet he is the only ‘normal’ employee (aside from the CFO and CEO) to be placed on the PLC Board – this tells me that Shell supports him and if he’s committing any offenses then he’s hardly hidden away from the authorities is he.
on Aug 28th, 2009 at 13:08
Clair.a, my response is posted as an article headlined: “Wow, just stumbled on this site and blog”
on Aug 28th, 2009 at 12:57
Dear claire.a, your solution is a bit simplistic. If everyone walked away from something they did not like, there would be a lot of walking and not much improvement. Shell employees indeed have lived very sheltered lives. But that was for a reason: to be able to concentrate on doing a good job and living by the Business Principles of the group. But now, as the Donovans rightly keep pointing out, Shell has got into the hands of many bad people and it is very difficult to have those replaced. You could walk away, but you could also try to change the system. It has become very dangerous in Shell to voice a differing opinion so the ideas naturally find other ways to vent the anger that exists. There always are people who always complain, do nothing and are just frustrated. But this site provides an excellent open forum for any views (good or bad!) and I hope in the end it helps sort out Shell so it becomes again the decent company it was in years gone by. And that would be a good epithaph for the Donovans: ‘We devoted our lives to improve Shell’.
on Aug 28th, 2009 at 11:43
Wow, just stumbled on this site and blog. Whilst I’m impressed with the way it has been set up and maintained, I’m amazed by two aspects:
Firstly, those of you who work for Shell and are seemingly so disgruntled, why not just walk? You must be so unhappy in what you do to resort to these postings – so why not show some conviction and leave? I have heard that people who work at Shell tend to forget what the real world is like, but you can just leave you know and rejoin the real world out here!
Secondly, to the Donnovans, I’ve just read some of the background and understand some of the history, but really, when are you going to live your lives?? Do you really want you gravestones to just say “had a pop at Shell for most of my life”.
on Aug 28th, 2009 at 10:15
Stu, complain about what? Kindly provide an example of what I am alleged to have complained about. Or if you are fed up of the leaked information subject, what is your view about our wanted poster on Malcolm TFA Brinded?
on Aug 28th, 2009 at 10:06
John, Thanks for your response.
Just to be clear, what I was saying was that your tone is one that is closed and risks smacking of arrogance, that’s all.
I’m happy to accept there are different views here, I just feel that if you’re going to encourage the leaking of sensitive data then you are part of the cause, and can’t stand aloof and complain about it.
Right, what else would you like to talk about?
on Aug 28th, 2009 at 08:14
2ndGen, the bad news is that you can
on Aug 28th, 2009 at 00:03
John, you’ve mis-read what I said. I didn’t state anywhere that you broke the Stanlow news first – my comments on Stanlow were separate. However, my comments on your taking responsibility still stand: eg “In May, we were first to break the news of major restructuring at Shell by Voser”. I would argue that that’s not neccessarily anything to be proud of. Either it had no effect on what Voser intended to do (in which case no need to mention it), or it forced his hand and led to the insanely rushed restructuring. I don’t think it could be claimed to have led to a more considered approach from management. I, personally, like to have access to all the information sources, but I also acknowledge that a lot of staff would rather have that sort of revelation given in person, and internally, before it’s splashed accross the internet.
on Aug 27th, 2009 at 21:55
Stu, you said the following in yout blog.
“If you want to feel sorry for people who have read about sensitive issues on the web…you can’t wash your hands if your website was the place they read it. That was all I was saying, and I think it’s fair.”
If the news had been out for 6 days, how long should John or anyone wait before bringing it up on a web site that is intimately involved with that issue? If you follow your scenario to its logical conclusion, the answer would be never. After all. could not someone read it ten years from now and get hurt by it??
Besides, I interpretated the quote in your blog as criticizing John for breaking the news (and I am sure others did as well). If that is not what you meant, then perhaps you are failing to clearly communicate what you meant??
Just a thought for your consideration. Regards, EXSF
on Aug 27th, 2009 at 20:20
Stu, you are twisting the truth. I have not corrected any opinion expressed by you. I pointed out that your suggestion about the source of the leak being the author of the relevant email was wrong. I pointed out that The Sunday Times broke the “sad news” not this website. What you said was untrue. Make no mistake, we welcome lively debate and pro Shell comments, but when something stated as a fact is untrue, I will not hesitate to say so.
on Aug 27th, 2009 at 19:35
John,
Maybe you could consider whether, given your PR success lately (I think you may have mentioned here somewhere about your sunday times piece, i know you’re a bit shy about it) you have started to become a little dogmatic, and just a touch power crazed. You invite discussion (which is good) but then seek to “correct” other people’s opinions. Opinions can’t be right or wrong, they just exist. I understand that the Times broke the Stanlow story first, my criticism was of those people who chose to peddle in gossip and “leaks”. As you yourself said – you would have leaked it if you could have. What you’re doing is legal I suspect, but is one of the pieces on the jigsaw that leads to staff getting bad news through the media. The companies who don’t talk direct are to blame, but so are organisations like you.
on Aug 27th, 2009 at 09:56
2ndGen, I will respond in detail later today to what you say, but with regards to the Stanlow Refinery auction, you have presumably read, but apparently not grasped, the facts of the matter as set out in my response to Stu. We did not break the bad news to Stanlow employees. That happened 6 days earlier when they read The Sunday Times article. On the Stanlow issue, it is not a matter of opinion or interpretation, but one of plain fact and what you and Stu have said, is simply untrue.
on Aug 27th, 2009 at 09:00
I fully agree with Stu – this site has to bear responsibility for its actions too, and one of the outcomes of any site of this nature is that staff don’t receieve news (bad or good) face to face from management, they get from an external and unregulated website. Now, that’s obviously part of a wider argument about the merits of the internet, but to pretend it’s not the case is frankly disappointing, John. With regard to the sale of Stanlow, I was recently involved in the North Sea asset divestment – everyone wants to leave on their own terms, and it’s sad and hurtful to be “sold” – but the comparison with slaves ends there. You’re simply transferred to another operator – for the majority, the day to day work and salary won’t change (pension scheme may or may not – depends on who buys it) but you won’t lose your Shell pension. It’s a sad reality of capitalism that companies owe nothing to their employees. To be fair, though, most Shell senior managers will also tell you that you owe nothing to Shell – just take what you can get and get out…It’s practically on the recruitment ads.
on Aug 26th, 2009 at 22:18
To Stu: I think it is very curious that you think that Outsider has Shell connections and that is evidently very important to you (in determining his motivation and bias?) but you believe your own Shell or non-Shell working status is not significant? To quote you {“Thanks for the other surrogate posting
on Aug 26th, 2009 at 09:08
Stu, Stanlow employees did not become aware of the auction as a result of our publication of a leaked email. The Sunday Times broke the story on 18 August, 6 days earlier. Our publication revealed the disgust of Shell employees at the way they are being treated.
on Aug 26th, 2009 at 07:15
John, think you may have the wrong end of the stick. I wasn’t suggesting outside was posting “under a different name” at all, you posted a message on behalf of someone else (EXSF) and that was what I was referring to.
With regards to your response about leaking, I stand by my point: If you encourage and facilitate the publication of confidential material before it has been shared with staff, then you are – and i repeat, only partly – implicated in any distress caused by staff reading this material in public.
If SKY news were to run an article on how people shouldn’t pry into the private lives of celebrities, they would have to make sure they didn’t do so from outside the house of a popstar! If you want to feel sorry for people who have read about sensitive issues on the web…you can’t wash your hands if your website was the place they read it. That was all I was saying, and I think it’s fair.
on Aug 25th, 2009 at 22:40
Stu: I’m not a Shell employee and never have been, but frequently meet Shell employees – usually over a beer. So I hear about IBAS, UBAS, EBAS, MOR and many other Shell acronyms. And, as John suggested, I haven’t posted here under any other names. And just in case you hadn’t noticed my comment was intended to highlight the rather idealistic approach to their work of the Shell staff that I have met. I just wish that idealism, professionalism and high ethical standards were given a higher weighting on scorecards.
on Aug 25th, 2009 at 22:10
Stu, so you want us to take a share of the fall out arising from Shell senior managements ruthless actions that are incompatible with Shell claimed business principles. Shell management is responsible for its deeds, not us. With regard to the Shell Business Principles they are a complete SHAM used to fool the public and Shell stakeholders (and the SEC in the reserves fraud). You are also wrong in your speculation about the source of the latest leak. The same applies to the allegation that “Outsider” posted a comment under another name, if that is what you were suggesting.
on Aug 25th, 2009 at 21:31
As for the SEF leak story…I think if this site encourages (actually pleads in letters to new VPs) for material to leak, you have to take a share – albeit just a share – of the responsibility for the sadness and insult caused when staff read materials that are leaked to the public domain. Also, if i understand your latest leak, I think it’s unlikely that any of the receipients of the email would have leaked it to you, and so should we assume that the man elected to represent worker’s interests is now sharing “private” emails with you and potentially other outlets? If so it would make his outrage at staff reading this stuff online first slightly hard to swallow…
on Aug 25th, 2009 at 21:28
“Outsider”…interesting that you write about Shell and use that name and yet used the term IBAS, which refers to the current expat pay system. Also, you make the assumption that all staff receive IBAS, whereas I suspect that massive majortiy are not expats and thus receive a more moderate salary. That said, you seem to be agreeing with me. Remuneration isn’t about pay but rather the whole package, and that’s my point – getting it right in totality is critical to a company succeeding.
Thanks for the other surrogate posting – my employer’s name isn’t important i think..
on Aug 23rd, 2009 at 20:43
A great site for all folks to post negative or positve comments on Royal Dutch Shell. Very interesting facts on Shell, have been an employee for 20 yrs and have learned a lot from reading all these posts. Keep it up will let other employees know about this web site.
on Aug 23rd, 2009 at 17:48
Stu: I would question whether remuneration is really the driver for the majority of Shell employees. In the past it was generally something less tangible, as Shell’s salaries have never been high by industry standards. Security of employment, a satisfying, rewarding, professional working environment, defined benefits pensions, and school fees for children are more often the key drivers. Try asking anyone in Shell what they earn. They may know their base pensionable salary (generally a very low number) but are usually very surprised when they find out the true value of their IBAS package. If short term financial gain was a priority, I would expect Shell employees to be far better informed about their benefits. Of course, some are more mercenary than others: names that spring to mind include that of Phil Watts…
on Aug 23rd, 2009 at 09:00
POSTED ON BEHALF OF “EXSF”:
I assume Stu is a non-Shell employee from his comments about “companies like yours” in his blog. Am I just paranoid or does he not have a lot of info about Shell executive changes to be an outsider? Thanks. EXSF
on Aug 23rd, 2009 at 07:34
Shell and the other oil majors who are still doing share buybacks must be the only people in these straightened times who don’t know what to do with their money! They don’t work. It’s an admission of failure not success. Are you really so devoid of investment ideas that you haver to burn our money Mr Voser?
on Aug 19th, 2009 at 22:40
This whinge about HRVPs is old now. The reality is that there are fewer senior HR, Finance etc roles than there were in the old organisation – all they’ve done is standardise the job titles.
VP remuneration and reward? don’t know, but if Shell employs 100,000+ people then I’d ask myself what’s the main thing most people care about (their reward, benefits, pension, shares, bonuses etc) and so the guy who’s accountable for that has quite and impact on the firm.
I love the idea that if you’re not a spanner-wielding engineer, or reservoir engineer then you don’t add to the bottom line…the number of commercial people, traders and others who make or break companies like yours is huge.
on Aug 19th, 2009 at 16:12
Doesn’t really matter if there are a number of female VPs in the HSE organisation. If they are there by merit, then fine. What’s important is the number of VPs full stop. Same with the number of HR VPs in this Voserfied Shell. Frightening. How on earth can a “VP HR Remuneration and Reward” be benchmarked at the same level as the Technical VP of a large E&P operating unit? Once again, shows the focus received by these “peripheral” support functions. Thought Voser might have cut out or rationalised a lot of this “non-job” cancer and given a shot in the arm to Shell’s once-unsurpassed technical capability. After all, it’s the technical side of the business that generates the revenue… if you don’t find and produce oil and gas… you don’t make any money.
on Aug 19th, 2009 at 09:29
Witchy woman – maybe you need to work on your spells or crystal ball. I see a number of female VPs in HSE (far more than before), and the Group’s VP Environment isn’t an accountant…Still, let’s not let the facts get in the way of a rant..
on Aug 16th, 2009 at 23:11
Dont be surprised Witchy Woman. The new head of HSE in Russia, Mr Jaap Guyt, was accountable for more than 20 fatalities on his pipeline project in Sakhalin and now he has been promoted to Head of HSE ! ! !
on Aug 16th, 2009 at 22:03
So the EC-2 settles down to do their magic on the rest of the organisation.
Remarkable how the non interviewed selection processes threw up so many old buddies back together irrespective of ability or cv !
I just hope the ploy employing friends and people who won’t criticise you really pays off.
So if you are male and have worked in Expro then it appears that you have a good career in HSE ! I mean how many other companies would employ an accountant as their main Environmental Lead !
on Aug 15th, 2009 at 11:53
I agree with scapegoat that it wont be soon enough for Roxan and her puppy Keith to leave. I wonder what foxy Roxy’s husbands title will be now? I also agree with scapegoat that Jesus is not happy with you David because Jesus doesn’t like people who lie, cheat, and steal. David, you picked the wrong mortal to follow in Tom. My source tells me that motivaman is right in that there are some more layoffs coming, in the neighborhood of 45 – 50 in Convent, this includes contractors and staff people. And I found out that Mark Townsend has gotten off scott free. He is the third staff person to break a cardinal rule and receive no punishment even though sHell says if you break one you will be fired. And janblauu, please elaborate on what point you are trying to get across to me.
on Aug 12th, 2009 at 21:46
1 Million dollars a day. That is roughly the sum that Downstream continues to spend on its “GSAP” system, IT flagship of the “Downstream One” (globalisation) project. So how is it going ?
GSAP was launched in 2004 to the dismay of many experienced IT people. Here was an IT project straight out of the 1980s, with a sprawling bureaucracy, 10 year plans, propagandist newsletters, and all the baggage of the mainframe era. RISK factors were off the scale: a massive IT build, a revolution in the business, experimental offshoring, and no fallback plan ! Hadn’t we learned to stop doing things this way ?
Well, no, we hadn’t. And 5 years on, we are still doing it – but the business keep on signing the cheques (so they must be happy) and dissent has largely faded away.
So I was surprised in a recent corridoor conversation to hear a contrary view. I was talking to a senior person outside of Downstream – someone with specific intelligence about EXXON MOBIL and their Global SAP system (which I understood we had set out to copy). The view being expressed was that GSAP had been a monumental blunder. A blistering critique followed, the gist of which is as follows:
(1) EXXON MOBIL realised many functions are best kept LOCAL; we instead GLOBALISED almost everything.
(2) THEY kept their SAP system simple; WE built a huge data warehouse using SAP “BW” (a notorious piece of “bloatware”).
(3) THEY deployed their SAP system all over the world. WE can barely afford to get halfway.
(4) Because of our “SAP BW” decision, we are quietly having to build a lot of (non-SAP) gap-fillers…
…and so on. Not only was this said out loud, but the tone was rather “doesn’t everyone know this ?”
Well, no, they don’t. Back in Downstream, the newsletters are still flowing, and the business are still contentedly signing the cheques. But I do wonder if we may be at a turning point ? With COST CONTROL now back after a 5 year holiday, might we see an end to this kind of IT project ?
Anyone have any insights into this ? Can it really be true that we set out to copy Exxon Mobil, only to get it so fundamentally wrong ?
on Aug 12th, 2009 at 17:32
If I remember rightly Shell’s ‘marketing’ department actually was called the Product Disposal Unit back in the 1950s or 60s.
on Aug 12th, 2009 at 17:28
Having read Mr. Donovan’s letter to Bob Pease and Tom Purves, I would like to make one rebuttal to a claim made about Mr. Purves. While I am certainly one of his harshest critics I don’t think it is fair to blame him for the CCU explosion at Norco. It is true he was the process manager during that time but the cause of the depropanizer overhead piping was not directly his fault. It was more the failure of the inspection programs in place at that time, and has led to processes such as CCD’s and others that attempt to prevent another failure like that one.
Sadly it is the only rebuttal to his management style and actions that I can offer. His current management style is no different than it was after the explosion and he left Norco, just more visible now because of his current position and the effects on larger numbers of people.
on Aug 12th, 2009 at 13:51
POSTING BY “JO BLOW” ON THE ARTICLE “An email to Shell/Motiva Vice President, Tom Purves”: My My, Interesting turn of events over the last couple days. When I first read this, I was elated at the thought of a response by Mr. Purves, then the stark realization came to me that there is no possible way Mr. Purves will respond. How could he respond? What could he say? How would any response be received? I expect that this is one heck of an Uncomfortable position for Mr. Purves and his inner circle.
on Aug 10th, 2009 at 15:27
A POSTING BY “JO BLOW”:
Greetings,
I appreciate the kind comments regarding my article. I wanted to further comment on some of the comments posted recently on my article.
Paddy, as usual a very insightful response. I agree that in a vertically integrated oil company refining is truly a cost center and not a profit center.
MotivaMan, I was not deeply offended, I was really hoping to point out how others might receive your message in the hopes that as you post it does not detract from the validity of your message.
Golden Triangle Watchman, Thanks for the kind words regarding the quality of my article. I do realize that I have let the current leadership off lightly in my article. You and I both know the truth in Tom
on Aug 10th, 2009 at 11:02
When Shell decided to replace its “Marketing” co-ordination with a new name and a new structure David Varney, in whose Shell Centre Division I then worked, burst into a large office where we were having a meeting and said, “You will never believe what they’ve done now”. We calmed him down and he revealed that “They” was the CMD and what they’d “done” was to create a new organisation to replace Marketing and Refining which they were going to call “Oil Products”. David was incensed. He had his detractors of course and he wasn’t always the easiest of bosses or colleagues but David understood marketing. He knew that the name “Oil Products” suggested that what marketers were about was disposal – i.e. getting rid of the things that the refineries produced. It reduced the gentle arts of marketing to the simplistic premise that it was about the products and getting rid of them. Not the customer. Not the brand. Just commodities. David illustrated his point with the memorable line “Can you imagine Macdonald’s calling themselves “Beef Products” ?” Looking back that was the beginning of the end for Marketing in Shell.
on Aug 10th, 2009 at 09:47
Re Paddy’s view of the disengagement from the downstream – Shell is of course only now discovering what T.Boone Pickens discovered 30 years ago – it’s much easier to make money as an oil trader than as an oil company.
on Aug 10th, 2009 at 09:26
Just a quick point of clarification, I understand from the Q2 results presentations that Shell has used significant cash payments to close any gaps in pension funds? Whilst newspaper articles have run with data from before these payments were made, it’s worth making sure that people know that this isn’t like BA or BT (in the UK) where the shortfall is something that persists. Also, it’s pretty obvious that any fund that is largely invested in stocks will dip dramatically when the market dips, and likewise will rise in time. I recall a period a few years ago when media commentators pointed to the excessive surplus (and thus power) of the leading funds…
on Aug 10th, 2009 at 06:31
Jo Blow
Thanks for your excellent article and for your kind remarks about my recent piece on Shell and the downstream. My own interest is more beyond the refinery fence rather than what happens to the refineries. I also, perhaps simplistically, find refining very straightforward! In a vertically integrated structure refineries are cost centres not profit centres. Jan Blauu is right in a way to say that Shell is selling Stanlow because it is “unprofitable” – but he and Shell are both wrong to use the “P” word. Stanlow is a cost not a profit centre – in my view. The so-called “refiners margin” is a myth. The margin comes not from the refining activity per se but from the difference between crude costs and market realisations for produced products – both of which are market driven. Obviously refineries that are efficient, which can process a wide range of crudes, which have flexible upgrading capacity etc. will be preferable to simple refineries or high cost plants. But in essence refineries are manufacturing plants and as such cannot be seen as profit centres. The challenge is not to try and make a refinery make more “profits” but to try and make it lower unit cost or more efficient.
on Aug 10th, 2009 at 04:08
To MotivaMan: I wanted to clarify a point in one of your earlier posts, the item in question is quoted as
“Did I also mention that the salary employee in question
on Aug 10th, 2009 at 03:51
Hey JoBlow…. Enjoyed your article… I respect that you can be that balanced in your assessment of the situation when in your own words” had a disgraceful exit” from one of the plants. You described the macro picture extremely well. What you didn’t mention is what happens with the leaders when the chips are down and they have to show true leadership? In the case of our piece of the company, that would be the failure we have seen with the one they call Tom Purves. He has lost all credibility and will never regain it. He lied, has cheated some out of their careers, and treats a core few like they are his peers…when he can’t even compete with his true peers on the leadership scale. Tom, how was the weekend up at the lake with the little boy they call Jeff?
So Jo, don’t take this personal. You are letting this so called leadership off by rationalizing this into the “big picture”.
Jo Blow, you wrote…
“I remain proud because I will and many others will always know the truth.”
What is the truth?
on Aug 9th, 2009 at 23:55
Jo blow,
On the contrary, I did not take offense at all to your post. Actually it made me see that I was making mistakes in my post. I am very sorry. I have been posting about our managers/leadership, but I guess I need to be more specific in what I am saying. I know there are a bunch of great people that make up our management. Alot more good people than are bad!
If you knew me you would never expect I would be posting these things, I grew up Shell! Almost everyone I knew while growing up was shell managment. One of the main points I was trying to get across was that in the past 5 or so years Shell has been on the wrong path and needs some serious changes. The Shell I once knew would have never stood for the types of things going on now. Most of the people I knew are retired by now, but they still are in the loop. Most of them tell me they are glad they left when they did. I think Shell can be the greatest company in the world.
The management in the previous posts were mostly Motiva, Convent Managers. David, Curtis, Roxan, Connie, and a few others. Along with Mr. Purvis. These people are nothing but a bunch of liars and the people whom had the vision of Shell long ago are probably rolling in their graves because of the lack of respect by these people. They do not have any morals or ethics. They respect no one but themselves.
Contrary to what I may have led you to believe, but I was deeply saddened by the dismissal of almost all of the managers that were let go at Convent. These people were not let go because of performance, I would know because before these evaluations were even done, I was told the names of people whom would be let go. Most of these people did value others and did live up to the old Shell expectations.
I do see both sides of everything also, and do believe cuts were necessary, but the process was flawed and good people lost their jobs. I said a few years back that this run of “luck” would only last so long. The margins would only last so long and only the best, most efficient plants were going to survive. While we were making money hand over fist, things should have gotten fixed so when these time come, we would be ready.
I think they hit the wrong ones with the layoffs, they should have got the pirates and his maties. These people will ruin this company.
So what I am saying is I know things have to be done to run a business, I know that not all management are bad, and I am sorry if I offended any of the great people that did attempt to make a difference. I hope good things come to those good people.
Motivaman for president!
on Aug 9th, 2009 at 23:21
Thanks for that Outsider, the headline has been corrected.
on Aug 9th, 2009 at 15:14
The Shell pension shortfall is UKP 5.6 Billion (1000 times greater than your headline suggests)
on Aug 9th, 2009 at 05:03
12 Life Saving Rules violations…….
Ok, so Mark admitted to breaking some of the Life Saving Rules. He ?ucked up, and should be held accountable to whatever degree. But do you really know what burns my butt more than a three foot hydrogen flame? It is the fact that our worthless, safety preaching plant manager who wants to sweep this under the rug! So much for keeping us safe. It is people like him, who can talk out of both sides of his mouth and whistle at the same time, that really scare me to death.
I hate to be the bearer of bad news Mr. Plant Manager, Sir David…….but, if you are truly concerned about our safety and well being, then lick your wounds, or whatever, and say goodbye to all the good, hard working people at Convent. We have survived many years without your help. So without your help, we stand a better chance of surviving many more.
Just MyTwoCentsWorth
on Aug 9th, 2009 at 04:18
Dear Motivaman, MotivaSux and Conventscum-When a business doesnot make money, it has to be sold. Shell is also selling Stanlow and several other refineries in Europe. Donot expect other businesses to subsidize you. Sorry to spoil your Sunday. Be real, man.
on Aug 9th, 2009 at 04:00
Now the EC-2 has been announced. We in the EC4-5 are being kept in the dark. The standard answer by the bosses are , it is confidential and designed in the Centre. The potential EC-3 claim they donot know either and are busy looking after their own interest. We wonder what does the Centre know on what to design without talking to us. We know now how Shell treat its staff when in Crisis. From now to 1 Jan 2010 is along time to wait in s Hell. The Shell Transition communication Team didnot work this out well. Dont treat us like Mushrooms in the dark , fed with shit for so long. One thing for sure, our loyalty will never be the same again. We donot expect this from the World No.1 Company.
on Aug 8th, 2009 at 19:53
Guest 66, thanks for letting us know about the Nazi Swastika flying at Shell HQ. That’s another gem. I don’t think many people knew that Royal Dutch Shell funds had saved Hitler and the Nazi party. That particular nugget was buried in the news vaults for nearly 70 years.
on Aug 8th, 2009 at 19:39
I heard that the Shell hospitality tent at the 18th hole of the Shell Houston Open Golf Tournament is called The Eagles Nest. Is this true? If it is true, is it just a coincidence?
on Aug 8th, 2009 at 19:15
This Shell Nazi thing is not new news. Shell even has a photo in their 3 volume 100 year history book of Shell HQ in the Hague with a Nazi flag flying out the front. Don’t think Shell has ever tried to hide the unfortunate linkage between Hitler and RDS, although you can’t blame them for not yelling about it 60 years later! be fair guys!
on Aug 8th, 2009 at 14:56
Shell’s communications positioning:
If the truth isn’t potentially damaging tell the truth.
If the truth is partially damaging tell half truths.
If the truth is damaging – lie!
on Aug 8th, 2009 at 02:55
Shell does read and listen to the Donovans news. See Jon C and Paul M is in the latest casualty list. Next will be their cronies, Bob P, Scot F, Jonathan H, Dennis D, JR…and more. List has also been provided to Michiel and Petronas. The list includes people who “work” from home, frequent coffee bean ( >30mins ), Boulevard, Lutong cafe and Malaysians who are puppets and has business outside and the 3pm golfers. So watch out for EC3-5.
on Aug 8th, 2009 at 02:06
I retired from Shell three months ago. As I reflect after 32 years in Shell, what went well n what went wrong. Shell has alot of smart people however the move towards Globalisation some ten years ago actually change the culture, it did more harm than good. While the Globalisation gives more control ( and employment ) to the Centre in Europe and Houston, it has created the matrix and functional organisation which requires alot of internal alignment, engagement,etc before the ideas get to fruition. Therefore some 50-75% of the time is due to working with internal stakeholders. This also resulted in shared accountability and risk taking is spread out and practically not there. I believe in single point accountability. But then who am I? A small fish in the Ocean.
Voser is falling into the same trap , so are the analyst and everyone. However time will come when the Pendulum will swing back. Its not only Shell, the whole World is into this. The World is like Shell, a big company, a dinosaur. To turn things around it takes 10-20 years. My advice to those staying, make the best use of your time in Shell. Do what you can to improve yourself. If you are a young graduate who just join Shell, it is a good company with lots of smart people. Time will come but then do expect a different set of challenges. There is no real business case to change yet. U$2.3bil for a quarter is a very healthy sum.
For me, I enjoy everybit of Shell and I am beginning to enjoy my Life after Shell by travelling round the World. ( No more meetings, late night telecon, video conferencing, deadlines , infightings, backstabbing – most of these activities would not be present in a small business which need to survive ).
To my colleagues, I miss you all.
on Aug 8th, 2009 at 01:35
Johndoe,
I know a few people in some pretty high up positions throughout the organization. I didn’t really ask about layoffs, I was on a call about some Life Saving Rules violations and before I hung up, they said “oh yeah, by the way”. But I can tell you judging from our new organization, I wouldn’t doubt that this will be happening throughout Shell. Don’t know for sure, just guessing. Sorry I couldn’t help, but if I do hear any more, I will be sure to post asap!
Motivaman for president!
on Aug 7th, 2009 at 22:33
Dear motivaman,
How did you come by that information? Is the reduction specific to Convent? Any more that you could share would be great, thanks…
on Aug 7th, 2009 at 10:52
Chadwick is a caretaker for a short while until he presumably gets the boot himself. Designated to go replace Cook, but that job no longer exists. It would provide the dato more time sorting out the Donovans, there are few people in this world he hates more. And this is a great achievement. So the Donovans must have done some good!!!
on Aug 7th, 2009 at 04:05
Can anyone tell me what has happended Jon Chadwick. I have not seen him in any of the appointments to date, or have i missed something?
on Aug 6th, 2009 at 08:09
Time to reflect on the integrity of Jorma Ollila, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Royal Dutch Shell Plc. In his time as Chairman it seems, if we judge from the actions of Shell’s new CEO Peter Voser, he has allowed Shell to become an over-staffed, unfocused, top heavy bureaucracy. A company that requires urgent and invasive surgery. A Company that no longer has confidence in its staff at the top to the extent that it makes them re-apply for jobs
on Aug 6th, 2009 at 04:18
ATTENTION
Shortly after posting my last post about the 12 Life Saving Rules, I made a few calls to some people I trust dearly within the Shell organization and this is what they told me.
Motiva Convent will release (sever) at least 45 more contractors and salary people by the end of the year!
Remember the e-mail Brignac sent out a few weeks ago about more layoffs? He said there was to be no more severence packages. Guess that meant that people will be laid off without a package. He really side stepped that question!
What a Liar!
Motivaman for president!
on Aug 6th, 2009 at 01:54
OK everyone, here is a little more information about the 12 Life Saving Rules violation by a Motiva salary employee at Convent.
A Motiva salary employee was caught red handed blatently violating not 1, but 2 of the Life Saving Rules. Two operators and one contractor witnessed this violation, plus the salary employee admitted to 3 other salary employees that he did the violation in question.
So you ask what happened? NOTHING! A investigation had been done and many, many different excuses were made for his violations. A big coverup is underway. The company has also threatened that if this issue continues to be persued, the witnesses will also be terminated.
This is the problem with the situation, when these rules came out, the company said that just knowing that a violation occured and not reporting it will cause YOU to lose your job also. So this was turned in and the company has done nothing but made threats toward these people. Also, according to the 12 rules management outline, anyone whom does report a violation will be positively reinforced, the guy whom reported this was told by management that he just did it because he hated management. That is far from positive. The company is intimidating everyone whom witnessed this act, telling them that they will have to be fired along with the salary guy. Also according to the 12 rules outline is that the HSSE department is supposed to be doing the investigation, but from what I’ve been told, Its a manager and a HR person, not HSSE, so is this investigation even legal?
Why does Shell put out these 12 rules and enforce them strictly when a contractor or hourly employee violates them, but when one of there own violates 2 of them, the LIE, and INTIMEDATE people? They just as well flush them down the toilet because they mean nothing!
Did I also mention that the salary employee in question’s father was a past Shell plant manager.
Motivaman for president!
on Aug 4th, 2009 at 21:42
Joblow – you posted some very insightful thoughts – I do agree that you have some valid points with respect to DP handling of the severances vs other sites. Thanks for making me rethink this some. I have to find out what the facts really are at PAR and Convent – the way it was handled does not sound like Shell. But???
on Aug 4th, 2009 at 16:41
You cannot possibly blame HR. They cant even look after themselves. They have outsourced everything. When you ask them how many staff is the company, it will take awhile before they can give you the answer. The business has to do everything themselves. They just serve as Advisors. But then, they have the most VPs in the new restructure. Surprise! Surprise! Well done, Hugh! Maybe we should have a temperature check..lets do the temperature check – Shell people survey now.
on Aug 4th, 2009 at 14:03
A major criticism of Shell in recent times has been the immense gulf between the rhetoric and the reality. There is an assumption that if someone crafts some elegant and sympathetic words then that is enough. There is no need to deliver reality that matches the words so long as the words ring around the public domain. We saw this with the disingenuous corporate advertising that claimed that Shell had imperatives that those of us close to the organisation knew to be untrue. And we saw it also with the ritual annual bullshit about “Shell people”. Take the 2006 Annual Report for example. In it Jorma Ollila said, “Across Shell I have met dedicated and committed people working in a productive corporate culture with very strong values. I have been particularly impressed with the way they are responding to the pace of change in the energy industry; how they are delivering strong results; and how they are putting in place plans to secure the future growth of Shell
on Aug 4th, 2009 at 12:42
I resigned from Shell E&P to join another company 2 years ago. In recognition of my 7 year contribution to the business, I was given not only a paid-for and very well attended leaving “do”, but also a gift. Be cautious in generalising. I think sometimes, some colleagues are just “unlucky” with the teams they end up in.
on Aug 4th, 2009 at 12:15
Well Tom must be happy, his people are following his leadership like the little sheeple they are. I see now that Roxan will be promoted to EC2 GM-M she can leave Convent, before the shit hits the fan. How does it feel Roxan to know you sold your soul and screwed a lot of good people. Tom, Roxan, and David can’t even walk around and look some of them in the eye when they see them. Tom the other day didn’t even have the courtesy to say hello to the people eating at Tezcuco. What a dick. Roxan you have to know also that they are keeping you cause they need women to be promoted cause they rather have a woman than a protected race in the leadership. The sooner you get on your horse and leave Convent the better. David, Jesus is not happy with you.
on Aug 4th, 2009 at 11:58
I left a short time ago – after working for he company 6 years. No goodbye or something similar.
on Aug 4th, 2009 at 04:05
IT4ME, The way the people let go were handled in Manufacturing within the Gulf Coast was horrible in Motiva Port Arthur and Convent. People were told early in the morning and then walked to the gate. They weren’t even able to get their personal belongings and take them home. They could not even get pictures of their family or children and take it with them. Fundamentally, Shell has lost track of what it is as a company due to a few bad managers. The plants above have defaulted to a low standard because of Tom Purves and his approach to “make a difference”. His leadership teams do what he wants them to do because they are either part of his inner circle or they are scared for their job. They each got the loyalty talk when the past GM left PAR. They know what they have to do to keep their jobs. Convent just has a weak leadership team. No real surprise. And the senior leaders that Tom has to answer to don’t weigh in and just let him do what he chooses….. well there you go. Maybe this tells us more about Shell in the broader sense.
on Aug 3rd, 2009 at 20:33
With Voser’s organisational changes filling the headlines, I wonder if we perhaps lose sight of what all this means at the personal level ?
One of my IT colleagues left Shell a few days ago. Just another case among thousands, but the manner of his parting struck a chord. He worked in the “BAM”, a part of the IT organisation that is drowning in “process”, and where little meaningful work has been done for a year or more. Bombarded by endless top-down initiatives, his hapless line management couldn’t even manage a farewell card, nor a handshake, nor even a simple “goodbye” after what had been 20 years of dependable service. An embarrassed colleague escorted him from the building at the end of his last day.
How hard is it to show some respect ?
on Aug 2nd, 2009 at 10:29
Paddy- You hit the nail head again. I wonder why we in Shell never learn. Some advise to spend more when cost of services and material is low. Cashflow doesnot impact of profit nor ROACE. But we are like a herd of sheep led by a shepherd. There are few who go against the grain and want to be different to bring Shell to the next level.
Unfortunately most of these have left cos they are seen as “negative”. We are now a Centre-led ( Global ) organisation run by so called Strategist who has never accountable or run a busines before. Most of the businesses cannot be run by “Remote Control”. There is always a personal touch to business which we in Asia call relationship.
Wonder how Exxon does it so well?
on Aug 2nd, 2009 at 09:49
The oil and gas business is not a short-term business. Investments made today often don’t start earning for nearly a decade. Strategy has to be long term – Shell is not running a sweet shop. True there will be peaks and troughs but Shell should resource at a level consistent with its long term strategy and weather the troughs when they come. Contracting out can cover the peaks. Knee-jerk reactions to current difficulties (whilst not new) are depressing. And the fact that the head honcho who got the company into its current difficulties is luxuriating with a seven figure pension whilst most of us have to make do with a derisory 0.9% is a scandal!
on Aug 2nd, 2009 at 03:46
One month has past since Voser take over. Nothing exciting has happen except profit is down due to low oil price. Jon Chadwick is still out there making press statement ( Sunday times ) talking about Floating LNG. Shell response to the economic downturn is far too slow! To Shell , 740 SEG applying for 650 jobs is a shock. This is not a drastic change. You need to have at least 30% changeout to make a difference. There are some company who cut 50% of management staff one year ago.
To Voser , you are still very “Shell” . You need to change the whole renumeration package. Dont just look at numbers, do look at bottomline($$). The alarming number of Expats in Shell need to be reduced especially in Asia. Some are not as good as local. I wonder why there are here in the first place. Is it they are not good enough in Eurpoe or US? or is Asia a training ground or holiday camp?
Voser- when you are next in Asia- find out for yourself. These costs are worth trimming without risk or impact to the business. Every knows this. But nothing gets done. You know why.
on Aug 2nd, 2009 at 01:47
The challenge for Shell and other major Corporations is everyone is a salaried employee. I once chanced to meet a billioniare businessmen and ask him the secret of his success.
His advice is ” Run the business as if your own”
Shell will not be able to do that as everyone will not want to engineer themselves out of work. Look around Shell, how many employees work to rule from 8-5, work from home, ? Travel only when required? The global travel bill is US$800mil , 80% is in the three(3) Centres ( Houston, Hague and London ).
Infact everyone in Shell is a “Mini businessman” trying to get the most out of Shell with the least effort from Top to bottom in their own way including Peter, Malcolm, Mathias, even the bean counter Simon. It will change if the EC and Shell staff are given a very low basic pay and the rest is depends on profit not the current high 95% basic and 5% performance bonus. Lets dare the EC to lead by example.
on Aug 1st, 2009 at 18:47
Gamechanger, STV, and the rest are mostly about acquiring technology and IP from others and providing lucrative directorships for redundant senior Shell employees… Schlumberger know how to commercialise technology, but Shell rarely succeed.
on Aug 1st, 2009 at 17:50
Ref Peter Voser, you’re quite right of course. One of his proclaimed positive attributes is that he’s a Shell man but was “out of the building” during their reserves problems. However I think it is fair to describe somebody on the Supervisory Board of a Bank as a “Banker.” Is that detrimental? I think not. However you’ve got to wonder what the Board was doing given the issues UBS has now.
Anyway, cutting layers from most older multinationals is probably a good thing, Shell’s unlikely to be an exception; done well it may help to remove outdated cultures and practises. As always though there’s a possibility that it may simply be a means to cull “dissent.” Given that Shell has apparently already lost approx 150 snt jobs in 1 month of Mr Voser’s tenure you wonder if haste is a priority – let’s please the analysts.. Time will tell
on Aug 1st, 2009 at 17:31
I’ve seen comments here referring to Peter Voser as a banker & having worked for UBS. As far as I know, he’s never been a banker & his UBS appointment is/was as a non-exec. He’s spent all his career in Shell, apart from the two or three years when he left to join ABB.
I stand to be corrected but that’s the position as I understand it.
I suspect that some of the comments expressed here are the usual engineer’s prejudice against finance people. I always remember being on a job evaluation panel when an engineer commented that the only profession he recognised was that of engineering. Plonker.
Regards,
Pensioner.
on Aug 1st, 2009 at 16:25
Ref the gamechanger question, yes they do and yes they will but don’t expect to be given anything, they’ll want their pound of flesh. There’s also Shell Technology Ventures (just search) with pages of details of “gamechanger” companies funded this way.
With respect to the 70% dip in profits, that’s obviously just the lower oil price, primarily, and cutting jobs will have a negligible effect; far better to produce more.. sadly production is down mainly due to issues in Nigeria, so it’s pretty clear that Shell needs to develop resources in more stable environments. Finally, Shell now have a CEO who knows a spreadsheet inside out and understands the need to please blinkered self-important analysts, so is a short termist. Having being with UBS (which is in the midst of its own multi-billion dollar mess)he know financial woes; how’s this going to help the long term future of a company where projects can take 10 years to mature?
on Aug 1st, 2009 at 15:42
POSTED ON BEHALF OF “Jo Blow”:
It has been awhile since my last post, so I thought I would share some of the observations that have come to mind in the last couple weeks.
First, I find it very interesting as to Mr. Voser’s approach to restructuring the SEG grade, I suppose there are many out there hitting their knees in prayer as to the fate of William T. Purves and his henchmen… This in itself is a testament to the legacy Mr. Purves will leave when he departs stage left. I mean really how many of the people out there are of the character that would actually wish ill will on anyone? Personally I never thought I would see the day that I would actually wish this on anyone, There I go thinking!
Second, We have heard so much on the staff cuts coming out of Convent, PAR, and Norco, but nothing out of Deer Park…..HHHHMMMMMM I wonder why? Is it that maybe the GM there is actually taking pains to ensure that he carries the difficult process through with Fairness, Dignity, and Respect? (Mr. Williams, Mr. Botts, you really should pay attention here it does speak volumes!) You see, Deer Park has approached this whole ordeal with Integrity, up front and honest communication, and compassionate dignity to those affected. There was no escorting of long term employees out the gate, there was no disgraceful handling of employees by a ruthless management team, consequently when most employees are handled this way, they tend to accept the whole situation as what it is, a tough business environment with Tough Business Decisions!
Lastly, I cant help but wonder what Mr. Voser and the Manufacturing Leadership Team think of Mr. Purves’s behaviour that has come to light on this site. I mean, I am a realist and do not believe that everything posted in regards to Mr. Purves is 100% factual, so lets just for the moment assume that it is only half true. If you add it all up at half truth it is still a shocking display of unethical behaviour, vindictive manipulation of a sensitive HR process to ensure legality in staff reductions, and total disregard for the company core values in most if not all of his business activities.
on Aug 1st, 2009 at 10:51
Very good point about the upstream in the last post. My ex Boss (sort of) Tony Wildig had the vision to move Middle East E&P substantially to Dubai to make relationship management with key resource holders in the Region easier and more locally focused. I hear now that the Dubai office is being run down and people are being hauled back to the Hague. Big mistake! Also the magazine that I launched, “Shell in the Middle East” which focused on decsions makers in the region has been stopped after more than ten successful years. Some people know the cost of things but not their value!
on Aug 1st, 2009 at 05:52
Paddy, if David Pirret gives freedom and make Country VP or GM accountable , what is left for him to do. In fact it is even more applicable for Upstream where Key stakeholders are the National company who are the custodian of country oil and gas resources. These days even stationery are procured globally. Isnt it a joke, but then what else do you expect the Global Managers to do? Malcolm talk so much about Accountabilities.
on Aug 1st, 2009 at 00:21
Unle Tom, wasn’t it you that ran the FCCU at Norco back in 1988? Shell missed a chance to correct that problem when they left you in your current job. Tick Tick.
on Jul 31st, 2009 at 23:53
Is Shell Gamechanger for real? If you meet the criteria such as novelty and adding
value, will they really
consider funding new
tech? Has Shell Gamechanger funded
any gamechangers?
on Jul 31st, 2009 at 23:53
Anybody hear about Global Solutions Engineering VP (Bonino) stating during a recent townhall which US plants are “safe”?
PSR, SMR, DPR, PAR are suposedly in the “safe” category. No mention of Norco….no mention of Convent.
on Jul 31st, 2009 at 19:29
Where are all the articles out there Dononvan comparing RD results to Exxon Moobils? Try google!
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/energy/6555432.html
on Jul 31st, 2009 at 16:22
“Make the Country VP or GM accountable”
Spot on. That’s how it used to be. Define the business geographically and especially at Country level. This applies particularly in the Downstream. Take decisions for Malaysia in KL – not in Houston or London or even Singapore. Ask David Pirret how much freedom he is prepared to give to the managers in KL, or Melbourne, or Sao Paulo/Rio, or Calgary to run their own Lubs businesses responding to the local competition and the local customers and the local markets? All markets are local…
on Jul 31st, 2009 at 12:35
Dear “Shell Shocked” – We can tell you it is not a shock. 650 is still too many. Look at the number of VP in HR. How many businesses does Shell has- less than 10. If we have 3-5 Think tank ( Strategists and accountable party ) per business that only works out to be less than 100 ( including EC).
For example in Asia, we donot see why we need a VP Production. We have VP Malaysia, VP Brunei, GM China, GM STOS, GM Philippine. So why do we need a VP Production. These gentlemen are very senior people LC/SEG), shouldnot they be made accountable for Productions? Shouldnt they be made accountable for HSE? We still have EP and a separate GP in Asia. We thought we want to combine the value chain. or is it because we donot have competent people?
So there is so much duplication even in the new structure. We can see this coming. All the staff are talking about this at Coffee Bean, Coffee shops. The Centre is still fully occupied with all the VPs already have office spaces and to keep the EC and EC-1 company.
As insider, we see the number of infightings and the number of Empire building. Why? because these senior VPs has so much time but nothing much to do. They will call for meetings, visit the regions and come up with actions. The processes are very complicated . ( still is ). Every site is so worried sick of of such visit because it creat more work for them. But they cant stop this because thes VPs are their bosses or future bosses.
Make the Country VP or GM accountable. If they are not capable they should be removed. Donot not add VPs to creat more work. What standardisation? Each region is so much different now. It is up to whim and fancy of the EVP. This means all the processes in different regions will be different.
If we are serious about rationalisation and cost savings, we should be bringing the Capable Malaysian overseas back to fill in critical positions in Malaysia. But we still see the Brits, Scot and the Dutch etc. An average Expat cost more than 5 X of an equivalent local. Of course Americanos are more expensive. We think the $$ game is more important than the number game. Furthermore the Malaysian are more capable then the Expat when come to engaging their own Stakeholders in their respective countries.
Dear Shock- We can tell you this is not a shock. We can still see the Empire being built and unclear and fuzzy accountability in the new organisation. 740 applying for 650 jobs is not a challenge. If Peter Voser meant what he said, the 740 should only be apply for 100 jobs.
As insider we can tell you , the way it is developing, it is still going to be too FAT and MESSY, maybe evnn worst. Those who donot get a job it is because they asked to be released or they donot want the jobs. There are so many horsetrading going on as we speak. We donot feel Chilly but we are HOT because nothing will change. We shall still end up with 300 Expat in Malaysia. Watch the Space.
on Jul 31st, 2009 at 09:46
COLD BLOODED VOSIFICATION:
It was chilling to read the comment by Voser that requiring 740 senior managers to reapply for 650 jobs is “an interesting exercise”. The senior managers involved may view the experience as something more frightening than an exercise. To make such a comment is very revealing about Voser and it is not to his credit. The man is an accountant with ice water running through his veins. He may not have been tainted by the reserves scandal but do not forget that he has since 2005 been a non executive director of UBS, the Swiss bank mired in fraud and scandal.
on Jul 31st, 2009 at 01:21
Who would thought it would have took this long? Wondering what I’m talking about? Shell’s 12 cardinal rules.
Yesterday one of Motiva Convents salary employees was caught red handed breaking not 1, but 2 life saving rules. Working without a permit and not verifying isolation(because it wasn’t isolated).
Well don’t you know it,those silly wacky, people we have running our wonderful refinery are trying to sweep it under the rug. Nothing is going to happen to him.A slap on the wrist. Anyone supprised? Oh yes, they are quick to run off hourly people and contractors, but not salary. I’m shocked it took this long.
If anyone that was fired because of these rules just happens to be reading this post, they might wanna keep a watch on this the next couple weeks, I will post more as I get news from my source. Maybe your future lawsuit will set you up forever. I believe you would have a good case now!
Motivaman for president!
on Jul 30th, 2009 at 11:00
What Brinded should have said:
Success for Shell means that we have to find, develop, transport and trade more oil and gas and secure the highest margins we can consistent with the long-term security of our business. This means we must eschew the short-termism that has sometimes characterised our behaviour. To pursue our growth strategy we need the best people – the most skilful and experienced practitioners all the way along the chain. The best geologists. The best engineers. The best practical scientists. The best negotiators. The smartest traders. And of course we need good people to do the bookkeeping as we go along. But our distinctive strengths are not the men in the accounts departments. They lie in our highly skilled professional practitioners. So we must keep them and reward them and not berate them. We must offer them long-term job security and not threaten them. That is how we will secure competitive advantage – not by facile cuts of staff and costs – that never worked in the past and it won’t work now.
on Jul 30th, 2009 at 08:05
Just read: “We are in the middle of a programme to build 1 million barrels of oil equivalent per day (boe) of additional Upstream capacity”. But Brinded has been in the middle of building extra production capacity since many years. So why would we now believe Shell? If Voser has any sense he fires Brinded asap. And all the sycophants around him. Thereafter he may hear the truth and bad news occasionally….
on Jul 27th, 2009 at 17:07
Running an organisation by numbers and spread sheets with no fundamental understanding of the business is just what Robert McNamara did as US secretary of defence during the Vietnam war. The man himself judged the episode as not his greatest success and in his memoirs admits there is more to decision making than “numbers”. There is just a bit more to the oil business than NPV calculations. The fervent hope must be that Voser appreciates this – but one cannot help but be concerned…..
Cost cutting has its place, but in 1999 and 2000 whilst BP and Exxon had decided to rule the world, Shell were busying themselves with building a business through “Strategic Cost Leadership”. Yes, the great and good of Shell honestly imagined it to be the right approach to ensuring a bright future. The result – a loss of much of the better technical talent, a catastrophic emasculation of technical ability and a propensity to “talk things up” instead of facing reality – and we all know where that took the company. However, who knows – perhaps Voser’s reign will lead to a redefinition of the Peter Principle – but then again, perhaps not.
on Jul 27th, 2009 at 14:08
To Peter Ankers: I wrote the posting from the heart and there is a misunderstanding. I meant Brinded and Bichsel who are surrounding themselves with likeminded yesmen. For a banker Voser is fine.
on Jul 27th, 2009 at 13:35
POSTING BY PETER ANKERS ON THE ARTICLE “Shell insiders toxic reaction to Vosification job cuts”: It may be reasonable to question the job reductions being reported. However you totally devalue the discussion you are trying to initiate by allowing implications that Peter Voser is a crook to be broadcast on your site.
I had much contact with Mr Voser in the years before I retired in 2000 and I have the greatest admiration for his integrity and honesty.
on Jul 27th, 2009 at 12:14
maximising shareholder value by selling the company…maybenot such a bad idea if your core business has shifted from exploitation of oil and gas fields to
on Jul 27th, 2009 at 09:50
Voser cutting 600 top jobs. Nothing new, we could read that quite a while ago on the Donovan site. But what does this really mean? The head honchos are now expected to all combine two jobs. This is a nice recipe to get them overworked and overtired while the official explanation is ‘better coordination’. But they will be so exhausted that they cannot challenge projects that hit their desks for approval and so must rely on completed staff work by the underlings. The last few years this system has been tried and failed.
Therein lies the problem. Remember Herkstroter, the other banker? He had no use for geologists anymore since ‘we have Schlumberger’. This Voser is another banker and he is going to do the same, except that in the mid 90s there was still a lot of petroleum engineering and exploration expertise around. Now there also is a lot of expertise, not necessarily on exploiting oil and gasfields but certainly on ‘sustainability’, ‘Diversity and Inclusion’, ‘behavioral attitudes’ etc.
So we go to a slimmed down oil company with insufficient emphasis on technical expertise. And anyone who starts to claim that technical expertise is now at the forefront with Bichsel reporting to Voser is so mad, ill informed and stupid that I will refrain from even trying to point out why he is wrong. Crooks like to surround themselves with other crooks…
With the last Dutchman ethnically cleansed from the top, the road is now wide open for the Promise rather than Performance methodology of Brinded and all his english and american lackeys.
With all the gorilla like actions of Voser I am totally surprised that Brinded is still around. Although a useless and ineffective manager, he is a clever englishman with many friends in powerful positions and they all band together. Even a Swiss gorilla cannot break those old boy networks!
It appears Voser is preparing Shell to be taken over or merge. That will make the biggest killing for him and the rest is not important.
on Jul 26th, 2009 at 08:12
We should all be helping Voser and his EC out in their new job to make Shell the No. 1 Employer- We can be Proud of Shell!
Send suggestion to him – peter.voser@shell.com
on Jul 26th, 2009 at 07:18
Dear Eyesore, Shell has been in Malaysia for almost 100 years and yet today we still have expat running logistics, offshore platform and finance where there is not much Technology required. We acheived 100% localisation in 2002 ( with 100 Expat in Malaysia and 100 Malaysians working outside Malaysia in various Shell location – so 5% of total staff ) but then came Globalisation. The whole Malaysianisation programme was thrown out of the window. We donot see whats so special of those expat working in Malaysia. They spend lots of time in Coffee beans, have local girlfriends, never meet Petronas stakeholders, live in beautiful Camp houses.
Our advice to you, if you are a young man, is to Work hard, make yourself skillful, donot be too materialistic and move on when the Right Company comes along or else , you only have yourself to blame. Believe us.
on Jul 26th, 2009 at 04:44
World largest Company , Shell is expected to report profits of about $2.4 billion (
on Jul 25th, 2009 at 00:37
Re IPFs at PAR, they basically get set where Tom wants them set. That was Monnete’s problem at the plant.He was trying to make a difference by changing our culture and driving the accountability of the team. This was ruffling the feather’s of some of Tom’s boyz down in the trenches. Monnete had a mind of his own and Tom didn’t like it. Down goes the IPF. Look at Forrest… he sat there unknowingly I guess and let the project get out of control. His punishment should have been a pink slip. What did he get? Slide over Monnete and let me drive… because Tom said I could. Wonder what his IPF was? Mr Botts, go back and look at the many of the ones let go for “performance” or “redundancy” and you will find an IPF trend that doesn’t make sense and you will find that room for Tom’s old team was made at the expense of people who were trying to take our plant to a new place. Now we have all of Tom’s inner circle running the place and doing exactly what Tom wants done. Heck, it’s like he never left….. I read with embarassment the stuff posted about Funkhouser. How can he still be on the payroll? And yet, go look at his IPF. I wonder what you would find. I agree with outsider, we have some hard working people on this team that an make a difference and some that were that have been punished for some who don’t have a clue. And for USCITIZEN, why do we have to come on here and voice our concerns? Well that ought to tell you about the state of affairs with the current leadership in our region. They all basically march to the drum of the Purves waltz either because they are scared or because the koolaid was good. I wait for the day when our leadership fixes this fiasco and allows us to getting back to feeling good about our company and who we are as a team.
on Jul 22nd, 2009 at 16:15
As one senior Shell employee put it,”95% of the people at Shell are honest, ethical and extremely competent. Unfortunately the other 5% are in top management positions”
on Jul 22nd, 2009 at 12:05
johndoe, it seems the IPF’s were fabricated to get rid of certain people. Most did a great job, but bucked the system. One had a super award last year, yet got a .6 on his ipf. It doesn’t add up, if you look at who was let go and if you knew them personally, you would understand why they were on the chopping block. Most didn’t support the sHell way and actually thought for themselves. sHell doesn’t like people like that. It was sHell’s way or the highway. Jill said she was told to give lower evaluations to some, and I know she did some on her own. She bragged about all the people she got fired at her last job. Its like notches on her gun. She had it in for certain people. Ever notice how them eyes are so close together she looked like and owl? It must be a trait because look at some of the others a-holes and the distance between their eyes.
on Jul 22nd, 2009 at 04:06
Wake up America, Obama Health care plan is like Motiva GAME-ME. Look at how long it takes to fix pumps, and that could be you waiting to get fixed if we let these idiots in Washington pass this health care bill.
on Jul 22nd, 2009 at 03:52
They should send out an email announcing who got what jobs at Convent tomorrow. Funny how some people were cut so others can take their jobs. Will post a list of those cut and who replaced them later and some commentary. Look at all the moves that really pissed off some long time people that are now stuck here. Some wish they were offered a package, but they weren’t on anybody’s shit list. Look at all the unit upsets in the past month. I guess reliabilty is really working at Convent. The drama continues…
on Jul 22nd, 2009 at 01:31
Reading a post that discussed IPFs in it below…..does anyone know how these are work? Speaking to a recently terminated employee (terminated during the cuts of the week of June 16), the employee mentioned his IPF went from 0.8 1 year, to 1.2 the next, and then to 0.7 . The average resulted in the employee not making the cutoff…are IPFs really established so arbitrarily?
on Jul 20th, 2009 at 07:38
John I found the Sunday Times very interesting and I have to admit I didn’t know how all this started. I’m a 40+ years Shell man and have great managers like Bill Campbell to look upto. Keep up the great work.
on Jul 18th, 2009 at 12:18
To the true Uncle Tom, Hope your bed up at the lakehouse isn’t too full. It must be a tight squeeze with Cubbie Hartsock, Jeff Funkster, and lost in the trees Forrest. I’m sure you only bring him up every now and then now that he is a big successful plant manager running a big plant, that he never deserved. The sad part Tom Tom is that your bosses let you do this. Oh well, yours is coming. Have you looked in the mirror lately? When they find out how you personally played into reducing IPFs enough so that packages could be given out, let’s see what happens to your IPF? When it is said and done… Hartsock will just slink back into his cubbie hole, Forrest will need to update resume.com, and the best for last Jeff….. you will find out what Shell really thinks of you… AGAIN. You were already sold once and somehow allowed to sneak back in a side door thanks to Uncle Tom. He won’t be able to help you. I guess your next move will be to slide down I-10 and see if Casey needs you at BP. Tell the young girlfriend Ms Hobbs we said hello. Andjust know….. I’M WATCHING.
on Jul 18th, 2009 at 04:08
Motivasux, you are right on the money, thanks for exposing David’s sidestepping the questions or as he said rumors. We all know that when we started a rumor, it came through 90% of the time. I’m going to miss my shift coordinator, but at least I know he cared about me and my coworkers safety. He said a long time ago not to trust management, and now I see why. He was a great leader, very knowlegable, and always there to help when we had problems whether it was work related or personal. You know who you are, and I just want to say it was a pleasure working for you. I know you can’t post right now, but I look forward to seeing some post later cause I know you won’t hold back on anyone. Let us know all the dirt on the backstabbing scum so everyone will realize who they can’t trust. Good luck to all you guys leaving in Aug and Nov. Ya’ll will be missed.
on Jul 18th, 2009 at 03:53
Well Motivasux, you beat me to the post that David sent out. I was planning on posting it myself, but got sidetracked. You forgot to mention, that PAR is going to offer another round of packages, and if you remember, David said no packages were going to be offered at Convent, and 4 months later we got them. Also at PAR, there is only one guy left that went there with Monet, another one was let go this week. When they are finished at PAR and Convent, there will be no more old Texaco people on site. Unfortunately I have to agree with a few things that Uncle Tom said. True there is no one left with balls to take up for what is right. Look at all the Shift Coordinators let go, everyone of them were pro-union and took up for operators when they thought the company was wrong, and look what happened to them. The ones left, are the ones that bad mouth operators in meetings, and several of them weren’t great operators themselves. You are left with bullshitting butt kissers, and incompetent managers that lack people skills. Uncle Tom, its easy for you to say that if we don’t like our job to bite the bullet and quit, but who in their right mind can quit a job they have been working for years when they too have bills to pay just like you. I’m sure if they were engineers they could easily find another job, but operators, and former operators don’t have that luxury. I don’t blame David or Roxan, after all they drank the Koolaid a long time ago, and sold their sole to the Devil. David’s was and aZZ when he first started at Norco and we all know you have to be one to get promoted. Jill fabricated bad reviews at the request of others, and modified some that were already done before she took over. Every one of those got a .7 on their IPF except 2 which got a .6. How could they go from 1.1 to .7 in 2 months when Jill redid the reviews. They said Connie had a shit list and if you look at who they say were on it, I personally know of 4 that was informed last November about their name being on the list. Just so happens they got bad reviews because they opposed Connie, isn’t that very coincidental? Yes there were a couple of low performers, but in who’s opinion. There was no 360 feedback from peers, just some who happen to be in the same money pool as them. I have never gotten a 360 request from any manager since I’ve been here. They select who to send it to and won’t send it to people they know would be critical of their performance. David, Roxan, Connie, and the rest of you people who had a hand in canning good people, I hope God punishes you when the time comes.
on Jul 18th, 2009 at 01:47
Guys take a look at the number of expat in China! What business do they contribute. Worst is a lot of them do not even speak or read Chinese! At the end, they need another PRC to accompany them to meetings! How to be cheap and efficient? Worse is some are not even smart, but they use English to bully the PRC. The europeans do that to the Asians and now even the Malaysians do that to the PRC. I think the expat should be reduced to about 10-15 and the rest can be taken over by PRC. Give us a chance to prove and you will be surprised! I ask the EC to look into this with big eyes. Look at big team of expat in EP, what do they do that the PRC cannot do, except speaking and writing good English? If we look at these expat in a PRC company in China, they are not worth one yuen. But we must get real if you want to be efficient and profitable in a big country like China. You better learn fast or you will be left behind by the aggressive Chinese soon……Can you all not see this coming? And very soon! If you are nto careful, one day Shell will be taken over by a PRC! We will treat you the way you treat us now, example by torturing you to read and write Chinese!
on Jul 17th, 2009 at 23:37
Well Boys, you found you a web site!
Everyone’s got an opinion . . . . . right!
Seems like there’s some good comments here and some whining! Not surprised to see both, we all have one, don’t we.
We all make our own beds, and have to live in them!
Good people are leaving Shell, some wanted to, some didn’t. Should some of them really be surprised? Not!
Good performers who didn’t “dog” the Company still have a job.
Good performers (some) who “dogged” the Company are on the way out, no surprise.
Poor performers (some) are leaving the Company, should be no surprise to them. Some were good people who just couldn’t cut it. Those people sometimes survived in the past, but with this darn economy, no one gets a free pass at times like this.
Can you fight it! Let’s be real, who’s got more money?
What’s the bottom line, Shell is a fairly good Company, but its the bad people in some positions in Shell that make things sour. Just like in any Company. That’s life, it’ll never change, not here, or any other Company.
If you dislike your job so bad, bite the bullet and jump ship. At least you might be happier? And that may be worth more than staying and being miserable!
And sometimes good people have to carry out bad actions, or face the music themselves. So who is really to blame?
Which of you would really face termination for not carrying out decisions from upper management that might not be very popular in the people you supervise?
Let’s face it, we’re a foreign owned Company, and the direction is being set from there, not here. Every business is in business for one reason, . . to make MONEY!
It’s Big Business . . . . . Don’t You Understand?
on Jul 17th, 2009 at 21:53
REPLY TO JOHNDOE: Since there are conflicting signals coming from Shell, there is bound to be uncertainty in news reports and more importantly for refinery workers having to put up with Shell management double-talk.
on Jul 17th, 2009 at 21:29
Thank you John. I just want to do my part to make sure that all of the information, both good and bad, gets out to the public. Thank you for this site as I am able to see what is happening elsewhere in the world with this company as well. I wish I could say that I was surprised that it is about the same everywhere.
on Jul 17th, 2009 at 20:06
POSTING BY “JMJPFus” (Supplied by email):
I would hardly classify the ones posting as
on Jul 17th, 2009 at 18:23
John,
The recent article you posted entitled “Shell weighs staff cuts at U.S. Gulf refineries” on July 17, 2009 – does this mean they are considering making additional cuts (in addition to those on June 16 that sparked a storm of activity on the blog)? Can anyone elaborate on the meaning of the Reuters article?
on Jul 17th, 2009 at 08:21
Motivasux, we make a great team. Thanks for the email quoted in a Wall Street Journal article within hours of it being circulated by David Brignac. I don’t think that was what this hapless Shell manager had in mind when he sent it. There is no need to use initials when referring to Shell managers. Please feel free to name names providing we are talking about recent or current events relating to Shell.
on Jul 17th, 2009 at 04:58
I don’t have to take a pay cut, I am hourly. And I sure do wish you would tell all of us what David’s note says. And let me know why the staff infection maintenance man refused to repair the problem today on the cat unit. Tell me that what he said about having to go through all the procedures and meetings was to much of a pain is not what he told us. Then you can tell me why the company won the battle and didn’t repair the leak. Hey uscitizen, get over it. LOL
on Jul 16th, 2009 at 23:53
motivasux,
Let me know when two things happen
1. When you take your paycut, I will take mine. What makes you think I am above you in the ogranization?
2. Let me know when you quit – we do not need people like you working for Shell. And when you do quit, lets compate benefits.
See ya – can wait to see where you end up.
PS – Davids note told you quite a bit if you will read it!
on Jul 16th, 2009 at 22:29
David’s email to ease people. Just wanted to share. You will notice that he never answers the questions. This is typical of management in sHell.
—–Original Message—–
From: Brignac, David G
Sent: Thursday, July 16, 2009 8:16 AM
Subject: Rumor Mill
Like most of you, I hear many rumors around the refinery. I want to share some of the rumors I have heard recently and take an opportunity to address them. If you have any questions about this or anything else, please ask your supervisor or manager or ask me when you see me around.
I heard that there was going to be a second round of severance packages.
While none of us can predict what happens in the future, I can tell you there are no plans at this time for a second round of severance packages at Convent Refinery.
Is it true that the E&I craft line will be cut from 30 to 21 people?
There are no plans to reduce the number of E&I crafts. Rather than decrease the number of Motiva crafts, we are making plans to add a new Motiva multi-skill craft line later this year. You will see the bid poster for these jobs in the near future.
It seems that we are cutting costs at Convent in order to better position the refinery for a sale.
We are getting our costs in line at Convent in order to become competitive in a tough business environment. While operational performance at Convent has been good, our income performance since July of 2008 has been dismal. Convent is a strategic site for Motiva and Shell. However, whenever we as a business entity are not generating income, we are not in control of our own destiny. Thus, the need for us to get our costs in line and start generating positive net income.
I heard that we will be cutting the number of panel operator positions.
We have made reductions in maintenance contractors, support staff, and operations staff. Also, we are currently evaluating reductions in operator positions. We are doing in-depth evaluations to ensure we have the right staffing to execute stabilize, slowdown, and shutdown of facilities in the event of emergencies. In addition, we are evaluating operator staffing levels to ensure we execute the work processes that are so vital to safe and reliable operation. So, we are considering reductions in operator positions, but no final decisions have been made on operator staffing levels.
It seems that we are cleaning up the maintenance backlog so that we can then cut the number of craftsmen needed.
Backlog management is an important part of the maintenance process, and is critical to ensure reliability. It has been a long time since we have cleaned out the backlog. Many of the items in the backlog have been there for months, or even years. So, this was an attempt to get old notifications out of the system. Many of these had already been fixed. I want to be clear that our intention is to fix equipment that breaks, and work very hard to understand how we can prevent equipment from breaking down in the future. We have made significant reduction in craft numbers since January 1st as part of our maintenance transformation work. This work has focused on increasing craft tool time and craft productivity. Because we have improved craft productivity, maintenance backlog has not increased as a result of craft reductions.
Is it true that one of the company strategies is to promote hourly employees to staff so that they can then be given a severance package?
Company strategy is to promote hourly employees to staff who aspire to a leadership role, who live the Convent values and deliver results.
I heard that all operator V&I will be taken off of shift and assigned to a general helper pool to do all kinds of different work.
Establishing a general helper pool would require discussions with USW.
Is it true that management has approached the Union about laying off hourly employees without using seniority?
There are no plans for laying off hourly employees.
Again, if you have questions, feel free to ask.
David G Brignac
on Jul 16th, 2009 at 10:20
I have removed the posting by “Dr No” containing a threat against a Shell executive.
on Jul 16th, 2009 at 07:18
John, thank you for the site. I wish I would have known about it sooner so that I could have posted what has been going on here in the states a long time ago. Uscitizen, you obviously enjoy the site and I would like to thank you for your continued reading as well.
I know that scapegoats post is hard to make out but once the check clears it will be all cleared up. Some of us that work in Convent know what those initials stand for and scapegoat would have put the names but there was some question a couple of weeks back about a post with names. The truth is coming out though, don’t you worry.
I know that we were told in Convent that there is a cost strain and that is what is causing the company to make some moves. So 25 are fired and 10 – 15 are promoted. There is another 5 – 10 that are being brought in and we have already discussed the numbers of people from Norco that Brignac and his people have brought in. The reliability engineers Scott and Mike, were told that their jobs were redundant about 3 weeks ago. Yesterday Brignac promoted two people into those redundant jobs.
People, sHell is a piss poor company to work for. Uscitizen has told us how good we all have it but it is not that good. We are trying to make it betterr by exposing the underhanded and shady dealings that sHell does. If sHell is in this big money crunch and times are so bad, why don’t the two Toms, the gm’s, and the Roxans take a pay cut for this company they love. How about you uscitizen? Why don’t you take a pay cut to help out this great company. None of you will, you just want the people who are below you to suffer. You all are greedy and selfish.
I can’t wait for the day I can post under my name. Unfortunately, I have to keep this job until something comes along. I just hope that I stay alive long enough to find something else.
on Jul 15th, 2009 at 22:27
uscitizen, others can judge for themselves whether my polite factual comments amounted to an attack. If you know of other websites providing a forum used constantly by current and former Shell employees, as this one is, please list them here so that we can all visit and participate. How about some credit for posting all major news stories about Shell, whether positive or negative in nature? And why not refer to me as John, rather than Donovan? That would be more friendly.
on Jul 15th, 2009 at 21:35
Oh yeah , Motiva Man – I started out as a craftsman, got a degree and started my 2nd career. NO – this is not a Shell site???? Donovan is an upset contractor???? Geez I am so glad you educated me! First time on Blogs?, get used to the debate!
on Jul 15th, 2009 at 21:30
I was attacked by two people, oh lord where is Motivaman the savior of all downtrodden!! Sorry dude – the point of Blogs is to share viewpoints – and ours do not align. I feel compelled to let folks know there are other view points and they are not all negative. And when folks spin the facts to paint their negative view, I will get in your face, Deal with it. Dononvan is the king. Notice How he never voices an editorial opinion on the positive articles that he posts! No surprise!! PS see Musaints response to scapegoats post – it was meaningless to anyone but a Convent employee! Get it?
Donovan – I clearly did not get thru to you. The many many many folks who are satisfied with Shell do not post on these sites, deal with it!! They do not feel like wasting their time on the whiners, and I probably should not either, but I am very stubborn! The whiners are more likely to post and they do, deal with it. Read some sociology and psychology books to learn the facts here! And I hate to hurt your big ego feelings Donovan, but there are other forums where folks can share their opinions about Shell, it is the world wide internet!
on Jul 15th, 2009 at 20:08
Aww, come on USCITIZEN, I thought we worked through this. Everyone that reads this uscitizen loves his company! Now, is that good enough? we all know you love Shell, many people do and many don’t. Why don’t you just let people say what they want to without constantly telling everyone their wrong. People have a right to their opinion just as you do.
I personally believe Shell has its good points along with its bad. The only thing is, its constantly getting worse.
Let people speak without attacking them everytime you don’t agree, please.
In case you don’t know, Shell does not own this website and WAS made by an upset contractor.
WE GET IT, YOU LOVE SHELL.
This only reaffirms one of my prior posts to you, that you are corperate shell, probably HR, here for damage control.
on Jul 15th, 2009 at 17:38
Can anyone please translate the passage that “scapegoat” has written. It’s hard to comment as they may be poistive / negative / hieroglyphics. Or has my old friend “twaddle master” returned to the forum?
on Jul 15th, 2009 at 14:39
USCITIZEN, as you can testify, there is nothing to stop people from posting positive comments here about Shell. There appears to be a shortage of people who share your views. As has been pointed out, Shell closed down its own online forum for supposedly open and lively debate – Tell Shell – after it attracted a heavy volume of negative comments about the company. Consequently this is the only Internet forum where former and current Shell employees can speak freely (and without fear of reprisal).
on Jul 15th, 2009 at 14:15
Scapegoat – yeah we are all just shocked!!!??? You have reinforced that the Motiva folks need their own forum for voicing their frustrations. This site is not where Shell folks should bash Shell, save that for the uninformed outsiders and the disgruntled ex Shell folks who have biased viewpoints and a clear agenda.
We never hear from 99% of the inside and outside folks who think Shell is a great company, as I do. But that is the nature of whining , it drowns out sane voices most of the time.
on Jul 15th, 2009 at 12:07
Get ready for a shock. The annoucements should be out today for Convent positions. SH over RB on FCCU, LL and TS to OMC, PO over KB who will get have 3 units, 2 he never worked. DH to maint., TM to PTL and the rest of them. Maybe SH will come to work on time now………..BS staying put in H4, DL and BS to PUL, SB still BSing as usual. I feel sorry for all of them and the idiots that took staff positions know how we were treated. Good luck.
on Jul 13th, 2009 at 15:37
No ! No! IT4me. The Shell People ( IT and HR ) is not linked yet. It is still Hell.
You need at least 20 mins to start up GID and another 20mins to shut down everyday ( with no upgrades ). If there is upgrades, it gives you time to go for meeting first. Since 2002, our Malaysian IT Manager rose from JG3 to JGA. Not a bad progression, considering he managed to convince Petronas to approve part of US$60mil GID costs and of course he knows his IT bosses well.
on Jul 13th, 2009 at 14:33
IT4Me- The HR and IT in Shell People is not linked yet.
One still have to key in many times for one HR personnel information. I thought this could be done by any database system. We in Asia never go into the system in the afternoon when Europe is up ( morning ) . I suppose Europe has to do it in the morning before US is up. This is really a “Follow the Sun Concept” going live. Welldone IT and HR.
on Jul 13th, 2009 at 09:13
One area where IT and HR cultures meet up is of course the famous “SHELL PEOPLE”, the Group’s Personnel Records system (written in SAP). Last I heard, they had spent an extraordinary 500 MILLION USD, and were still plagued with data quality problems as well as having some pretty major omissions (no contractors, no temporary assignments, some countries missing..)
At the time, IT developers of other systems wanting access to Personnel records were tempted to step around SP, and make do with the more basic “Who’s Who”. Although much less comprehensive, WW has a pretty good ‘people catalogue’ developed at barely 1% of the cost ! If you did this, you had to keep quiet though ! There was a 3-line whip to use SP because “we’ve spent so much money on it”. Nowadays, I gather the 2 systems are linked, which probably helps to hide the embarrassment.
on Jul 13th, 2009 at 03:46
In the “good old days” you wouldn’t be put in charge of a coporate function like HR or IT unless you had actually been moved outside to run a business first – usually a country business. Sadly, this didn’t usually apply to Finance, and of course this sort of development has become more difficult because of organisational changes. I don’t believe Mitchell has been outside HR and ever run a business, I am not sure about Matula. Being in charge of “strategy” doesn’t count though ..
on Jul 13th, 2009 at 00:50
By the way, I have given a fair assessment on Jon. Now our focus will be swithed to Michiel. Michiel is not known by Petronas, Petroleum unit, Petrochina, etc. Spex and Stos can be left to the respective MD. In fact all can be left to a capable country MD. Since we have Michiel, why not use him.
Voser/Malcolm- if you donot believe- just ask them whether they know Michiel when you next vist them? If so, how many times has he visited them?
He need to go out more and be seen by key stakeholders.
and not delegate to Mr ” No Use” Paul who is also not known and not respected either.
Free tip No. 6
on Jul 13th, 2009 at 00:34
Shell has highest Sales turnover more than ExxonMobil. However the profit is only half. Shell has 5000 Expat ( in fact more as they have expat contractors ) whereas Exxon has 1000. Shell is the most loved company by Expat and Contractors alike. Most of the Expat gathered around Malaysia , Brunei, Brazil, Nigeria , Middle East. Of course there are Dutch expats in London and US whereas Americans and Brits in Holland. Shell cannot even get Dutch to work in their homeland,Holland and American to work in US. Does it not say something about Shell? By the way, these are the relatively good ones. Most of the second rated Expats are sent to so called developing Countries above. One knows why Shell cost is so high and not No. 1.
Voser- this is free tip No. 5 to you from me.
on Jul 13th, 2009 at 00:12
Paddy you are Right. The introduction of Scorecard ( another consultant’s favourite – Kaplan started it I think ) resulted in very short term focus as the executive pay depended on this. ROACE is a year focus while Shell Share options are three years in duration. No wonder everything is so short term and without strategy or Vision.
Lets dare Voser and his boys to put stake on the ground by declaring Vision 2020 ( copied shamelessly from former Malaysia Prime Minister , Mahatir ) as Shell will acheive
1) Production increase by 50%?
2) Cost down by 30%?
3) No.1 Employer ?
Then all the EC, SEG and LC who steer the company should be measured by this.
on Jul 12th, 2009 at 16:08
Asia Dragon, and others
Corporate speak could almost have been invented in Shell (perhaps it was). Huub was right in a way when he decried our (my) use of the word STRATEGY. But what was comfortable about the idea of strategic targets was that they took the short term out of the equation. In the short term it
on Jul 12th, 2009 at 12:17
Downunder123, for information I am a Snr project engineer. It is not those IT or HR executives we should go after. We should ask ourselve why they are doing this? So imagine all their work have been outsourced so how can we have a happy motivated lot. I understand the trend is reversing so I am optimistic that the day will come where we have real value adding IT and HR colleagues. Give it another 2-5 years. Be patient.
on Jul 12th, 2009 at 12:09
Dear Paddy, during Van Engleshoven and probably your time, “Strategy” belongs to the military or political campaign. But today, Business Strategy is the “in” term. You donot get to meet one consultant ( or LC ) who donot use it.
It is just another word for “Managing for Results”. I prefer the later as it is so simple. Strategy always give one the impression that it is not well thought through yet and therefore it is not quite ready to execute.
Shell has too long being managing safety and Production with not much success. High time, they switch to “Managing Costs”. One cannot use those highly paid executives in the centre to do this. You will see the power in making every country a Profit Centre. Make sure the Centre overhead is less than 5%. Currently the overhead of over 30% is force into respective profit centre.
on Jul 11th, 2009 at 16:37
It is quite apparent that JanBlauu is either from HR or IT – living in a comfort zone of himself. Let me ask Jan not to visit this site as he will be disappointed by the continued disclosure of gross mischieves committed by senior Shell personnel. One must agree that the combination of current HR and IT is the perfect receipt to ruin Shell, already in an advanced stage of heading into the extinct phase.
on Jul 11th, 2009 at 12:34
Guest1
One of my party pieces is the story about how when I was working in Hong Kong and China we had a visit from Van Engleshoven. I was the Planning Manager and had to give a presentation which included a summary of the company’s long term plans in the region. I put up a slide on which the heading was “STRATEGY”. Van Engleshoven exploded at this. In his heavily accented English he shouted at me “Strategy is a shit word” !
on Jul 11th, 2009 at 10:30
Jan Blauu
The reason that I contribute to this site is that Shell, despite its self-proclaimed interest in listening and responding to stakeholders, does not have a medium where this can take place. There used to be an online forum called
on Jul 11th, 2009 at 10:05
AsiaDragon and IT4me, you are both hitting the nail squarely on the head. As Hub van Engelshoven used to say: ‘Strategy is just an excuse to waste money’. And those novel HR systems look fine to the outsider but it creates havoc with the staff that generate income rather than spend it on hobby horsing. Only strong leadership can fix this. And I do not see that. Political correctness is still the norm, all the way to the top. Too long did the ‘leaders’ of the 90s let Hofmeister run away and create the current HR monster.
on Jul 11th, 2009 at 09:21
I just learn about this website from a friend. My advice to those who do not like Shell, please quit and find yourself another job. Do not make life miserable for yourself, family and others. This is a free Enterprise. I have worked for Shell for almost 15 years. I like everybit of Shell.
on Jul 11th, 2009 at 02:36
Dear Outsider- It is just creative accounting. Oil companies explore oil and gas. In return they are reimbursed with oil and gas for their costs. These oil and gas are then sold and treated as sales turnover.
By the way, 45bil and 26bil is alot of money. Wish there is transparency for Oil company as part of their Corporate Social responsibility to give (or invest) major portion of money back to the Country and the people where it belongs. Shell is planning to do this in Sakhalin.
on Jul 11th, 2009 at 02:20
IT4Me- IT is not only IT. It is worst in HR. Look at HR on line.It has created such a huge mess. Handshake,Leave application, travel, you name it. Where is the saving? and cost efficiency?
All these used to be so easy and simple. Now it hits my nerve everytime I think of using them. I wish and dare Hugh Mitchel and other member of EC get to just try out his own HR services. or did he give his password away?
on Jul 10th, 2009 at 09:35
Shell’s turnover slightly exceeds that of ExxonMobil, but Shell’s profit is roughly one half of that of ExxonMobil. How can anyone see this as anything other than confirmation that Shell’s demise cannot be far away. Profitability is a far better gauge of management performance than turnover. It is profitability that will determine who will survive, and who will follow the other dinosaurs into extinction.
on Jul 10th, 2009 at 08:28
If Peter Voser wants to save some money, he might just lean across the boardroom table and ask his CIO (Alan Matula) a few questions about IT.
Why are IT costs so high ? Where are the promised savings from Offshoring ? Are these lock-in (no compete) deals with SAP and Microsoft commercially wise ? What’s going on with IT Infrastructure (661 GID servers wiped out by a virus in March 2009) ? Why has IT taken control of Business Applications, where it is clearly not competent ? How sustainable are these huge SAP systems like “GSAP” (~USD 1 million PER DAY since 2004, years late, and heading for a “Star Wars”). Isn’t “Big IT” just rebuilding the self-serving empire it had in the 1980s ?
Pertinent questions you may think, but it’s unlikely Mr Voser even knows about the issues. “Big IT” has thrived since 2004 with the business distracted by compliance/reserves issues, and where the management of APPEARANCES has become what counts. In this poisonous culture, the whole IT hierarchy now understands they must hide their mistakes, and make sure only good news travels upwards.
So by the time Mr Voser hears anything, it’s all blue skies and larksong. And if questions were ever asked, we can probably guess the CIO’s answer: “it’s STRATEGIC”. So that’s alright then.
on Jul 8th, 2009 at 18:25
All posts relating to Shell, this site or its owners/operators are welcome, whether positive or negative. Please use this facility to expose wrongdoing by Shell. Send us any related documents that you would like published. As regular visitors will have realized we are less than impressed by threats issued by Shell. Internal Shell documents prove that Shell is frightened of us and this website. Shell executives and oil and gas journalists from news agencies and global and national news publications visit here regularly. So what you have to say will be read by the audience you want to reach. Feel free to name people. Gossip about unrelated matters will diminish the credibility of this blog, so stick to current or recent events. We are particularly interested in safety issues, corruption and other breaches of the claimed Shell General Business Principles.
on Jul 8th, 2009 at 15:06
An acid leak on the Alky that the hourly people outside of the unit were not warned about and a blown transformer that resulted in a small fire. I wonder how much of this will get out to the public. This is what goes on everyday in the states and this is why so many of us from the states are on here now. We didn’t know about this site before but now that we do, it gives us a platform to be able to get the information out there.
John, anytime you want us to stop posting, just let us know. All we are doing is putting up the facts of what is going on to let people know that sHell is garbage all over the world. In the case in Convent, we want Texaco back.
on Jul 8th, 2009 at 12:11
Hang in there Convent scum. Truth will prevail where Mr Purves is concerned. The bottom line is he is not the leader that we thought we had, hasn’t been for awhile, and will not ever be the senior leader we need to make our company be the best. As long as he keeps feeding his favorites and taking care of them at the expense of some very good people around him, we will never get to the level we need to be the best. He needs to go. Jeff is no good, everyone but Tom knows it, if you listen even some of the insiders will confess that it is true, and yet Tom keeps feeding him opportunities. How can Motiva leaders pass the ethics test by letting him represent their company with all the known issues he has created since 2004? Tom sweeps it under the rug and we move on. And then you have Forest Lauher. Has anyone read this guy’s resume? He is a joke. How did he not get the boot for the project? Where is the senior leadership holding Tom accountable for these decisions?
Tom, I wonder if they know about the lakehouse meetings you have and who attends?
Bottom line, Thomas, you have lost your credibility with the people if you had any left with the decisions you personally made on severance and ultimately the way you allowed your puppets to handle their people as the gate opened for them to leave.
Tom, you are not a senior leader and I hope your bosses wake up and recognize this soon to help us all.
PS… See if you can run this one down and you might find an answer to some of the other open questions that have been asked….. Back in 1988, when our FCCU blew up, who was the operating manager on at the time ultimately responsible for the safety and care of our unit?
on Jul 7th, 2009 at 22:22
Reading all the articles about sHell’s unethical practices overseas made me realize what I knew all along. They tell us that we are required to complete a code of ethics course, yet us operators are in no position to pose a threat to the supposed ethics of sHell. I don’t understand why hourly people even do them. What hypocrites we work for. They need to put the money spent on all these ridiculous programs that don’t add value. Here’s a hint, you want reliabilty, fix the dang pumps that have been out of service for months. Convent has been running on a wing and a prayer for years, and one day out luck will run out. Get rid of some VP’s and deadhead outside the fence and use that money for maintainence. Mechanical equipment break, and thats just a fact of life, putting the repair off cost us more in the long run because of unplanned outages. Its all about coverup, creative paperwork etc. to make the numbers look good, if I were the Saudi partners, I’d put pressure on Royal Dutch to do the right thing. I know Saudi Aramco didn’t mind fixing stuff, the people running Royal Dutch only care about what they can make as far as bonuses and profit for some share holders. We need to publish every BS email they send to us to show the public how these idiots spew their ignorance.
on Jul 5th, 2009 at 13:56
If I were Voser, I would spend my first 90 days defining the Roadmap for success, doing things differently and not doing what Jereon and past CEOs had been doing. The success or failure is decided in the first 90 days ( Obama has 100 days ).
Sucess criteria includes,
1) Transition acceleration
2) Match Strategy to Situation
3) Creat more Blue Ocean space ( uncharted territory )
4) Change drive and reward Blue behavior – Reward Risk Takers
5) Build the leaders of tomorrow by drastic changing the way we recruit.
To win in the future, companies must stop competiting with each other. the only way to beat competition is to stop trying to beat the competition.
on Jul 5th, 2009 at 01:09
John Donovan, The 399 lost their retirement benefit case and even have to pay for their legal fees as expected. But wait, they donot give up easily.
Shell is no longer the once Prestigous Company Malaysians and their parents would like their sons/daughter to work for. It is just another company.
By the way, Jon is not popular in Shell Malaysia and neither is he well respected by the Government especially Petronas. He has lost quite a few big deals for Shell in Malaysia but being a cunning fox, he managed to twist the fact and got away with Shell internal management in the Centre ( but everyone in Shell Malaysia know this ). If I were Jon, I would quietly give back the Datukship as to the Malaysian he has not earned it. ( John Donowan- for information, there are many ways to gain Datukship )
on Jul 4th, 2009 at 18:19
MalaysiaBolih, we have raised the question before about whether Shell is a racist company. Why is it that Shell employees in African Countries and Malaysia have found it necessary to sue Shell in respect of retirement funds? In this connection, do you know the outcome of the 399 case as news from Malaysia seems to have dried up, I assume as a result of a government crackdown. Shell has had for many years a special relationship with the thoroughly corrupt Malaysian regime which apparently got on well with “Datuk” Jon Chadwick when he was Country chairman.
on Jul 4th, 2009 at 18:05
If you are the person who supplied us with a Shell letter this morning, please check your email.
on Jul 4th, 2009 at 17:55
Downunder123- Unfortunately it is a hard truth. In Malaysia, we call it “Kulitification” and not qualification. ( literally translated, it is the “Skin color” that matters ). If you are not white, you cant rule the World. Our ex Prime Minister is right about Colonialism. There are still here to “conquer” even downunder cos there is nothing left back in their home. Come to think of it, it is their Company or not?
on Jul 4th, 2009 at 15:41
Unfortunately AsiaDragon the hard truth is the really qualified Asian talents have either left or retired! What is left are those “politically bred” and “brain washed” remnants who are not going to make any difference.
Look at Singapore, there are countless Asian talents, many folds better than the the Voser of this world. Just look at the elite institutions of higher learning, who are the top students? Definitely not the Swiss!
In any case, given time, not very long though, the Chinese will dominate this world like it or not, and I am surprised if anyone does not see this coming!
on Jul 4th, 2009 at 14:59
July 4th Independance Day, maybe we need a revolution here at Convent against the Dutch now. Scapegoat you are right on the money and I am in total agreement. Boy don’t we miss Texaco now. I’m sure all the old bosses are rolling over in their graves knowing what sHell has done to their beloved Convent. We used to be the Pearl of Texaco, ya’ll remember how they used bring visitors to our site because we were the cleanest and best refinery they had. People who worked here took pride in the way it looked, were friendly and proud to show off what we did. Now look at us, all I see is rust color, no more beautiful silver as you drive down the road. We look like the old Good Hope refinery in Norco. Morale is at its lowest, operators are scared that management will one day cause a major catastrophy at our site, and all those engineers will optimize us out the door. I too believe Convent is being used like a dirty dishrag, and when sHell is finished stripping it of all it can get out of it will sell it. Who would want to buy a delapidated refinery like Convent will be? Someone worse than sHell of course. Like someone else said, you can’t get 1st quartile performance with 4th quartile managers. You don’t start cuts at the bottom like sHell has done. Convent was a great safe place to work for many years, now our future is uncertain, and safety is going to go down the tubes until we have a disaster like BP did. I hope that if that happens, all the managers responsible goes to jail for a long time. Their is no-one willing to take up for us operators like the old Texaco bosses did, HR is a joke, man do I miss Joe, and the RLT and ELT suck so bad they could pull a vaccumm on an onion sack. DB who claimed to be our Saviore, is a Devil in disguise, Jesus wouldn’t approve of your actions would he DB. Salaried people have no balls when it comes to standing up for what right, and want to blame operators who complain all the time now about fixing things. Operators aren’t the problem, they are the solution. If they would listen to all the experienced operating people, and not the azz kissing scum staffers, this plant would run great. If I could change things I would would have a plant manager with balls, HR staff that knew their jobs like Joe did, and let the operators who know whats going on run the refinery. Engineers would only be consultants, I’d hire more maintainence persons, and fix everything that was broke before I started worring about our reliabity numbers. Maybe Valero will buy us and fix us like they did Good Hope, and we are once againg working for an American Company concerned with American Jobs, and American Workers. I hate that I work for foreigners who hate us, and hope I can’t make it another year before I can finally retire from this sHell hole.
on Jul 4th, 2009 at 13:59
The Demise of Convent. When I first started working at Convent, it was owned by Texaco. The bosses were tough, we did our jobs well, maintainence was great, engineers needed premission from the division forman to come on the unit, or make change recommendations, and the front office stayed on their side of the fence. Then we became Star Enterprise. Bosses were still tough, front office stay out of our business, and we got the help we needed from the Saudi side when things went wrong. Then we became Motiva, the division forman (people who worked their way up from stillman to forman) we replaced by Module managers ( Engineers) then head operators were eliminated, operator jobs were reduce on certain units and maintainence was cut. Module managers in an effort to improve their raises, and put a feather in their hat started promoting unqualified minorities and women, and maintainence was reduced because budget cost was tied to their raised also. They came up with a test for promotion called the London House test, after the failure of that because certain people couldn’t pass it, those they wanted only had to take it, not passed to be promoted, but those of us who did pass it got bypassed to promote a minority or woman. More engineers were hired and took over key positions normally held by people who worked their way up, more staff was hired, but operators and maintainence was cut. Now we are operating with minimal operators, inexperienced control operators, equipment reliabilty is in the toilet, and we have more mechanical equipment out of service because we don’t have the manpower or money to fix them. Shell has replace the Motiva workers and brought in some Shell workers from Norco, most of the people let go are former Texaco or Motiva, and lower evaluations were purposely given out to justify cutting someone. The backstabbing began when everyone in the same pool of money for raises gets to give feedback on their peers and subordinates to make them look bad so more money was available to them. All of this from a company thats supposed to be big on its Core Values, and Respect all people. Convent will eventually be sold due to Shell’s bad management and they will claim it wasn’t profitable, but Convent was set on a path for failure ever since Shell’s involvement.
on Jul 4th, 2009 at 13:18
Sir Martin Sorrell, chief executive of WPP quoted as saying,
We
on Jul 4th, 2009 at 02:33
Jo Blow-you are right again. It is happening in US and Asia. In fact it is worst in Europe. What Top quartile? This is just consultant speak just to tell you there is further room for improvement and they can help. Lets get the Basic Right lah.
For example, a VP Production in Asia. He is not accountable nor influence for any of the productions of the respective Countries. Why do we need a figure head? We already have a EVP Asia who can steer the Country VP. Of course unless we have no job for the current incumbent. This is what we call “Cronic Waste” .
on Jul 4th, 2009 at 01:39
John, I work at one of the “lovely” refineries and I heard these rumors also from an electrical and instrumentation contractor there. He told me that shell did send down the pipe a cut in pay. I was told that if this happened, they along with a few others will pull out from our plant. I don’t blame them, why take a pay cut when they can go to elsewhere and make more. I have alot of stroke with some of these contractors from the past. I should be able to get my hands on said e-mail if it exists. I’ll see what I can do.
Motivaman for president.
on Jul 4th, 2009 at 00:48
Cannot agree with Jo Blow and MalaysiaBolih more! Can anyone tell me when had Shell ever drastically restructured its organisation with changes of top leaders in the past 10 years? You noticed that everytime the changes are as what Jo Blow descibed – creating new job titles and shuffling the top guns around, maybe paying handsomely for a handful of the better SEGs to leave voluntarily.
Although these are changes rightly so, they are completely inadequate to transform a sluggish elephant organisation like Shell. Look at the response in the share prices, and you can well predict the outcome of this paper exercise, designed to fool the outside world. My chinese friends correctly told me what was being done is akin to saying of “changing the soups without changing the medicine”.
It is so amazing to see the numbers of VPs that makes one wonders if Shell is now in the business of producing cheap and incompetent VPs (of course with apology to some exceptions as I always believe there are still probably a dozen of good credible VPs in the select pool)!
You must be a fool to expect a transformation in Shell. But, one thing for sure, more costs will be spent to set up the new organisation – new laptops for examples and more renovations for larger offices! My question is why waste money for something that does not add value? HOW do you measure success and if not, WHO is ultimately ACCOUNTABLE? Goodluck to those happy stayers, happy in the sense that there will be no or less work in the coming months for many in the process of onboarding, away days, travelling for communications.
Thank goodness I am retiring soon and cannot give the hood anymore…….In any case the demise of Shell is imminent, if not accelerated now with the lastest set up!
on Jul 3rd, 2009 at 22:26
In my opinion Voser is not doing anything that will cause any more then a token improvement, if even that occurs. Fundamentally all he is doing is re-arranging names and titles. To cause change, you first must drive accountability, you do not drive accountability from the bottom up, you drive it from the top down. You have Williams sending message after message speaking of our 4th quartile performance with 1st quartile people in downstream, yet the only people getting the boot are lowly JG3 and lower in the organization. These folks are not accountable for setting direction, they execute the direction given them. In the Motiva world, you have a project that escalated out of control in regards to cost and schedule, yet the person who SHOULD have been held accountable moves on to a promotion. None of the senior leadership of that project were held accountable with the exception of D.B and J.J, and a couple lower graded managers. It was not Forrest or even Tom who were held accountable. These are prime examples of why our culture drives us to 4th quartile performance. If people are not held accountable for their respective jobs and actions then the culture will spiral to where Shell is today. Nothing I have seen of Voser’s plan seems geared towards fixing this so do not expect much change.
on Jul 3rd, 2009 at 16:17
If anyone has any email relating to the cutting of IT contractor rates, please supply precise quotes from the content, or even better, send it to me after taking appropriate precautions.
on Jul 3rd, 2009 at 15:17
Jo Blow. You hit the nail right on the head. Unfortunately Voserisation is not going to change anything but instead creating more VPs. Organisation is designed based on people we have. sob..sob….In EP Asia, Paul M you will get to keep your day job. With you in, BP n SF will still keep their jobs in EC-3. Wonder what you will be busy with apart from NOVs.
Michiel , surely you can do better than that. Buckle up.
on Jul 3rd, 2009 at 13:09
IT4Me- it has been known IT cost has been very high. When benchmarked with the industry it is around 2.5 times. However cutting the cost of contractors’ salaries maybe the wrong thing as these are the people who actually worked. Voser is right by putting under Finance. We should be critically reviewing the overhead itself, that is those responsible in putting the contract in place and doing nothing after that. Of course their bosses as well. We have a JGA boss plus few JG1s now, 20 years ago, we had a JG3 as our boss. So it is now or never. However agree maybe the way it is done. We still have “Respect for people” as our core values.
on Jul 3rd, 2009 at 10:13
A small but amusing turns of events in IT last week saw the entire contractor workforce (in Downstream anyway) receiving the same announcement via their agencies of an immediate 12% cut in rates. IT contract rates have softened during the downturn, so cuts are understandable. What’s unusual is that this was done at only a few days notice, across the board, and mid-contract. Some recipients of this broadcast had 6 months or more left on their current assignments (whose duration was specified by Shell to secure their availability and rate) while others where in their final weeks of handovers to offshored replacements. In both cases, this was eyebrow-raising: early termination of contracts is normally only for misconduct or non-performance.
Within a week, the smoke cleared. Contractors appear to have overwhelmingly said NO, ie most were prepared to stay for the full term or leave immediately, and nothing in between. The prospect losing large number of contractors on the same day sensibly prompted a rethink, and clarification emails were duly rushed out explaining that the cuts were … um, OPTIONAL (I’m summarising over 300 words in one here, so that’s approximate).
So that’s alright then. Not an earth-shattering event, but perhaps another small insight into declining standards within this great company ?
on Jul 3rd, 2009 at 00:01
Scapegoat, you have hit the nail on the head. If Shell management acted at all times in accordance with its claimed core business principles, there would have been no reserves fraud, no fines for price-fixing, no fines for safety breaches which have cost Shell employees their lives, no $15.5 million settlement for misdeeds in Nigeria or multiple settlements of claims for IP theft from the Donovan’s. If Shell management was not rotten at the core, this website would not exist. We look forward to the day when you are able to supply information in your own name. When you are ready, we will be very happy to publish any incriminating/embarrassing documents relating to Shell/Motiva operations.
on Jul 2nd, 2009 at 23:35
In regard to deeply Concerned, and to our host, I appogize for using certain name but the intent was to show what happens when we hire certain people without a thourough background check. In the future I will only put initials, but when all the checks clear, I will re register with my real name. That way those reading and those whom I am speaking about will know where it came from. Those who know me know I only speak the truth. If in the future they want to deny certain actions they can take it up with me. Sorry if the truth hurts, but hiring unscrupulous individuals only serves to let them ruin the careers of longtime employee’s who tick them off. If the corporation really practiced its core values we wouldn’t be here blogging today.
on Jul 2nd, 2009 at 21:07
Reply to Deeply Concerned: The site traffic has increased since the
on Jul 2nd, 2009 at 17:44
….. and highly irritated! John, you have to step in with respect to the US centric rantings. Shell was not able to close down your site but if this nonsense continues (the last postings are very close to the bone) the site will die of its own accord as folk will just not bother to look / read / post.
on Jul 2nd, 2009 at 16:18
I saw it Motivaman and I agree with you. It will be interesting to see how all this turns out. I witnessed a staff person talking on the cell phone while driving in the plant yesterday but couldn’t catch him to confront him. I know who he is and will try and have a conversation with him today. Wont matter though.
on Jul 2nd, 2009 at 03:07
uscitizen must know XXXXXXXX well, so does the two girls at two different schools. Maybe she can explain to people why she can’t go back to teaching school. I what she did 20 years ago happened today she’d be on the LSP sex offender sight.
Now David, I thought grew up Catholic, but isn’t now maybe its because he’d have to spend too much time in the confessional.
Lets not forget Roxie. If she wasn’t a woman, she’d be out like Todd. Females, Minorities, and Gay/Lesbians have an advantage right now cause the bonuses are tied to their promotions corporate wide I think the goal is 10% . And look how they have been placed in high power positions, and what’s happening to people they can screw over. You can’t get the Shell Help line to help you if you are reporting someone in Management. But God don’t sleep, what goes around comes around.
on Jul 2nd, 2009 at 01:01
ok uscitizen, have a good 4th!
Jo Blow, you speak well. I totally agree with you.
Did anyone see that e-mail Botts sent out today about the 12 lifesaving rules? I kindnof took offense to it, seemed threatening.
Motivaman for president.
on Jul 1st, 2009 at 22:10
first of all uscitizen, your the one full of yourself and the one who cannot repect others opinions. You are the one attacking everyone on here. No I am just attacking you!
You and alot of people would love to know who I worked for so you can figure out who I am. You might be that stupid, but I
on Jul 1st, 2009 at 04:15
Folks,
The truth of the matter is simple, Shell is a really good company, with some pretty Pathetic Managers and Executives at this point and time. History has seen the good and the bad times for this company and for is its employee’s. For vesting sakes, let me qualify with my 40 or so years of experience first hand. I remember times when the pride in me was strong for the company that in truth was really good to me for 35 of my 40 or so years. And now I sit with a tinge of bitterness as I see how this company, or more specifically a regional management team is behaving. Gestapo like behaviour, Total lack of communication, and transparency in its actions, and the list goes on and on. I am not bitter for my sake, I had a long and rewarding career, although the ending is not how I pictured it, I still make peace with myself for I know the truth. My bitterness is for those that I have worked with that are now suffering, not for doing a bad job, not because they are redundant, but mainly for more insideous personal reasons known only to one specific VP and his inner circle of henchmen.
Regretfully, most of us know, whether we agree or not, that cutbacks are inevitable. It is easily understood when you examine cost structures that we simply are not competitive with the other majors, and most of the independents kick our tail in benchmarking cost structures. Fortunately at this point the hourly folks arent suffering, at the end of the day they still have to run the plant. As I got wind of who was cut and where, I was struck by one singular noteworthy point. All of the cuts that I have heard of were JG3 and lower, and quite a few JG3s at that. You see fundamentally these are not the folks responsible for building the cost structured organization each manufacturing site is running under. These are the guys that enable in the field. We can use FTE counts, or Shell People Index, or just plain ole US Dollars, and if you think hard, maybe a few less VP’s in the DS organization, 1 or 2, maybe even three less JG-As on the RLT, and that equates to probably 10-15 people in the field actually helping to implement some of the value added processes. I mean seriously, has anyone observed that oh towards the end of last year that there was a move to add an additional RLT manager by splitting the duties of the Engineering Manager in to two roles? Hmmmm, Margins in the toilet, cost are un-competitive and yet we need one more senior manager in each plant. At Convent a Maintenance Empire is being built in a site that is primarily a contractor supplied maintenance force, and yet they are building a maintenance supervision organization that when combined with the contractor management equals double and even sometimes triple redundancy. I expect when complete you could send someone in the maintenance staff ranks with every two man pair of crafts you send on a job. At Port Arthur, Engineering seen a job that was traditionally a one manager department, now being managed by 2 people. You seen the splitting of HSSE in to one HSS, and an E RLT managers. Okay, so maybe I am rambling and should proceed to a point. My point is around accountability! The people that are being laid off are not the folks making the bad business decisions to build empires rather then high performing work teams. Who is holding these folks accountable? NO ONE and that is the whole problem in a nutshell. Yes some of the folks that got laid off were no brainers, but at the same time, how many shockers did you folks just say WOW to.
on Jul 1st, 2009 at 00:46
All postings relating to Shell or this website are welcome whether positive and negative in nature. Unlike the defunct “TellShell” forum supposedly for open and lively debate about Shell, there is no secret censorship here – yes Shell did secretly censor postings. This was confirmed to us by Richard Wiseman in an email. Shell management could not deal with the truth so it shut down the site. It tried to do the same with this website, but failed.
on Jul 1st, 2009 at 00:03
I’m confused, I thought this website operated with a mission to ensure that top Shell executives were held accountable? Instead it seems to have become a complaint line for local employees at a couple of sites to grind their axes with local management. While your issues may be valid, perhaps another venue is more appropriate for that type of venting… if the mission statement is accurate then there are other topics more relevant here.
I don’t work for Shell and never have, so I can’t speak to that. But the truth is there are so many misguided things being said here that unfortunately the site is starting to become uninteresting except to a specific group of people.
What’s MOST interesting to me is the number of Shell employees who are here bashing the company and making anonymous personal attacks on people that cannot defend themselves, yet they continue to stay and receive a paycheck from the company. Paychecks which are paying bills and feeding mouths. Why would you bash a company that is providing for you? In these challenging economic times, if your company goes under, do you realize what a hard time you will have finding a new job? And if you want to argue that’s not a true statement, then why are you still with a company you so despise? Go somewhere where you feel valued and be happy!
If you read any blog on any company you will find a consistent theme… management doesn’t care, executives are crooked, layoffs are wrong, benefits are no good, etc, etc. We are in difficult economic times where layoffs are sadly often necessary, more companies aren’t even matching 401k anymore and tough decisions have to be made. Every company has bad managers, the goal here at this website should be to point to specific corporate actions and executive decisions that should be made public to increase accountability.
on Jun 30th, 2009 at 19:52
first of all uscitizen, your the one full of yourself and the one who cannot repect others opinions. You are the one attacking everyone on here. You and alot of people would love to know who I worked for so you can figure out who I am. You might be that stupid, but I’m not. Its easy for you to sit in back of the computer bashing people, but I bet you don’t have the guts to stand up for yourself in person.
You have the perfect Shell mentality and you are only proving my point. You think no one except yourself is worth listening to.
I am 3rd generation Shell, and have many, many, people currently in my family working for them, both management and operations. they all say the same thing, Shell is falling apart. I have been working for them for 15 years. So go ahead and tell me I don’t know what I’m talking about if it makes you feel better.
What happened with Mobil by the way? They get sick of your communist ways like Shell and sent ya packing?
Seems you have a chip on your shoulder.
I was born into Shell, I know how great they were and they can become.
You sit here and bash on people, just because people think that we can be a better company doesn’t make them angry or disgruntled. MAybe you need to grow up. I guarantee that 99.9% of the people that work for Shell has something they don’t like about it.
How bout ya listen a little and stop judging people.
As far as teamwork, I am all about teamwork because this company is about more than just me or you. It takes everyone working together! Get a clue, this is not happening right now, and its not because of the operators or crafts people.
P.S… Seems like you know Connie, I figured you would. Guess I got ya! Just like a salary person to tell us what we should believe!
on Jun 30th, 2009 at 19:51
Just a few comments for uscitizen. One this site does not belong to sHell. It is owned by a former contractor. As far as sHell finding out who post, they can’t. For one my ISP won’t give anyone our IP address, two, when I do post I usually do it from someone elses unsecured WIFI. I’m holding my name calling until after the check clears, then you will see a whole lot of activity here with names emails, and documents. I think it is chicken crap that some people let go were within a few months of making 30 years and getting their insurance fully paid. Most were older Texaco employees that don’t fit the sHell don’t rock the boat or you’re fired attitude, or were vocal in union support during strike talks. Core value’s what a crock. That’s nothing more than a politician talking out of both sides of his mouth. Life saving rules, now that is just so they can fire hourly employees. Tom will go to jail or be forced to resign within the next year after the Dept. of Justice gets hold of his azz. How many will follow him. sHell was a much better company to work for before the Dutch got hold of it. They won’t succeed in running U.S. refineries like the Europeans do. We are a different culture. And yes I think uscitizen hasn’t worked for the company long probably is an HR type and don’t really know about team work in the field. Most of the people in charge at Convent have less than 5 years there. Jill only had 5 with Shell and she screwed over lots of good folks, but word is Roxan forced her to do it. I’m sure a lot will come out in a few months, and if any of you who got canned wants to sue, you can. Don’t believe that BS that after you sign and accept the package you can’t sue, you can. Just wait till the check clears. Also get a good lawyer to look at your package before you sign just so you know your rights. Keep records of all correspondance and make notes of conversations with any RLT, ELT, or HR members.
on Jun 30th, 2009 at 18:20
Oh yeah Motivaman – President of what – any one who can not value all team members and objectively compare something so simple as benefits is not qualified to be President of anything. Oops – I was wrong – maybe you can be President of the US!
on Jun 30th, 2009 at 18:17
Right – tell me what contractor matched up to 10% dollar for dollar and had a defined pension that can be worth 50% of your last years salary – go ahead tell all of these folks so we can all look it up. We all know Shells benefits, we work here, but every time some blowhard says they had better benefits and you dig into it, the total package is no where near as good as Shell’s. Go ahead tell us who you worked for!!
Oh I see – you want to be a team player but the attitude is that we can run it without you but you can not run it without us, give me a break. We are all very replaceable, grow up. Oh yeah cowboy, we all understand the dollar for dollar matching concept, we are starting to wonder if you can do math or have done any retirement planning.
For your information – this is my third company – contractor, Mobil, now Shell. No comparision. I think Connie was corrrect, you are spewing nonsense and lies. Go ahead – tell us all who the contractor was. NOT!! We need people like you to leave, and now.
on Jun 30th, 2009 at 17:37
Realman66… ha.. I dont think you are retired. I dont think you are white. I dont think you are smart either. Play the race card .. so typical of an underachiever blaming white men for your lack of effort and then throwning a label like KKK out there. Get off your ass and make something of your life. Also u should know that if Shell really wants to know who you are they can find out.. so keep throwing your KKK bs out there
on Jun 30th, 2009 at 17:19
Hey connie, you may want to be informed and also may want to tell David and the Pirate this.
Ten years since Supreme Court upheld Internet freedom of speech
The Supreme Court’s first Internet case, Reno v. ACLU, was decided 10 years ago today and established robust free speech rights on the Internet, giving it protection equivalent to print.
This is taken straight from a source! The supreme court has ruled many times that the internet is covered under the 1st amendment! It has been upheld.
No one is posting lies, people have a right to know the truth. We are tired of being threatened.
You may be able to ban us from looking at this, or posting at work, but what we do at home is our business!
Since the court has ruled so many times in this way, I suggest you stop threatining us for our freedom of speach or you might just end up on the stand.
Motivaman for president!
on Jun 30th, 2009 at 16:53
uscitizen, I worked long and hard when I was a contractor, I became the best in my craft and have the proof to back it up. I became managment for a few contractors. You say shells benifits are the best, you are wrong. My insurance was slightly better with the contractor, and my retirement was way better. Yes, it is true that shell gives me 10% no matter if I give or not, but I do give! I give 25% as a matter of fact, which is why I’m saying it is not the best. While working for these other people, a few of them matched me 100% up to 50%. Shell has NO match, only a percentage per years of service. So for me I am actually getting way less from shell. A mere 10% instead of 25%. Can you understand this?
It sounds like to me you are a person who came out of college and got hired on by shell and never lived in the real world. And yes their are 1000′s of people who apply, but how many are actually qualified? Not many. Didn’t you get a job?
I kinda do see where your coming from though, In an perfect world, I would love to see everyone working together as a team, but this is not going to jappen with managements current philosophy. We currently have 2 teams, salary and hourly. And contrary to your beliefs, hourly people CAN run these plants without salary people, but salary cannot run these plants without hourly.
I do enjoy my job, and I am not disgruntled or angry. I just wish that we would be treated better by this company because we can be better than anyone else, but changes would have to be made. I would love to be able to say I work for the best!
Motivaman for president!
on Jun 30th, 2009 at 15:25
Motivaman – then you need to leave also if you are that unhappy. See – being part of a team means that you do your thing to make it better and not be a cancer about things you can not control. If you have it that bad, go back to your contractor company. Give me some facts – who was it and I will compare benefits. Tell me what other companies you worked at as a contractor and we will compare notes. See I have been talking to many many contractors, over 1,000 over the past several years and the resounding message is that these folks want to work at Shell. That is why we get 1,000 applicants for craft and operator jobs. Nice style on your message, very people oriented. PS – you are wrong about benefits, if you worked in the world of retention you would know why certain benefits are maintained and some are adjusted down. Shell could have reduced the provident fund years ago or eliminated the pension, but they realized it was an attraction for getting good talent. I bet you have even bragged about your benefits but would never admit it. I am not a suck—, just a team player. The only way we improve as a company is to focus on what we can impact and control, my best operators and crafts do that! Hope you find something that makes you happy some day!!
on Jun 30th, 2009 at 00:53
uscitizen, you have to be either stupid, or a company sucka@@! Evrything shell gives us, including our benefits IS because of Unions. You actually think that they would give this to you if they didn’t think they had to? Maybe not directly from today or even from our own local union, but during the labor movement! people stood up and fought for everything they have. Sounds like your the angry scab! Think about it dummy, if their shell is so great and they want to give you such good benifits, then why are they always trying to take it away, little by little. Just like they took away the retirement insurance within the last few years. Go ahead and tell the new guys why they don’t have it.
And another thing, I personally work contract work for many many years before working for Shell and by no way was shell atop my list. actually it was way down on my list.
MAybe your the one that needs to get your facts straight and stop atacking other peoples beliefs. Oh wait, your a shell sucka@@, no one has the right to their opinion except you!
Motivaman for president!
on Jun 29th, 2009 at 15:30
Nice try Motivasux. After 9 years with the company Shell gives 10% to the provident fund and you do not have to give a dime. No one, no one else has that good a fund. Shell still has two pension systems the 80 point system and the portable system, run the math on both of them. New employees have a choice – they are both very good pensions. You want to talk safety – geez wake up and visit with your contractors about other locations they have worked at compared to Shell. They want to work at Shell because of our work practices, which you by the way as an Operator should be setting very high. The operators I work with do.
Newsflash – the company has many many employees that are not union – and many of the benefits have nothing to do with union negotiations – I know that is hard to comprehend, but it is fact. But you are clearly biased and unhappy so I have an idea – go get another job if you are that unhappy! Then come back and talk about how great you have it compared to Shell – benefits and safety culture – you will not be back by the way , you will find you had it very good. Have a good life – try to get over your bitterness, you have it so much better than 90% of America and 99% of the world. Do some real research and not just accept what others tell you! Ask some questions to those you interact with outside Shell and the contractors inside the gate. But you will not I know! Later – smile!
on Jun 28th, 2009 at 21:34
Hey workinman, you sure you understand what I am writing. I am an operator jackass. So I still have a job and I am not bashing the union. I am actually taking up for what those guys do. Read the post first and then reply.
on Jun 28th, 2009 at 00:39
hey motivasucks if you wernt such a suck ass you probly would have a job. un like us operators we work our ass off and we do get paid good, and our USW is great. what i mean is you probly sucked your way to salary and had no one to protect your ass when the cuts came. now you are discruntled and have nothing better to do than bitch about the real workers and our union. oh, by the way mcdonalds is hiring.
on Jun 27th, 2009 at 13:49
Iain Craig- you have done us in Shell proud. Not many Country will invite an International oil company back to work with them if they see the IOC adding values. Fortunately there are still very good people in Shell.
Putin and people of Russia- You can be sure of Shell and have faith in us in bringing you to Nigeria.
on Jun 26th, 2009 at 21:07
Some information has been shared with me from some of the lower level managers that I found interesting. sHell/notiva Convent is in the process of trying to figure out how many operators they need to run the plant “safely”. So upper management put a team together to take all of the emergency procedures, pick the top 4, and then figure out from there how to change the procedure to ensure less folks are required. I called bs on this and then was shown some paper work. I tried to get it so I could post it but the informant was unwilling to share. This blows my mind that this would go on. I sure hope that someone can stop this before something really bad happens.
on Jun 26th, 2009 at 18:02
Lady of Justice and Jane Doe have both alluded to the relationship between Tom Purves and Jeff F., and mentioned a couple of things Jeff was involved in, such as the DUI. But not many know that supposedly it was Jeff’s second DUI – his first one was supposed to have been taken care of by Keith Casey. And the second one probably would have been taken care of silently except that his arrest hit the papers.
Jeff has a long string of what I consider unethical behaviours at Norco. Shortly after he arrived he is rumored to have begun a relationship with a divorced female engineer. He then promoted her to Capacity Assurance Manager (JG3) and two years later promoted her to JG2. She was allowed to rule the department as a dictator. But she did post his bail for the 2nd DUI. It is my understanding that this relationship is what led to his divorce, especially when he wanted his wife to agree to buy a lot just down the street from the female engineer. She has left the company to work for Keith Casey at the BP refinery in Texas City.
He was investigated by HR (what a joke!) for putting his hands, or rather his foot, on an operator. He regularly threatened to “gut them like a fish”, one time brandishing a knife to show how he would do it. He treated those not in his inner circle with contempt and absolutely no respect or regard for their knowledge or skills.
Then there was Camp Mo. This was one of the travel trailers bought by Motiva after Hurricane Katrina where those inside his circle and honored guests were invited after work to visit and drink and eat. He had one of his favored temp. staff purchase the alcohol, soft drinks and catered food put it on his expense statement, then approved by the temp. staff’s manager. The temp. staff has since been promoted.
The reason he left? Strong rumors about a sexual harrassment charge. Supposedly the female got a promotion and Jeff left Norco for Port Arthur.
There are many more examples, all what I consider unethical and corrupt. Yet he survives because of his relationship with Tom Purves. Anyone else would have been booted with one of the above.
The relationship with Tom is almost unnatural. Tom just seems to not let his friendship interfere with anything Jeff does. Oh, and they also own property together.
And the latest rumor is that when SCC and Motiva complex again Jeff will be back, maybe as plant manager? But I don’t know this as fact, may be just pure speculation since he has stated he didn’t want to leave Norco.
I never thought I would see actions like this go on in either Shell or Motiva. I can’t wait to get out of this snake pit.
on Jun 25th, 2009 at 23:47
uscitizen, LOL, I am telling the whole story. Yes I make about $68k base and I am topped out. Yes with overtime I make about $80k. ALl of these things that this company gives is not because they want to. So you want the whole story huh?
Well, sHell/notiva has changed the retirement so if you have come in in the last three years you better hope you die soon after retirement or have a lot of money because you don’t have enough. They contribute to the 401 but so do all the others in Big Oil. They have decreased coverage with insurance and have increased the price, although some contribution is appreciated, they do not “give” anything as this is negotiated.
Now on the safety front, LOL, sHell/notiva is a freaking joke. We are lucky and that’s it. I am surprised that nobody has gotten seriously hurt or killed in the plant. There has been so many things that were close calls and now with the savior placing all his buddies in place and making it look like 1988 in Norco, the big one is more of a threat than ever for us.
As for the money we make. Well, it is good money and if the company lived up to the things they force us to do like diversity, value and respect all people, integrity and honesty, there would be no need for a union or this whinning as you put it. For all of this money you say that I am given by the company I am working nights, weekends, and holidays breathing in all these toxic chemicals for you to be able to drive your car and thanking GOD everyday I leave work that the big boom didn’t happen today.
And as far as the union people working days, that was a benefit for the company as well. I have been with my chairman and have personally witness the phone continually ringing with the likes of Curtis, Connie, David, other chairman, the members, etc. This happens all of the time. I have called him at 10pm on a Saturday and he answered so it is not a part time job. What more of the story do you want?
on Jun 25th, 2009 at 14:16
good if SHell and BP merge, at least the Donovans already have the domain name so this website can continue without a hiccup!!!!
on Jun 25th, 2009 at 13:06
About what … consolidation? Merger or joint venture activities are ongoing with the large miners. Shell needs to “bulk up” and re-invent itself, but has traditionally been slow and awkward in this area. BP and Total remain logical partners, if not totally complementary. I wonder how a new Shell CEO, probably not (yet) a candidate for the combined job, would feel about consolidation, even if it made financial sense?
on Jun 25th, 2009 at 12:39
And who could be better than a Swede to negotiate with a Swedish led EU…
on Jun 25th, 2009 at 12:12
“Obviously Ollilla’s success at reforming Shell …”
Which bit of the reform would that be then? The reform of Ogoniland and Rossport? The reform of Pensions (0.9%)? The reform of the run of disingenuous corporate advertising under his stewardship? The reform of executive pay (ever upwards)? The reform of brand mangagement – selling the retail brand to third parties to make a buck? And so on. With reforms like these give me the status quo any time!
on Jun 25th, 2009 at 10:58
Obviously Ollilla’s success at reforming Shell has convinced the powers at BP that they need to do the same. It cannot be a coincidence that two major oil companies each recruit Scandinavian chairmen from telecoms companies – or could this simply be the strongest sign yet of an imminent merger?
on Jun 25th, 2009 at 09:07
I recently worked for Shell Geismar and let me tell you the leadership out there is a joke. The AOID module is the most racist part of the plant. Al Gray has been passed over so many times for a promotion for module manager it’s not funny. He obviously damn near runs the whole module. I guess just another blackman that has to work ten times as hard to achieve the same level of respect as white workers. I guess since Shell pays so well we are just supposed to overlook these ” minor oversights.” If you are a minority working at Shell Geismar you will only get so far as the racist plant manager ” KKK Buckholtz” will let you get, or whatever plant manager from the brotherhood they decide to hire. It has been that way for the thirty years I have been there, and I don’t see it changing anytime soon. Hang in there Al, karma is a bitch.
on Jun 25th, 2009 at 03:05
Interesting fact…. Both Jim Hartsock and Jeff Funkhouser were sold by Shell in the Wood River deal. How did they end up back on Shell’s payroll? Guess who the GM became when WR deal got finalized and the 2 stooges left the payroll? Hmmm it wouldn’t be Forrest Lauher now would it? Hmmm.. Common denominator in all of this… WT Purves.
Hartsock has been billed all over the GC as a maintenance professional. Ask anybody who has worked with him if he is… So how did we end up with him on the CEP project when we were cutting back and only wanting the best? Is Hartsock really the best field supervisor we could hope for?
And poor Jeff…. His charisma probably cost him his marriage. He lives out at the plant, much like he did at Norco because he has little left at home. Someone mentioned about his meteoric rise to the higher grade levels with the support of Tom. This wouldn’t be to help with the proceeds he lost to his lovely bride now would it…. Surely not. Because we know Tom is a wise man, a solid man, one who only does what is right, …. is that right Tom??? Be careful … the mirror is watching. Might see you blink.
on Jun 24th, 2009 at 21:43
Hey uscitizen, i have a little news for you, the only reason that these people make this kind of money is because during the labor movement, the union and its members had the courage to stand up for its rights! your compairing apples to dog crap! the $25,000 jobs you are referring to are people flipping burgers. They may get a little grease burn every now and then. These industry people, regardless if they are craft or operations put their safety at stake every time they report to work. Between all the accidents, incidents, and the outrageous cancer rates; these people should make more. They are supplying you and the rest of the world with a necessary product. Everything you use, every day comes from some kind of plant where people have died. Whether it be chemical or oil.
You come on here and tell another person your beliefs, but can’t respect anothers. Sounds like your the kind of scum that are sitting behind a desk making descisions that has no bearing on you!
I completely agree with motivasux and anyone can see that these people we have running shell today are the most greedy people ever. They are trying to take their employees voices away from them. Its a classic case of divide and conquer! They are mad at the unions and trying to make it difficuly for these people to be heard! Its plain to see that its union busting at its finest!
The problem is that the people who work in the gulf coast and southern parts of the U.S. do not realize what knid of power they have. The union is not as strong as it is up north. But thats a completely different story.
The fact of the matter is that Shell is heading in the wrong direction and just because someone is an operator or craft person does not mean they are not smart or cannot tell right from wrong! These people are some of the finest people and they MAKE the United States!
No one deserves to be treated like a number, regardless of how much or little they make.
Motivaman for president!
on Jun 24th, 2009 at 16:57
Motivasux – geez tell the whole story. These USW day guys you refer to are operators or crafts. They are paid bt Shell to do these jobs. They have managed to turn their part time Local union jobs into full time union jobs, paid for by Shell. Give me a break. Do your jobs and stop whining about a company that pays you nicely, addresses your safety concerns, pays into your 401k, gives you a pension, gives you first class insurance, etc. And you want to whine about your local union guys having to actually do their primary job which Shell pays them to do!! Get a grip. Folks we are talking about jobs that pay $70,000 – 100,000 based on how much Overtime they get. Get out in the real world and talk to some folks struggling to make 25,000 and have none of the benefits you have. Go do some volunteer work and find out what bad really looks like. Talk to your contractors and find out how good you have it as a Shell empployee!
on Jun 24th, 2009 at 03:41
If all these moves that sHell is making is supposed to be so great, why is my stock in the toilet? Naw, just kidding, I don’t have any of that stock but it is in the toilet.
The latest move that the Purvis pirates have made is to take everyone that is usw on days and put them back on their tools. I know for sure that both Norco and Convent have done it. I have a note from my Chairman that states the company is placing him on shift in July and that his counterparts in Norco are of the same fate.
I wasn’t able to get in touch with him today but will try tomorrow to see if he is willing to share any information. He usually is pretty open with sharing information and will even share his notes if you want to see them. He also post on usw750.org. He doesn’t do it everyday but every couple of days or weeks depending what is going on.
So thanks purvis pirates. Why don’t one of you answer some of these questions. You pirates read this everyday. I bet this blog will get interesting in September. Can’t wait.
on Jun 24th, 2009 at 00:27
Is this the same Ceri Powell who drilled many dry holes in Asia?? Come Shell Voser you must have better Vision and aspiration in Exploring.
on Jun 23rd, 2009 at 16:56
David, what would Jesus do?
on Jun 22nd, 2009 at 23:49
Motivareject is right on. I watched one person get escorted out. Uscitizen, you must be one of the motiva mafia in Convent to post that.
We were told by our supervisor that if we are the people coming on this site and posting and management finds out, we would be in a lot of trouble. He said that management frowns on this site and they are monitoring it. He encouraged us to make sure we are not writing anything at work.
So I would say that these post are being looked into by sHell/notiva. The truth hurts huh Tom, David, and Roxan?
on Jun 22nd, 2009 at 23:10
It appears that this Blog may be under some form of cyber attack again as we are receiving coded postings every few seconds. No comments, just code. Whatever the purpose, they are being deleted immediately they are received.
on Jun 22nd, 2009 at 17:52
uscitizen: You may believe what you like to believe. I was made to turn in all my company equipment, i.e badge, smart card, cell phone, pager, etc. I was then instructed on who my HR contact would be, and was then escorted to the gate by a manager. And I was not laid off for performance reasons, but due to job redundancy
on Jun 22nd, 2009 at 16:08
No one was escorted out right after getting their offers at any Shell site, anything you hear to the contrary is not the case.
on Jun 21st, 2009 at 19:54
What’s the low down with Charles Watson who taking over Russia/Capsian from Finalyson.
on Jun 21st, 2009 at 19:45
Stuart can you point out any place on the open Internet which has published the email and all of the appointments? As stated before, it would save time if Shell did kindly include us on its circulation list for important emails. That would cut out the middleman. The leaked emails cost Shell billions of dollars on the Sakhalin 2 project and the loss of the Deputy Chairman of SEIC, General David Greer. Stuart please feel free to contribute to the transparency which Shell management boasts about from time to time while actually engaging in all manner of cover-up of misdeeds – you may recall the securities fraud which cost shareholders almost a billion dollars in class action settlements and fines from regulatory authorities. We look forward to you becoming a supplier of leaked Shell senior management emails.
on Jun 21st, 2009 at 19:25
When Lynn Elsenhans left her Shell position for Sun Oil Co. last year, some of us celebrated. However, the celebration was short lived. Little did we know that an individual by the name of Tom Purves would fill the void created by her departure. It is obvious to me and many others that he has NO ethics and does not treat those who may have a different opinion than him with respect and dignity. Values that are at the core of Motiva.
What is at the core of Tom Purves is delivery of results, obedience, and employment /IPF
on Jun 21st, 2009 at 18:42
Guys, you must stop claiming to have “leaked emails” as if somehow you’ve tapped into Voser’s home hotmail account….your “leak” of the 60 senior roles was from an email sent to 104,000 people and about 2000 external (valued) stakeholders and media outlets….I guess yours got lost in the post?
on Jun 21st, 2009 at 17:04
Ceri Powell EVP exploration??????????? Not long ago Linda Armstrong refused to report to her in the ME so an extra line of communication was created to keep these two cats (kittens?) from fighting. Ceri is a friendly, good looking, even cute girl that carried the bags of v.d.Vijver well but no great intellect. This is a baffling move.
And why reducing the duties of Restucci? He is one of the few really capable and decent ones, so I hope he quits and starts running BG or another company, the headhunters must be lining up for him. Ideal man to replace the evil Brinded actually but probably too clever for Brinded! And I count a lot of EVPs. They all will have their own support staff…. Voser is not making it more transparent like he claims. But then we had Tony Blair implementing Tory policies under the name of socialism. What you see is NOT what you get!
on Jun 21st, 2009 at 02:18
How many people were let go at Norco? Didn’t here of anyone escorted out at Convent.
on Jun 21st, 2009 at 00:54
In response to MotivaRetired:
I have heard of two different Severance dates, August 30th and November 30th. Most that I have heard of are not allowed back in the plant, they were escorted out moments after being notified of their dismissal. A select few were allowed to collect their belongings, while most were not. I have heard that there is a few folks who are continuing to work up until their severance date. The folks that have until November 30th, are free to utilize open resourcing to post on internal jobs through two managed resourcing sessions. It appears that the folks given the earlier August severance date are those with perceived poor performance and thus are not afforded the opportunity to search internally for a job. Everyone will receive three weeks pay per year of service with a minimum of 12 weeks, and a maximum of 78 weeks I believe.
Personally, While upset over the turn of events, I am grateful that I am afforded several months of pay, while being able to devote 100% of my time to finding a suitable job to support my wife and 6 children. This could have been very bad for me had they not allotted the lengthy time before my severance date for that I am thankful.
MotivaRetired, I do appreciate your thoughts and prayers, and I reaffirm to the other folks like me, Keep your chins up, the local management teams may be able to take our jobs from us, but they can never take our dignity and respect.
on Jun 21st, 2009 at 00:46
I told you before. The SEG are the Boros. Boros breed Boros. What do you expect?
Voser I suggest you put SEG in a job for 5 years instead of the usual 1-2 years. Get their hands dirty and they will develop a longer term view ( not just shit and fly off ). I guarantee you, it will make alot hell of difference.
on Jun 20th, 2009 at 21:12
All received 3 weeks pay for every year of service up to 1-1/2 years maximum severance.
Some were unceremoniously escorted out by Security the same day they were told (I have heard some were not even allowed to collect their personal items), some were given until August 31st, and others were given until the end of the year.
I have also heard at least one person was told that while they will be employed until August 31st they are banned from the refinery effective immediately.
Gotta love those core values, huh?
on Jun 20th, 2009 at 17:36
I was wondering what was offered to the employees that were let go from the Gulf Coast area. How long before you are off the payroll. I retired from Motiva years ago. My thoughts and prayers are with all of you.
on Jun 20th, 2009 at 16:58
I am surprised that no one here makes reference to the CEP process in Shell.
Once you have been elected “SEG potential” the rest does not count any longer. People knowing that they have been “Chosen” starts behaving with the same arrogance observed at the top of the corporate ladder.
HR under the reign of Hugh Mitchel has even increased this trend
on Jun 20th, 2009 at 16:37
Now with Michiel chosen to lead EP Asia, Paul Mann, you will finally get a real job. Please make sure you assign Bob P and Scot F some key tasks as they have been on honeymoon far too long. In return, you finally get your Piasau 100 and LSEPR at expense of WYH. Pity it is not going to be for too long.
on Jun 20th, 2009 at 16:09
AsiaDragon I admire your gut of being so patriotic and passionate.
Unfortunately there are not many of your type who subscribe to the old school of thought left on the ground.
After so many round of reorganisation, I am finally convinced that Shell will NEVER EVER change. Voser had indeed missed the golden opportunity to flush out the bad and incompetent leaders. Instead, of focusing of selecting those with superior technical, commercial and business acumen and with integrity and respects, the system chose to elect predominantly those with political excellence to occupy the key positions. Having said this, my apology goes to a handful of indeed excellent leaders who had been picked on personal quality (probably half a dozen).
Yes indeed I am planning an exit and have already secured a good job outside Shell, more money, less politics and holding much more resources than Shell.
As a word of advice, I will strongly recommend those who cannot see their future in Shell now to seek other opportunities rather than wasting precious time and continue to be frustrated by the system. Please do so before the window of opportunity is shut. Good luck to you AsiaDragon. Good to keep on trying…..before Shell is eaten up by someone more efficient and organised.
Voser I urge you to be ruthless and fearless if you want to turnaround and survive. Otherwise you will be no different than Jeroen apart from nationality.
on Jun 20th, 2009 at 14:51
I just found this site, and I’m glad I did. It’s nice to have a place where we can discuss what is going on in this company, and maybe even vent a little about the direction it is headed.
As you can probably tell, I am a Norco employee and have worked there for a lot of years. I’ve worked with both Purves and Funkhouser and really believe these two will drive Motiva into the ground and continue to ruin the careers of many good people.
I am especially disappointed with Purves, particularly since he allows and protects the unethical things that Funkhouser has done and continues to do. Anyone else would have been fired long ago, but Tom continues to not only protect Jeff but continues to elevate his position and power in the company.
Motiva Mafia is a perfect representation of how these people conduct business. Speak one word of disagreement and your career will be destroyed – I’ve seen numerous examples of it, and yes, I feel like I am one of them. You can be 100% correct but you have disagreed so you and your career must be destroyed.
Appeal to HR or Shell Resolve? Try it, a number have but HR is a partner in their unethical behaviors. I have even seen a HR person fired for trying to do the right thing re: Jeff. HR has no interest in protecting or helping employees when they bring legitimate issues re: senior leadership to them. They have one mission – protect the company and their leadership at any cost. And Resolve is an absolute joke. I know a couple of people who tried that route and you wouldn’t believe the things they were told. They know what is going on, but again, they are generally trying to protect the senior leaders, they don’t seem to have any real interest in helping employees.
As for the recent packages and dismissals, keep your ears and eyes open. This isn’t over by a long shot.
on Jun 20th, 2009 at 14:10
Downunder123, I beg to differ. I really enjoyed my Old Shell days. I learn as each days passed by. My bespectabled boss guided me well ( those days “Coaching” or “Mentoring” were not required ). Today, my salary tripled but I am not as happy. I sincerely hope it will change.
From your tone, I believe you are an old Shell schoolmate.Thats why you can tell the difference. A young 1st Class honours graduate always wonder these days what is so good about Shell. The first few years, he was made APE. Assistant to Powerpoint Engineer. He is thinking of leaving almost everyday with his peers.
These are the future Project Managers whom we expect to deliver project on schedule with budget safely. Something need to drastically change. We recruit the best crops but we have not nurtured them well.
Downunder123-lets do this together to make Shell it once was. Unless you are planning to an exit ?
on Jun 20th, 2009 at 13:44
My Comments to PAR REJECT, and to all the other folks that were cut this past week or will be cut in the near future.
First I would say that I know how you feel it is most likely the same way that I feel, anger, fear, bitterness, sadness, these are but a few of the emotions that are pouring through me a thousand times a day. I know the natural tendency in these situations is to lash out at the person or people that we perceive have brought this on us. For that I want to caution you all, I don’t know in this computer age whats possible in terms of tracking these post’s, but I do know that when I read the paperwork I received in the monotonous green folder, The company can use this against you to withhold your severance payment. The statement is something to the effect that: To be eligible for the severance payment that you must meet all of the criteria, one of which is not being terminated prior to your severance date. The reasons mentioned for termination include dishonesty, insubordination, or violation of company policies.
I mention this above just as a word of caution to us all. If you are like me then you need the severance and the time allotted prior to the actual severance dates.
Secondly, I am interested in organizing a discussion group of the folks that were laid off. I have made a list of those that I know of from my site, and I am working towards finding a secure method of contact. I myself am interested in comparing notes, I personally have not decided whether or not there is basis for challenging this or not, so I am interested in others stories.
If you were laid off from Motiva and are interested in this discussion group concept, indicate your interest by posting a reply on this site and I will work towards a secure method from there.
Please take care and keep your heads up in these tough times.
on Jun 20th, 2009 at 13:35
Shell is actually a very good company. It is the people that make the difference. I joined Shell in my mid career. I have worked in other oil majors around the World. I have seen worst. Majority of the people I met are very nice and caring people in Shell. Sometimes it is greed that cloud certain individuals and fortunately only a small minority.
For those who cannot withstand these minority, I suggest you take a break or leave. Dont always think the grass is greener on the otherside of the fence. However I suggest you stay on as we have a good family in Shell. Just just leave because of some individuals. People come and Go. You can be sure of Shell.
on Jun 20th, 2009 at 13:17
So Pickard gets a great reward for poor HSSE Performance. Seems they (Vosser and Co) felt they needed to boost their credibility after all the other female members at senior levels in Shell walked right out.
But Pickard???? I just donlt get it
on Jun 20th, 2009 at 12:43
First of all, welcome Ann Pickard to Australia. We anxiously await your arrival and hope you are not another of the same kind as your predecessor, the popular name that appears in this blog now and then! Time will tell
on Jun 20th, 2009 at 05:17
Would like to share a comment that the current GM, Forrest Liar, shared with the community re the state of affairs for the site…
on Jun 20th, 2009 at 03:30
Glad to find this site. With all the people getting axed, I’m sure there’s going to be some good reading and some interesting facts posted in the next few weeks! Stay Tuned ! I can’t wait!
on Jun 20th, 2009 at 02:29
I really agree with IntelAgent, it is happening in US and it is happening in Asia and everywhere. The globalisation and matrix organisation concept is the best con job sold by the Consultants next the SAP. The Country stakeholders are not organised this way and they only know the most senior person in country.
The days of the old Shell is over. When I joined as a young man, my manager was bespectable and very knowledgeable. He knows actually what I ask for and guide me very well. He was only JG3 and promoted to 2 just before he retired. Today in the same department , we have 1 JGA, 2 JG1 and several JG3. Its not only cost got inflated but Job as well. The JGA does not come from the same discipline so he knows f***all, if we continue with this trend, no wonder salary cost gone up and we have managers who know nothing but only pleases the boss and do PE (Power point engineering ). Their bosses are brought up the same way, so what do you expect. No wonder our project got delay, cost over run. If there is a safety incident , we do lesson learns and blame the contractor and his staff and threaten to blacklist them.
So my colleagues in Motiva, think carefully. Is this the company you want to work for. You can be sure of Shell. There is an exodus of departure in Asia, because management choose to divide and rule. Why do you think our Malcolm talk about “accountability” and “spend as if your own money”? Because it is just not there. The Top blame the Middle, the Middle blame the Lower. The buck stops at the bottom like us.
on Jun 20th, 2009 at 00:13
Scapegoat is right on. I sure hope I am not there when the kaboom happens. Everyone that was fired, I mean severed, had all or most of their years in Convent. All of the people that were brought in from Norco that worked for David or Tom at one time are safe. David’s little Lutcher connection is strong as ever.
I am glad that this site is catching on. Here folks can write the truth. It is amazing to watch David and Roxan in action. I never thought that people could lie like that and smile at the same time. You two people are disgusting human beings. How can you sleep with yourself at night?
Harley, I think you were right on as well. What does Roxans man do? I am gonna have to spend some time looking into that. He was on a team but now he is doing something else. Not sure what that is but I am sure that he will be safe.
The sadest thing about all of this, David Roxan and Tom, is that you all fired 30, brought 30 in from Norco and you are in the process of interviewing for newly created jobs, which will most likely be populated with Norco folks. I don’t hate Norco folks, only the ones that are coming in that worked for David before and are taking jobs away from people like the 30 that got fired to make room for you. In fact, these folks are not from Norco but from Davids home town of Lutcher, St. James Parish, and they have a history.
David, that video you sent out to us. Did you watch it? Did you listen to it? You are a lying piece of garbage. You told us you were going to help us but instead you, Tom and Roxan are tearing us apart. I hope that Tom’s visit was a crappy one. I wish that I could have had some time with him so I could have told him what I think about his dumb azz.
David, Tom, and Roxan, I hope you have nighmares after you kill one or many of the hard working men and women in Convent. That is exactly what you are going to do. Cutting the samples out, I am sure that will help getting product on spec. Consolidations and cutting out job sections, that will be fun for you. But when it happens, GOD I hope it doesn’t but it will, I hope you pieces of crap get thrown in jail and spend the rest of your miserable lives there. I bet your mafia will get its azz kicked in there. That is when you will find out who I am. I will visit you one time so I can look into you lying eyes and tell you not to worry that change is a necessary thing and that I will look into your situation and do my best to help you out. I hope they bring Connie Boswell with you but then again, she has gotten out of sticky situations before. Better take a few notes from her book.
scuzzy
on Jun 19th, 2009 at 22:37
What??? Craig “has said the changes were tied to insufficient and overly optimistic planning by previous managers”. Well, why dont you own up Gspdn Craig and admit how much over budget you are in relation to the magical $Us19.624 billion budget you approved and signed everyone up to including YOU in your own insufficient and overly optimistic style. I hope you get all you truly deserve in Nigeria. Good Riddance from Sakhalin and the Russian people
on Jun 19th, 2009 at 19:29
Oh really Sakhalin? What on earth did Ian Craig do for Sakhalin Island??? Korsakov, Yuzhno, Nogliki and Smyrnik are still deprived dumps like they always were. He’ll be right at home in Ogoni land
on Jun 19th, 2009 at 17:28
Regarding comments on Motiva: Sad, but for the most part, true. Many of the Motiva leadership laughingly refer to themselves as “the Motiva Mafia”, and are quite proud of their cut-and-thrust tactics of manipulating personnel. Not so long ago, Norco were changing staff so frequently one could not keep up from month-to-month of who was in what position. Clearly, certain people in key leadership positions can and do manipulate staff to get who they want on their “team”. Leave no doubt, that the “Good ‘Ole Boy” network is alive, well, and thriving in Motiva. Woe to the person who actually articulates an original thought that is not in line with the current leadership. You will be slashed and burned, pigeon-holed, maybe even discharged.
Mr. Tom began his march in Wood River, where he prepped the site to be sold, followed closely by his short tenure at Bakersfield which was also subsequently sold. One has to wonder about the future of Norco, which has recently been robbed of its budget to subsidize the debacle that is the Crude Expansion Project at Port Arthur. It’s interesting that at one time Shell had only one Regional VP of Manufacturing, but after Rudy Joetzee left, two were needed and Mr. Tom somehow ended up with only his beloved Motiva to manage. Steve Rathweg gets the larger area to cover, including Canada and South America.
This is not the Shell of the past, where employees were truly valued and in return were very loyal. More good people now atrophy in their jobs or are pushed out of the company than ever before, while the “Good ‘Ole Boys” and henchmen remain. One of the most recent examples is Todd Monet, previous GM of Port Arthur. We’ll probably never know that whole story, but one who can see what’s going on can speculate fairly accurately.
Perhaps Shell executives will someday (soon) see what is happening and make course corrections to get the company back on track towards doing what they have been capable of in the past: executing solid business plans, being respectable, and having integrity. But as long as senior executives (Jeroen V d Veer) vote to award themselves their annual performance bonus even though their performance targets are not met, there may not be much hope.
on Jun 19th, 2009 at 17:20
Motiva Convent let 30 long time employee’s go, I am one of them. I pick a username that suits how we are treated there. We are all scapegoats for Roxan and Jill, and David. When there was an incident on the VPS, Lynn Detillier was Roxan’s scapegoat he had all the facts to back up his claims and they made him work another job he warned them what would happen and they refused to fixed it till it bit them in the azz. He was the best performance specialist they had, but he couldn’t rock the boat. Jill Sayers, well that was a useless piece of work. That quote in the T.H.Kelly handbook about engineers being bad people managers was right on the money. Can’t wait to see Roxan and her dead head husband get on their horse and ride back to Kalifornia. David, well I thought he would be a good guy, man was I wrong, and you are supposed to be so religious. No wonder you and Reserve Church had your differences. You are a disgrace to Lutcher, Motiva Convent, and all the people who supported you when you came to Convent. Tom Purvis, I hope to see you in public one day. No one else had the balls to tell you to F@#K off in the Control Room the other day, but I sure would have, you useless piece of Corporate scum. I feel sorry for the operators who will be effected the most from these stupid moves. Someone is going to die in an incident because of inexperienced and stupid board operators, especially when they move the control room and no one can help them. I pray for the poor outside operators who will suffer. Some shift coordinators that were let go where the only ones with balls to stand up for their people, and do whats right. The other azz kissers better wake up before its too late. I hope everyone in the hourly ranks takes this as a sign to never accept a salaried position no matter what they promise you. The lie like a rug. Maybe Curtis needs to make some earlier rounds and wake up his hard sleeping coordinators whom I won’t mention their name, but everyone knows who I’m talking about. I have another job, so I will bide my time and collect my check till Aug 31st, but after that, the gloves come off. No one is going to risk loosing the severence money right now, but I know one person they best be glad he couldn’t risk loosing the money that’s the only reason everyone canned didn’t cause a ruckus. We all need that money to survive, and they know it. David, Roxan, K-Rob (I’ll comment on you later), Jill Sayers, and all the ones that railroaded us, I hope you rot in sHell.
on Jun 19th, 2009 at 12:59
Heartiest Congratulations from Staff of Sakhalin Energy to Ian Craig on your recent appointment to EVP Sub Sahara Africa
on Jun 18th, 2009 at 22:52
Monkey Fish – Right on the Spot.
At US150 per barrel, Shell got away with it. 95% the Bozos are LC/SEG. Only 5% can analyse and understand financial statements. Bozos breed Bozos.
Cost has gone North, Production and Performance has gone South.
Voser – you are still using the same leaders from West – I guarantee the above will sustain.
I thought you are going to be different and fearlessness,
Why donot you try East Leaders. The Cost Culture is different.
Look at the Economic crisis, who has created it? Who is turning it around. Time will tell.
on Jun 18th, 2009 at 16:35
For a comparison of staffing in Shell:
ExxonMobil, 79,900 employees, B$45.2 Revenue
Shell, 102,000 employees, B$26.3 Revenue
On a prorated basis need to cull 55,500 bozos!
Remember 5,000 bozos can generate enough work between themselves to keep busy fulltime reporting to each other.
on Jun 18th, 2009 at 11:57
Michiel- Congratulations to your appointment as EVP Asia. You are very soft spoken men, well liked by everyone. ( abit like Ian Craig ). Less talk but more actions. Now the challenges for you.
How do your remove those NATO ( No Actions Talk Only ) SEG. Its easy just do a survey on Paul, Wouter, Tim H, Dick, etc. You will have the results to support you.
How do you transfer those “square peg in round hole” ? e.g. a Strategist in a LSEPR job. Look around you will know who I am refering to.
How do you remove those snobs?
Dont forget my earlier suggestions to Voser ( see below ) on closing the Singapore office. It will be a real test on you now. Move to KL and this will send a very powerful message to the troop. Furthermore you will be closer to Petronas. Do not forget you still have to recover the US$1billion. Thats why Malcolm put you there. Malaysia is the only Country you have control over anyway.
Do make safety implementation “fit for purpose” If you do, you can remove at least 20 FTE in Asia and 200 FTE in the Group.
Goodluck in your selection. We are confident you will deliver if you listen to us. Make sure you have an energised team. or have Malcolm selected them for you already.
on Jun 18th, 2009 at 02:58
Greetings all!
I wanted to comment on the downstream manufacturing cuts along the US Gulf Coast. The crying shame in this whole approach to staff cutbacks is in the manner that they are being carried out. It appears that it is totally MR. Purves’s game, time to grind his petty axes, and exercise his vindictive agenda. Mr. Purves must have stepped out of class when the discussion on ethics was carried out in school, he must have overlooked the respect for people piece of the leadership framework. These things were apparent to me when I received the news that I no longer had a job with Motiva. Where is EC-1 in defending the framework that they indicate they support, where was Mark Williams and Tom Botts when Toms decision to replace the plant manager at PAR with Forrest Gump…err Lauher, you guys remember this guy, he was in charge of the expansion project that had the costs escalate by some 2 bln, and the schedule slip ridiculously. I mean did that move make any kind of sense? Especially since Gump’s only other plant manager gig ended with him being sent packing. I recognize that we are overstaffed, I get the fact that to be competitive in good times and bad times that we need to run leaner, these things do not escape me. The thing that gets me is the rationale for conducting the cuts, Voluntary severance packages would have accomplished the cuts and then some. I hear MR. Purves is making his rounds to the site to try and ascertain the source of the aggrivation that results in the derogatory press on this site. To MR. Purves I offer this, if you want to understand, just stop and look around at what you are doing, use your intellect to recognize the impact you are making, and if you think you are making that impact, standby because the bad press is only beginning!
on Jun 18th, 2009 at 00:04
Mr Fred and Mr Russia with Love: You dont know what you are talking about with regards to Ian Craig. as k anyone at Enterprise, Malaysia or Sakhalin who worked with him. A more uninspiring, introverted man could you ever meet. He should have stuck at being a diver- a dumb waste of oxygen
on Jun 17th, 2009 at 18:13
Well the EC-1 is out and is basically the same faces. No change at the top so whilst Voser wanted with the reorganisation to get changes to be structural, behavioural & cultural, he has managed only the structural changes. Same faces in different jobs means same behaviours and same culture with tacit support of the EC. A real pity that this golden opportunity has been missed by Voser, so I dont think he will be a good leader. I will not be re-buying my shares.
Jon Chadwick is out in Dec 2009 and I don’t think that there is a hidden agenda on that. But Charles Watson is still in, so Russia good luck. Ian Craig may have been good (I have not worked with him) but Charles Watson is another Jon Chadwick…. You could not have got anyone worse.
on Jun 17th, 2009 at 17:00
We in Russia is happy that Jon is out and Ian Craig is in. Ian is a good man who listen more than he speaks. Being an Ex Enterprise man, he is great unlike the Shell breed of NATOs.. ( No Action Talk Only )…Wish there were more of the Ian in Shell…..our loss is Sub Sahara Africa’s gain.
Warm welcome to Charles Watson ..hope you are as good and sincere as Ian.
Voser-donot forget to nominate at least 1 Russian for EC-2
on Jun 17th, 2009 at 16:11
Fred, you are right and I am wrong. Jon is not in EC-1.
I do smell a rat though as the mere fact that he still keep the Aussie fort till Dec 2009. Hope he is not lined up to be Malcolm successor at year end.
By the way the EC=1 line up is boring. There is no change. Still the same old faces except poor Dominique Gardy who is retired.
Any change consultant will tell you for any change to be successful, there must be at least 30% changeout.
So I am going back to do my normal 8-5pm work.
on Jun 17th, 2009 at 02:46
I don’t know, maybe I’m just stupid! I guess for many reasons including working for these people. I cannot believe a billion dollar corporation would have a man like Purvis in charge of things. If all the stockholders would know whats really going on, we would probably do an Enron! Everyone would be grabbing their money and running! I’m sorry that all these good people are getting fired this week. I would hate to have to explain this to my children. Sorry lil Suzie, daddy can’t buy you anything for your birthday this year because I got fired because work decided that they needed to cut jobs by 20%. But don’t worry darling, when you grow up, be an engineer or an accountant for Shell and you may get the chance to get treated like crap too!
Hmmmm, I wonder what their gonna tell the public? Sorry we make millions, but we need to make billions! we’re gonna cut staff 20% and increase productivity by 50%, but we assure you that the few people left to run the refineries are first aid, fire and rescue trained so when something happens we will be ready.
Sounds like Shell needs a corporate bailout! I know the last thing this economy and our local community needs is for hundreds of people to loose their jobs!
But it must be me, I must be stupid! thank you Purvis the Pirate!
on Jun 16th, 2009 at 22:39
WOW, motivasux was right. The heads have started to roll in Convent and Geismar. I watched grown men cry today as most all had 17 years or better. Most all had the same person evaluating them, Jill Sayers, who has sinced been moved out due to her poor performance. She had 3 or 4 jobs in 4 years or so and none of the jobs were the ones she put in to get. I bet that Roxan’s man wont lose his dead head job. What is it that he does now………wait a minute……….let me think……….it is potential conditions……….no that is not it……….what is it now……..heck I really don’t know what it is he is supposed to be doing. Hey, thanks Roxan and David for keeping him on board. He sure is a great asset.
And Jill Roussel, what the heck are you thinking? You want a contractor to come out and do bargaining unit work because you don’t want to staff the plant. Tell the public that you want to cut the number of jobs because emergencies don’t happen. Tell the public about the results of the audit around the standing instructions in which your managers said that if we allow our folks to do the job correctly, we don’t have enough today. Don’t be shy now. Tell the public what you told all of us last week. Come on now, you on the fast track.
And Kelly Richardson, please tell the public about your plans to cut the night shift completely out of the lab. Tell them who is going to do the sampling that you are going to drop from your department. Tell them what your plans are for the 10 slots, 2 of which are not filled today.
And Mr. Savior Brignac. Please enlighten us home boy. Tell the public about your video in which you said you had integrity and you had the best in mind for the people in Convent. Then tell them how all of the people you fired today have all of their time at Convent. Them tell them, Mr. Integrity, how you just brought in all of your boys from Norco that worked for you when you were there. Tell the public what you will tell the families of the people you just fired. Tell the public what you will tell the families of the people when you end up like Texas City due to knowing absolutely nothing about the process you are in control of. You stated how you will stand up for the people but that is not true is it? You give in to Mr. Purves just like a good little boy now don’t you.
David and Roxan, I hope I get the pleasure to watch you get fired. Don’t worry though, I will help you write your resume.
on Jun 16th, 2009 at 14:00
POSTING BY WILLEM ON THE ARTICLE “Gas Station Lease Dispute Will Get U.S. Supreme Court Scrutiny”:
Instead of operating according to their
on Jun 16th, 2009 at 01:04
Today has been termed as “Black Monday” in Port Arthur as the Purves regime has let go 15 folks. What is funny is that all 15 were brought in by Mr. Todd Monette who fell out of the good graces of Purves because he wouldn’t say yes sir to everything.
Tomorrow will then have to be called “Black Tuesday” as Convent, and their savior David, follow in Port Arthurs footsteps with the same fate being dealt to some folks that are not in the clique. Roxan says that this is the hardest thing she has ever had to do. Maybe because this is the only thing she has ever had to do.
Norco, get ready cause you’re next on the hit list. You already got the Purves treatment when they “worked” with the union to get rid of your 10 hour shift. Purves’ definition of “work” is that he told the committee that he is canceling the letter of agreement. And the membership blames the union and Purves gets his way. Just remember Purves, we all have to pay our dues when it is our time. We all have someone to answer to and HE is much bigger than anyone in shell.
I have to agree with reaper that there are too many folks that kiss the booty that will be saved. Nobody will stand up anymore in fear for losing their job. When savior David speaks you better do as he says or you will have your fate handed to you. Of course if you are a “yes man”, you will be fine as is evidence from the recent moves. Esther found out quick that inhumane resources was a hinderance and not a help. She didn’t “fit” in and got moved to Canada. Keith finally found out that you can only get by so long if you actually know nothing and only kiss booty. Monette found out what happens when you stand up for your people. Tomorrow, some good folks will find out how much shell cares for them and their families as they sever them. Inhumane resources says that this is necessary because these folks are not cutting it. I want to know who is responsible for their evaluations as in the last 3 – 4 years, all that Connie and Deidra have done is fire people or hand out discipline. Don’t call them and ask them for information about benefits or anything to do with your job. They both do really well getting by because the last two plant managers knew zero about what their jobs were and in the saviors case, is. The savior has Deidra and Connie “coaching” him. Look how well that is working out.
Mr. Purves, thanks for nothing today in Norco. Your visit was just as I thought, useless. Can’t wait for the visit in Convent and Giesmar.
Have a crappy day you shell swine
Scuzzy
on Jun 16th, 2009 at 00:02
Sorry I pushed the button before i was done. Now for the way Shell/motiva rate their employees, if you dont know how we come up with non performers. Everyone in the same paygrade are evaluated, a certain percent has to be top performer (usually those under desks) and a percent has to be low performer whether they are or not. A Bell curve if you will. A lot of these people, shell dont call them people they refer to them as positions or staffing numbers it helps them sleep at night, who will be let go tomorrow were rated by a non performing manager that was told to leave Convent after 5 years and 3 different job titles. These rating will not be question even though they are worthless. Some good people will be shown the gate some bad. What we will be left with is all the butt kissers that have been skating by Jeff, and those others scared to ask anything for fear of their jobs and no one left will stand up and question any bad decisions. So I ask for ya’ll that read this to say prayers for those that are left. Nothing will be fixed because no one will fight for its importance, they’ve been shown to the door. Hopefully we don’t become the next Texas City. Also say a prayer for those PEOPLE who live and families live that will be destroyed so the stakeholders can make MORE money. As said before by someone else the plant manager is sure saving his desk jockies for norco and he preaches how much integrity he has HAHA. If he reads this here is the definition– : firm adherence to a code of especially MORAL values. You might want to rethink what you have, its sure not integrity. Sleep well and don’t forget Church on Sunday.
on Jun 15th, 2009 at 22:38
If Amnesty is going to adopt Corrib as a campaign they support that is very significant indeed.
on Jun 15th, 2009 at 15:34
Well the grapevine is that the appointments for EC-1, almost all the EVPs (level below the Executive Committee) will be announced tomorrow. I really do hope that AsiaDragon is mistaken and that Jon Chadwick will not be nominated. Although, I’ve already sold my Shell shares but will definetly rebuy some if the nominations are truly of the deserving and meritocratic and does not smell of cronism. Tomorrow will tell.
on Jun 15th, 2009 at 12:36
What an extraordinary run of stories over the past few weeks! This website really is a service to all of Shell’s stakeholders and to the public at large. Keep up the good work!
on Jun 15th, 2009 at 01:07
In response to AsiaDragon, I am surprised Shell at the top is now so devoid of talents that Jon Chadwick is regarded as one of its cream in pool of SEG. This cannot be possible! In this case, we better dispose of our shares before the announcement is made as there could be further surprises of cronism…..
on Jun 14th, 2009 at 18:40
News spreads that this website is here and the truth is being spoken. Alot of staff folks at the local level for Convent, Norco, and Giesmar are wanting to put something up on here but are afraid for their jobs. I know this because I have family at all three places that are both staff and hourly. Nobody likes the direction that old purves is taking but nobody that can wants to stop him.
In tom’s latest strike he has canceled the letter of agreements that have the maintenance force working 4-10 hour shifts. Now I know for a fact that Darrell Heltz, Convent USW Chairman, offered a 4-10 hour schedule that actually covered the weekend as well. That means 70 hours of coverage for 40 hours of pay. He showed me the notes from negotiations and there was at least 3 schedules proposed by the Union to help both the company and the people. Tom and Brignac said that the 10 hour schedule cost to much. Yep, 70 hours of straight time coverage cost more than 40 hours of straight time coverage and if there is work to be done on the weekend, which there always is, you have to pay overtime with Tom and Brignacs schedule but it is cheaper than paying the straight time. These are the decisions that will bring shell/motiva down. Dumb, dumb, dumb.
Now let’s talk about the buddy system. If you want to be promoted you have to have one or more of the following:
1. have worked for Tom Purves
2. have worked for one of Tom’s good buddy’s
3. have been through Norco or Port Arthur
4. can prove that you can lie, cheat, and stell and still sleep at night.
I walked into my charimans office and on his board there was a list of people who have been promoted or put into jobs in the last year. All except two of the folks have ties to David Brignac who has ties to Tom Purves. All except two of them have come from Norco and have had a stint under Tom or David. The two exceptions were folks who did not belong to the Union and according to Darrell, he says that there were at least 20 people that were qualified that paid dues that got told no. One of the two didn’t have the qualifications as the company said you needed 5 years experience and this guy only had 2. But Darrell told me that his father in law was a boss here and he came from, you guessed it, Norco.
I went to my chairman for some help with a problem and we sat down with the company to discuss it. The company told us that I had to get in touch with Fidelity. Darrell had told me before we went in there that this was going to happen. I didn’t believe him but he was right. He said that this group was the worst he ever had to deal with and that he misses the days of Joe Hymel and Tanya Hooper.
So everyone knows, Tom will be in Norco on Monday and in Convent on Wednesday. If any of you want to visit with him, send him an email or try to catch him when he is on his tour. In Convent, you will know where he is going to tour by whatever David and Roxan sent out for a cleanup area. You know the two have no clue about the operational side of things but they sure do know how to make you clean up an area so that they can say look how good we are. We make people do clean up. Why don’t you spend some of that energy and stop changing rules around permits and lock out tag out. Wonder when the next big change is coming.
Tom, I sure do hope your visit is a crappy one. I hope you are as miserable as you and your cronies have made all of us. I really hope that when this all comes crashing down, you don’t take all of the hard working men and women who really would like this place to get better. But people like you don’t think like that.
Scuzzy
on Jun 14th, 2009 at 16:23
Its Voserisation era, let not talk about history. This recession will change the course of Shell. Its downfall or success will depend on its leaders. The behavior of its leaders will determine its future for along time. There are few great qualities required of a leader during recession.
First being to 1) Act fast. Voser lives up to this by announcing EC before he assumes duty on 1 july.
Lets hope Voser will show “fearlessness”, not “fearless”. The choice of EC gave him away somewhat. Although he picked up courage to tell Linda he has no job for her, he has kept Malcolm and Simon Henry.
Anyway, just do not forgot to include a Russian in EC2 in the near future. Sakhalin is a major contributor to Shell coffer. I note with interest the comments by AsiaDragon, Fred, et al. We do not mind to keep Iain Craig but definitely a No No for Jon Chadwick.
Good luck, Voser.
on Jun 14th, 2009 at 10:00
“plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose” – presumably Voser being the good multi-lingual Swiss he is will understand and possibly, just possibly will actually do something that will make a difference. In particular it is critical that he promotes those who can be shining leadership examples.
on Jun 14th, 2009 at 09:20
Unfortunately Jeroen is not an honest man nor is he an innocent in the reserves fraud. Please read the last three articles in the section “OUTSPOKEN ABOUT ROYAL DUTCH SHELL PLC”. Although not responsible for the fraud, he was a participant in the cover-up. Former Shell International HSE Group Auditor Bill Campbell concluded after a meeting with Jeroen about the “Touch F*** All” safety culture that Jeroen is an outright liar. Jeroen publicly complained about the criticism from Campbell – he said that he was hurt by it – but the shocking fatality stats at Shell continue to tell a different story than Shell propaganda. Only a few days ago, Shell was fined for massive safety breaches at Shell Centre which put employees lives at risk. The propaganda continues but nothing changes. Good riddance to arrogant reluctant Fat Cat Jeroen as CEO. He calls for pay reform after saying he doesn’t actually need several million pounds received as his retirement package but is hanging on to it all in any case. Like Brinded, all talk and spin, no performance. Overpromise, Underdelivery.
on Jun 14th, 2009 at 06:30
Sorry Fred, Jorge and Downunder123, , the EC-1 nomination has been made, due to lack of Aussie candidates, Jon has to assume the leadership role in Australia temporarily. Let Jon try it out and redeem himself and leave Asia alone. Jon- we wont give you another laptop if you throw it again. Furthermore Malcolm has no choice for now.
Asia will be led by an Asian for once. It goes to say at least Voser listens. For Asia there are few key focus areas in the next one year.
1) Select E-2 well – based on expertise not based Cronism.
2) Close Singapore office. This is a no brainer but has been an going study topic for last five years. Paul-what happen? If we are serious about cost competitiveness.
3) Remove Regional roles except keep a small core team to be the Strategic Think Tank to be advisors to EVP Asia.
Easily, one can get rid of 200 expats. Malaysia used to have 100 Expat, today it has 500. Production has not grown 5 times. There are so many LC/SEG doing non value adding things. Some US$1billion is still unrecovered from partners ( isnt this a BCI? Unless Simon H is burying his head in the sand)
4) Set up a new Risk vs Reward renumeration structure – Reward Risk taker. Do away with DRB. Interestingly enough there are many full time DRB members. Make the EC-2 leader have single point accountability.
Introduce regional pay system, while encouraging mobility and sharing of expertise and we donot end up paying expat 3-4 times their local equivalent. With the development of IT & Technology, the specialists can be based in his or her Country to provide specialist advice. There are so many Brits and American in Holland and Dutch in UK and US. Look at the Exxon model.
5) Revisit the Exploration and New Business development strategy and portfolio. Like at Exxon Mobil, they drill and invest more when the cost is down.
5) Revisit Global support services- HR, Finance, CP, HSE, IT. We must have fit for purpose processes. What works in Europe and US does not necessarily work in Asia, For example outsourcing of IT, HR and finance services. We end up paying more. We donot need a SEG HR VP in Asia who has not delivered anything except lot of “Hot Air” since he came.
Lets be No. 1 again.
Finally let Jeroen retire peacefully. At least he tried his best and is Honest. I like him.
on Jun 14th, 2009 at 05:54
Downunder123 – point 1, I agree and point 2, I hope so (but don’t hold your breath). As for point 3, add staff who had the extreme misfortune to work for JC in Argentina (Shell CAPSA). He was resposible for nervous breakdowns and resignations. In addition, the business plans he “drove” (over the objections of unfortunate subordinates who knew better) indicated either igorance of or disregard for the basics of reserves estimation. In the light of recent history, that alone should disqualify him from further advancement.
on Jun 13th, 2009 at 17:22
1. Jeroen was a forced victim born out of the Shell’s reserves crisis – he was never groomed to be the CEO in the first place! So please forgive him for taking the job and let him retire in peace. We have more faith for Peter to deliver a much better job!
2. Totally unrelated, can someone from Malaysia tell us more about this gentleman Jon Chadwick. He certainly looks genuine first encounter but heard many negatives about him – track records had not been good especially amongst Malaysians and for Shell – need not mention his reputation with Petronas…….
Surely Malcolm will know how to deal with him objectively and with courage and justice.
on Jun 12th, 2009 at 20:31
So Jeroen signs off with a flourish and a freduian slip in an email to staff entitled “taking stock……” Now there is irony for you.
I’m sorry to say that Jeroen has, in my opinion been one of the most lacklustre chairmen of Shell in its history right up there with Cor Hoekstrotter.
He has taken the company from mediocrity to…..well mediocrity.
The share price still struggles and our fatality rate is the worst in the industry by a long long way.
So goodbye Jeroen, we will remember you, but probably not what you would like us to remember you for !
PS enjoy the millions of dollars in stock options and reflect if you really earned it?
on Jun 12th, 2009 at 13:32
MotivaMan, the guy you have running Convent was another one that Mr Tom Purves put in place. Tom has a habit of taking care of his own, the Motiva mafia as I have heard them called. The original Mafia is now gone with Casey leaving and Doug Quinn going to run his own company. Doug, you found a bank yet that will loan you money?
The man to watch is Purves because he has long lost his ethics. The sad reality is everyone sees the moves he has made of late and those that still had some sense of belief in his values no longer do. Bottom line, Tom is bad.
Stay tuned for the severance packages next week and watch who gets the boot and who gets to backfill. Tom came in to take over the project back in December because his little buddy Forrest Liar lost control. so the first thing he did was make sure that Forrest didn’t become a redundancy. He had only worked for the company for 4 years and all of a sudden he is a GM. No project background so it shouldn’t surprise us that he blew the big project. Ask yourself who put him in that role in the first place… good ole Tom. Well we’ll see how he does with running the base plant. He got fired from his last GM job running a small plant in St Louis for Conoco Phillips. Maybe he will stick with Motiva.
Then you got my good friend Jim Hartsock. A down in the rank maintenance planner that seems to show up whereever Tom does. always getting jobs thanks to Tom. Well found it interesting that Convent wasn’t working out for him due to his boss over there wanting him to actually work. Tom comes in on the project stating that we have to reduce and cut. You then see through the backdoor that Hartsock gets a job on the project. So we have too many people on the project, time to prune and get some of the PAR retirement center off the payroll, and Jim comes in. Well well, there is your cost control.
Then don’t forget the most obvious one….. Mr Jeff Funkstenhouser. This man has an ego thie size of Texas, thinks he is God’s gift to Shell, thinks he should be the GM of Port Arthur, and oh by the way, follows Tom whereever he goes. You seeing a pattern. Boy the time in Wood river must have been a cozy time for these 4. The Funk gets to come in and dictate to the site because everyone knows that he is connected to Tom. Without that connection, he would be a pile of trash on the doorstep that we would throw out with the Monday trash. And by the way, Tom elevated him to interim GM at Norco and Casey jumped ship. Tom threw him in to the mix at PAR to lead the BASICS campaign. Little does anyone remember that the Funk got caught up in a little old problem at Norco with the Superdome and oh by the way, the DUI he got sure didn’t help. But once again, Tom comes to the rescue.
I sure hope that Shell leadership gets their head out of the dirt and looks at what Tom is doing. He is singlehandledly ruining the manufacturing gang with his antics.
PS. Wonder who is Toms next roomie?
on Jun 12th, 2009 at 02:50
Thanx Motivasux! I’m going to comment about what Motivasux posted about the OSHA violation that was reported. I personally know and have talked to the person responsible for reporting the violation to OSHA.
OSHA sent a copy of the letter it sent to Motiva, Convent about this violation to him. They also were kind enough to send him a copy of Motiva’s response to the violation, which was responded to by J. Cancienne. In his response he states that this violation was no occuring at this refinery and that the person reporting it did not know what they were talking about. He then had the nerve to challenge OSHA and say that OSHA was not correct themselves and that the OSHA standard in reference had no bearing on them because it was a contractor standard.
I know these things because I read his response.( I can post it if anyone wants to see the lies by our company). Now, lets talk about HONESTY and INTEGRITY! Management at this refinery has none, I mean ZERO! This man is saying that the person whom is reporting this is lying. I know of at least 50 people whom can verify that this violation was real and occuring! Our management has no Honesty and Integrity themselves and will do anything to cover their own!
I know Shell! I have personally seen what Shell can be. We can be the best and the greatest company on Earth! But not with the type of management we have. Its the buddy system at its finest. Most of these people are a joke. I can tell you that I know I can put this company on top! Not only can I, but I would for my measily 5 figure salary, with no big bonuses! We need a swift and immediate change in management! I’m not talking about 3-4 people, I’m talking about 50-100 people at my refinery alone. Lets send them to our competitors so they can fall from greatness and we can retake whats ours!
I stated years ago, when we were making money hand over fist that before long only the best, most efficient will survive. I am saddened to see that this is already starting to take place. With new government standards and a push for alternative fuels, only the best will survive. The way we are going now, we WILL fail! We will become the next G.M. unless drastic changes are made!
Motivaman for president!
on Jun 10th, 2009 at 07:44
So….Shell is the most micro-managed EP business to ever have had the pleasure of cooking the books? No??!! lol. I have hit the bricks for every major EP operator since 88′, whether it was an offshore or office position. I have worked in operations, logistics, engineering and finance for the majority of their full field subsea developments. I have had the pleasure of working with some of Shell’s best over the years…..most of which got smart and took packages during the last big shakedown. The rest got smart, out of the way and took a window seat to watch some Scottish/Dutch rocket scientists try and revolutionize the EP business sector.
But with Shell, more than ever, managers/super’s know less about the industry now than I have ever witnessed in my short EP career. I have sat in daily telecon’s, leadership team meetings and marveled at the before/after comments of mgrs/supt’s concerning the most basic concepts in the industry. You know the one, the guy that sits the closest to his right hand “blue collar” office gopher. Sometimes I think these guys spend 25% of their time reading/answering emails, 50% researching the terminology/subject of the last meeting, so they can feel less moronic when they nod their head during the next meeting. And the remaining 25%…..planning the next meeting and/or leadership lunch…..MS Outlook can be so confusing sometimes!!
Budget controllers at every level know zero about the work performed, or the contracts that are in place and require an over abundance of “on the fly” advisement when AFE supplements, as well as explanations, are needed……yeah, but they’re busy planning that next meeting to shine for Marvin!!
But Shell’s joint venture partners (at least the latin american client reps) have got to be the dumbest in the industry. How their auditors never catch any ill-managed financial boo-boo’s has always intrigued me. Then again, you’re dealing with accounting mgrs that can barely read a SAP ledger, much less an hi-level operations report.
But what do I know??!! lol…
So hello Pete Voser!!……how’s it hangin’ with UBS these days??!! Wow!!
on Jun 9th, 2009 at 17:01
Brinded, there you go again! Promises, promises, promises, all far away and never to be achieved. Producing 300k in oil equivalent in 2020. You better start gearing up and produse your promised 4.5-6 million bopd for Shell in 2013. That is only 4 years away…..
on Jun 9th, 2009 at 02:36
Here is some more insight into what Shell/Motiva has done/is doing. A complaint was file with OSHA around loading of tank cars in which Motiva told operators to tie off to a crash bar. Per OSHA, you can’t tie off to the crash bar but Shell/Motiva has come up with the 12 life saving rules, one which says 100% tie off all of the time. Before the roll out of the 12 rules, GOD only had 10, it was brought to the attention of local management, 3 months in advance, who didn’t even capture our concerns. OSHA was called and Motiva’s response was that they didn’t tell anybody that and would not do that to folks. My Union President was then questioned by local leadership as to why OSHA was called. He doesn’t know who called, or at least he is not supposed to, but he did bring it up in a meeting with the rank and file and commended us, whoever it was that reported, for doing so.
Want some more. Well, Shell/Motiva is cost cutting and says that they are going to lay off some people. There will be some good people in that will get caught up in this because they are not “friends” with the top management. Yet Motiva has just purchased 60″ tv’s for the conference rooms and has brought at least 5 folks, “friends of the new regime”, from the plant down the river to take jobs in Convent. So we have no money and we are laying off but we can buy new tv’s, for no good reason, and we can bring in folks to do jobs in Motiva Convent from the plant down the river but we have to lay off.
My Union leadership has assured us that we will fight this every step of the way. The company outlined their new plan when my president and vice president were out of town on vacation. At the Union meeting, my Recording Secretary read from notes, complete with dates, of when the Union Committee asked the company to wait until both the president and vice president got back from vacation. Total lack of respect for any of us who don’t make 6 figures.
Oh, and don’t make the mistake and think you can ask inhumane resources anything. I can tell you the answer you will get. It is that you have to talk to Fedelity or Houston. Houston and Fedelity will tell you to speak with inhumane resources and the wheel starts to spin. You think I am kidding? Call them up and you will see.
Will report again later. I am sure if they do read this that they are going to ask the president who, what, when, and why. I haven’t told him yet but figure he will get around to reading the site before long. Word is spreading like wildfire. It is nice to finally have a place that knows about this company.
Scuzzy Operator at motiva
on Jun 9th, 2009 at 00:59
In the article “Shell’s blood money settles the Wiwa case”, I have added links to the settlement documents filed with the New York court a few hours ago in relation to the Wiwa vs. Shell litigation.
on Jun 7th, 2009 at 21:42
I agree with you Fred. Chadwick is a cheating, lying, warped and despicable individual. It was Chadwick who falsified oil reserves when he was our boss in Argentina-one of the biggest reserves write-downs ever before of course the great Shell reserves debacle and the subsequent mess he made of Camisea with Alan Hunt the Shunt. Other slime who have similar characteristcs are his SEG bum-chums expenses cheat Peter Warda, Arrogant Andy Calitz and Retard Ian Craig
on Jun 7th, 2009 at 16:57
I read with interest the comments of AsiaDragon regarding Jon Chadwick and what he stands for and what he has done in the FE. I have had the misfortune of meeting him a few times, and yes, he is very arrogant, downright rude and disrespectful of the locals. He did such a good (sic! sic!) job as Country chair for Malaysia that Shell as it normally does, promoted him to the GPLT as Exec VP for Asia Pacific. I think he has always been a ‘yes’ man and that is the biggest problem facing Shell. Another individual with similar traits and who shares Jon Chadwick’s passion for arrogance and poor performance is Charles Watson of Shell Energy Europe.
The plan in the new Voser organization is to nominate the next layer below the EC, by the end of June. Now the operative word here is ‘nominate’. So I don’t expect the EC members, for example, Malcolm to nominate anyone apart from his own cronies and ‘yes’ man. No reason to do anything different. So what will change, absolutely nothing. We will see the same faces, but they will now be singing a different tune. The flavor of the day is more Leadership, more Accountability and less (consensus) teamwork. Why would these guys change their culture on the 1st July 2009, when for the past 5 years they could have worked and behaved differently and improved significantly the morale and the bottom line of the Company. I think we would have had a chance if Voser had changed out the whole of the EC and at least the majority of individuals in the 2 layers below the EC.
Shell only provides lip service to ‘Diversity and Inclusiveness’ as is witnessed by the new EC. Although the Company is Global, and has significant business interests in Asia and Africa, with significant reductions in Europe, the new EC has an all male, anglo-saxon Caucasian cast of 3 Swiss, 2 British and 2 Americans. Whilst the EC or the Board of Royal Dutch may consider that diverse, it lacks ethnicity and is gender biased. The message is clear – irrespective of their nationality, there are no Africans, Indians, Chinese, Arabs or Asians, who are capable in this Company. Even the Women have not been spared!! .
on Jun 7th, 2009 at 04:10
I read with interest the news on Berlin funeral , so called SEF09 and the followup comments by many dedicated Shell colleagues and ex colleagues.
From Asia, I see this as a positive change provided Peter lives up to expectations. Thre is lots of opportunities to tap in Asia especially China, Malaysia, Australia if we have the right aproach.
I agree we should change out some of the top leaders ( layers ), the amount of overheads generated by the PE ( Powerpoint Engineers ) is indeed frightening. Shell has lots of brains and if this is channeled properly, I am sure we can we can be No. 1 again.
Initiatives like Life Saving rules are just mere lip service and take up so much of everyone’s time. Donot get me wrong- I subscribe to safety, but lets focus on the right community- the contractors.
There are many more global processes which creat work and does not add values. Hope the new Shell Management will do away with all these non value adding stuff and focus on bottom line ( afterall Voser has a bean counter background )
I support Iain Percival and John Burn call for change.
By the way, Shell has a very capable snob called Jon Chadwick who donot respect locals. How can he go so far to the top today is anybody guess. Now, with Linda leaving Jon will have to look for his next apple to polish. ( Malcolm – Watch out ). If Jon is appointed the top man in Asia, Voser/Malcolm will have to plan for an exit strategy in Asia. By the way, it is hearsay that Linda had the American job carveout for her as a face saving, she fetlt it is an insult and left.I respect her for that. Malcolm is handling the situation differently. You will all see.
Voser will have to remove all the NATOs ( No Action, Talk Only ) managers. It is also high time Voser appoint an Asian to the top post. There are many to choose from if he cares to open his eyes wide instead of limiting his vision to the West.
on Jun 6th, 2009 at 00:22
Motivasux, if you have more information to share about Tom Purves, Motiva, Convent, or related matters and want to bring it to the attention of Royal Dutch Shell senior management and the news media, this is the place to post it.
Postings are closely monitored by Shell top and journalists covering the oil and gas sector.
on Jun 5th, 2009 at 23:31
Jim, it is more than Purves that is the problem. Most of the leadership is in a fantasy world that someone else has to pay for. It is a shame what happened over in Port Arthur and it is a shame what is happening right now in Convent. Shell has little regard for the people that work for them and the management is horrible. You have a human resources department that does nothing but spread rumors. If you call them for help they tell you to call fedelity or tell you to bad so sad. Convent has a plant manager that claims to be the savior and says he has integrity yet he can’t tell the truth. Shell claims to be losing all kind of money yet every report that comes out to the employees boast about the profits. Shell is about to send some good people who did what they were asked out of the gate because they are not “buddies” with the new management team.
I agree with you that Purves is a problem. He is a joke. He couldn’t spell it if you spot him the i. The project in PA, one guy got the blame for that. The guy that got the blame, he wasn’t at fault. He did what he was told to do. His only mistake, in the shell world, was that he actually cared for the people that worked for him. The lies that were spread around Convent and Norco by human resources and upper management were wrong and should not have come from them.
There are so many things that I could share but it makes no difference. I have called OSHA and been to the labor board and both agencies have done nothing. The “life saving rules” will have the same end result as the fallen “cardinal rules” because shell will not fire a manager for breaking them. This is a fact with me as a witness on two counts. Human resources said it was an oversight. They sure don’t have any oversights when it is not one of their own.
I can’t stand shell motiva as they have ruined everything that we had in Convent. From the less than par management to the bass ackwards hiring process they have, shell motiva has put the employees and the community at risk. We are another BP waiting to happen. We have gotten lucky but we all know that sooner or later luck runs out. I just hope nobody loses their life or a loved ones life due to the unsafe practices in the refineries. I do what I can everyday to make things right but I am losing the battle. Nobody wants to listen until it is to late. People are selfish and care about nobody except for themselves.
Scuzzy Operator at motiva
on Jun 4th, 2009 at 02:47
I have worked for Shell a long time and have always upheld this company as one of utmost regard and high ethics; one that is willing to do what is right and serve its people. Unfortunately, I no longer see this company. The leaders currently in place are only worried about themselves, especially now that many of our esteemed SE colleagues will get the boot. One in particular that needs to be watched as he is singlehandedly ruining the reputation of leadership in Shell is Tom Purves. I wonder if anyone sees the behind the scene employee moves he has made of late in Motiva ville. Many of these moves were advertised as needed changes when in fact it was to take care of his friends, some of which were on the bubble of being released once they didn’t manage the expansion project appropriately and let it balloon from $7B to north of $10B. This same guy is now the plant manager of the site. How does that make sense? Stay tuned for other moves he has made that smacks of cronyism. Right now, it looks like Shell leadership is about taking care of friends instead of results as Mr Vozer states we should.
on Jun 2nd, 2009 at 20:12
There is a person who has had extensive dealings with the Brunei Royal Family and naturally Shell is an integral part of Brunei prosperity. Information has been provided giving details of a substantial sum of money that was transferred from a Shell account so that a couple of the Brunei Royals could settle a court order that had nothing to do with Shell. Some of this information can be viewed at http://royallyshafted.co.uk/introducing-hamish-no-actually-im-michael-mcgurk/ (Copy and Paste)
on May 31st, 2009 at 14:05
Iain
Terrific post. If only Shell tapped the goodwill, the experience and the downright commonsense of the Pensioner community they would be rather better off than they are!
on May 31st, 2009 at 11:16
I have now caught up with the news / comments having returned from a most refreshing break at my home in Scotland – no internet connection which is good, for a while at least
My two pence of observations are as follows.
1. I have written on several occasions that Shell upstream is populated by many, many seriously good and dedicated technical professionals who wish for nothing more than (i)an interesting and rewarding career coupled with recognition for good / original / innovative contribution , (ii) progression based not on WHO you know but on what you know (capability) and demonstrable delivery of technical and / or commercial contribution, (iii) courageous, knowledgeable & honest leadership, (iv) minimal burden of dealing with “stuff”, (v)association with a well respected company name (brand Paddy??).
2.The challenge for Voser et al (those left standing) is to deliver on these five wishes. My perspective is;
(i) “no brainer”; there is just so much to do for the technical community. However, the Company needs to bring back to the “coal face” the supervisors who busy themselves with non core activities – ref comment by Guest 1.
(ii) Take the company back to one which progresses real technical capability. It appears that PE now stands for Powerpoint & Excel rather than Petroleum Engineering. However, Guest 1, I can testify to the fact that there still are reservoir engineers doing reservoir engineering in Shell. I am fortunate to remain a mentor to some Shell staff. Good, capable, competent geoscientists, petroleum, well and facilities engineers do indeed create value!
(iii) This one will be a bit more of a challenge. Unfortunately, a generation of leadership has grown up believing Hype, Hyperbole, Hypocrisy, is accepted practice forgetting that what staff and indeed the outside world appreciate is Honesty, Humility and Hard work. There are of course numbers of honorable exceptions and let them be retained as the example and inspiration for the many who hunger for such leadership.
(iv) There is no problem with well constructed and rigorously enforced process (just look what such an approach has done for Exxon!). Unfortunately, my experience within Shell was to take what started off as a fit for purpose approach and grow in into a beast often by incorporating the opinions of numerous bogus stakeholders. Even worse, the process was elevated into an end in itself rather than a means to an end. The management of a plethora of inflated process has bred the growth of senior “apparatchiks” referred to by Guest 1. More amazingly, one can find untold examples of “local exceptions” to the application of global process. One can ask ligitimately just what have the apparatchiks been doing?
(v) Never underestimate the pride still felt by staff current and past in being associated with the Pecten. I remain active on university campus in the UK as an ambassador for Shell and can report the brand is held in high esteem by students. I revelled in the opportunity to talk about Shell at a SPE young professional event at OTC in Houston three weeks ago ago. In addition, my consulting activities since retiring from Shell have given me the opportunity to see the high regard with which the Pecten is still held in many parts of the global oil & gas business. There is a genuine opportunity for the company to build on this and to minimise further damage.
The dedicated, hard working staff in Shell deserve not only outstanding leadership but also the support of those of us who (think they still) know the company and wish it well.
I have written enough and it is a beautiful day outside.
on May 30th, 2009 at 16:19
Just wondering whether a company so dominated by accountants and lawyers, and whose CEO designate seems not to know that they have customers, will be able to find a way of caring about motorists visiting their Petrol Stations…
on May 30th, 2009 at 09:21
So, many people will go. This is inevitable since the numbers in the senior ranks grew out of all proportions. Since
Herkstroter and Moody Stuart claimed in the mid 90s we were going to manage rather than do ourself this all started
and now the ranks are swollen with self acclaimed managers who do not know what they are managing. So they are at
the mercy of the consultants and service companies. And not only the numbers have swollen, there has been an
inflation in the level of the jobs. Because if you have to manage rather than do, you are more important. Shell is
now full of pointy haired bosses. And to top it all off: the number of senior jobs has increased, the levels of
these jobs have increased but also the reward of the same levels has seen a dramatic increase in the more senior
ranks. Couple that with the steep increase of especially american expatriates (the most expensive but also the most
pliable ones) and it is obvious why costs have escalated beyond control. The corporate functions are now full of
jobs with strange names that only shell insiders understand. A total disconnect with the rest of the outside world.
(Example: Shell has no more reservoir engineers but ‘value creators’.) Drilling was the first with Drilling in the
Nineties. Slogan: ‘When the rig goes, so goes the overhead’. The rigs came and went, the overhead only grew and the
knowhow decined. Some 20 years ago the most senior driller was jgA. And good old Coen was on every brake in the
world! Now there are umpteen jgB around who manage processes. After drilling, the rest followed. The results are
evident.
The growth of corporate functions is publicly always frowned upon by the top but secretly they love it: more status,
more jobgroup, less accountability because one can always blame someone else and the confusion grows exponentially.
Ideal for politicians and people looking after self interest. The Parkinson principle demonstrated again! We see the
same with politicians and civil servancies all over the world. They just grow whatever is stated by the people in
charge.
Hofmeister was a master at remunerating the top. He tried first in a blunt way to increase the salaries of the CMD
but was stopped by van Wachem and Jacobs. It maybe that van Wachem had already left as chairman but his views on
this were known and still taken seriously. But Jacobs vetoed some salary increases (actually the only good thing he
did). But Hofmeister knew how to operate the system. He increased the salaries of the subtop to the maximum and
more. Injected willing americans. And soon he could go to the CMD and show that the minions were making more than
the boys themselves and this would not do. Then the stampede for ever more money started seriously and we all know
what happened on the reserve crisis, extremely poor project management, promises rather than performance. I hope
someone will later write a book on all this corporate corruption. I have no other word for this. The top and their
lackeys have been as bad as the worst examples amongst the bankers. Maybe good that Shell gets a banker at the top,
it takes a thief to catch a thief?
So, Voser is right that something must be done. I hope he has the guts and stamina to transform Shell back to what
it used to be in the successful years between the early 70s and the mid 90s. Could it be like fashion? If you wait
long enough, it always returns? Somehow I have little hope because there are simply too many people with different
self interests.
And the bad thing is : Shell definitely has the brains in the ranks and they can sort it if only they are let
loose. They are merely very poorly led by people with the wrong norms and values. It really is that simple. If Voser
has real guts, he will fire immediately after he is in charge a large number of people who were in charge and made a
mess of things. Start with a clean slate and chose decent people. They exist. But the task to find them will be
frustrated by all who have something to lose.
I will be watching it on the Donovan site. Thank you for providing this platform!
on May 29th, 2009 at 10:24
It’s a generalisation, but I’m always concerned when a finance man get’s the CEO’s job – they haven’t usually got the right breadth of operational or life experience – their focus is often too narrow and one-dimensional. And when they try and be multi-dimensional we end up with a Herkstroter. Maybe Voser will be different – then again, may be it will again be a situation where Shell is re-hiring on contract 18 months from now the people they let go. And what’s the logical premise for apportioning the world into two parts – North American and “the rest”? I think it’s fair to say that shareholders and staff are getting very restive, and unimaginative cost cutting won’t deliver.
on May 28th, 2009 at 18:42
Do agree with guest 1; Brinded should have been removed” Shell will be sorry for this mistake.
on May 28th, 2009 at 17:15
Interesting priorities since Shell is spending 150 million plus euros on 3 state of the art Dassault 7X business jets for the EC and continues to run a regional airline in Canada for a very costly project – Oil Sands. Wonder how this fits into the restructuring? BP uses a timeshare for their EC business jet needs. Maybe it is time for Shell to start spending smarter at the top.
on May 28th, 2009 at 07:30
There used to be a “Swiss Mafia” running exploration in Shell. It now appears there is a Swiss Mafia just running Shell – full stop. I would like to know how Bichsel is uniquely qualified for his new position. He has absolutely no track record in project delivery. However he does have one of non-delivery. As head of the now defunct Deep Water Projects entity based in Houston he missed milestone after milestone with the Bonga project whilst his staff produced endless powerpoint slide presentations on what an outstanding success the entity was. He would brook no challenge whatsoever and was protected from criticism by the leadership cabal (who of course knew Bichsel was a favored child destined to join their ranks). On taking over the EP Technology organisation in 2006 he made life hell for the then head of Upstream R&D – a genuine (real Shell as was) technical professional – but who had the temerity to disagree with his new all-knowing superior.It appears the ethnic cleansing of the Dutch at the top of the company is mission accomplished. Are we expected to believe that there are no Dutch nationals in the company with the magic Shell “X Factor” required to lead the organisation? I can think of at least one better qualified to lead the Projects and Technology organisation. However, I will be generous and believe Bichsel is merely keeping the position warm for him! Finally, attempting to mirror ExxonMobil will not work. That organisation only promotes individuals into leadership positions on the basis of proven track record of delivery and genuine expertise in the domain they have been asked to lead.
on May 27th, 2009 at 16:03
A quote from Financial Times. This is the first time this year I have heard an exec come right out and say what we all know to be true (there will be layoffs): “Jeroen van der Veer, Shell
on May 27th, 2009 at 15:16
In case you have not noticed Paddy, one of your comments here is quoted on the London Evening Standard website today. I don’t know if it is in the newspaper.
on May 27th, 2009 at 15:02
Voser’s message contains 924 words but two words conspicuous by their absence are “Customer” and “Brand”. As a statement of internal navel-gazing obsessions Voser is in a class of his own – even in Shell’s recent ignoble history. But to send a message to staff, which totally fails to recognise that reinvigoration of the Shell brand and reputation (another missing word) is vital just shows how far the company has gone from the good old days of “You can be Sure of Shell”. And the failure even to hint that it only customers that make pay-days possible just shows how much contempt Voser holds for the world outside – the world that writes the cheques which makes his gravy train income stream possible.
on May 27th, 2009 at 14:37
In a few minutes we will publish a leaked email which Peter Voser sent to Shell employees at 10am today…
on May 27th, 2009 at 14:12
Always worrisome if new chief makes big changes. He says with this: this outfit is not good! Any properly run organisation will not change in major ways but over long periods improve a few % each year. One only makes a massive change if the outside world changes dramatically or if there is a mess. I know that the outside world has not really changed for Shell, so…
The proposed model resembles the one of some 15 years ago. But does Shell still have the right people? So much effort has gone in modelling the clones along the lines of promises, behavioural skills, attitudes, me first company later, politically correctness etc etc and not along the lines of deep skills that I doubt whether it will work this time. Good that Cook was removed, great missed opportunity they forgot Brinded. And like all reorganisations, this one will make the company less bureaucratic, more entrepreneurial, more accountability, better self employment, faster, better etc etc. We all have heard that time and again, so Shell must by now be like an Olympian champion ready to break records. Or am I wrong?
on May 27th, 2009 at 13:04
I’m hearing top 200 are meeting in Berlin. That 24,000 will be restructured not sacked (they hope!) but some of those will lose their jobs. Come on you lot we need more gossip!
on May 27th, 2009 at 11:07
Stuart, the breaking news from Shell confirms that our crystal ball is in good working order…
on May 27th, 2009 at 05:56
Exciting day today, news will come out of the Berlin get together.
on May 26th, 2009 at 21:29
..but it should be Stuart.
on May 26th, 2009 at 20:51
Karel appears to have mistaken Peter for Simon Cowell, this isn’t “Shell’s got talent”
on May 26th, 2009 at 20:43
Probably a bit too progressive, but to avoid the problem that the good managers get layed off, Peter Vosser could maybe organise a poll where staff can vote which top managers should stay and which ones should go. I hear that there is still enough passion for this “once great company” in the ranks that this may work out quite well.
on May 26th, 2009 at 19:16
Come on the Paddy, chance for you to prove you connectivity to the system – name the next departures ahead of any future announcements – let’s see how good your crystal ball is. Same goes for Mr D – let’s here your inside scoop
on May 26th, 2009 at 16:00
Who else will be on their bikes Paddy, d’you know?
on May 26th, 2009 at 15:36
Paddy, well said, fully agree. And Alfred/John, thanks for making all this public. The cook woman walked before she was kicked. I would have liked to be a fly on the wall when some very brave man told her to piss off. Tsarinas do not like to be told to piss off and she is certain to be looking for revenge! Images of spitting cobras or angry puff adders, often described by John Cleese come to mind. But in all this hoo-haa we should not forget the poor performance of Brinded for many years, the excessive salaries and bonuses they fixed for themselves and the generally arrogant and disconnected behaviour, not in line with their stated business principles. Bunch of hypocrites they are. Some good ones, many bad ones. Great loyalty to their own purse and political correctness. The rest is unimportant. I guess Hillary will get competition from the cook woman. A sight to be seen!!!
on May 26th, 2009 at 15:28
I fully agree with Paddy. The problem in Shell over the past 10 years has been on how well you have played the game politically. If you were ‘well connected’ and mediocre or incompetent you made it. If you were competent and not connected you were bypassed. Cook was very good at that policy. The culling, unfortunately, will be for the ‘competent’ ones who are not well connected. Ironically I regard that as a win-win for the competent ones, since they will leave and pick up jobs elesewhere. For Shell that is the price it will pay and the situation will have to get worse, with incompetent replacements, for the Company to hit rock bottom. Unfortunately that is an evolutionary process. The vision that Voser needs to have is to ensure that the connected (and mediocre) members are culled. I would be surprised if he has that vision.
on May 26th, 2009 at 13:52
There is a curious paradox at work here. The people on their bikes like Cook are mediocre (at best) – but the people that replace them are mediocre as well! The cull is not a triumph of the good over the poor or the competent over the incompetent. It is a victory only for those who played the political games better than those who didn’t. Amongst those to be culled are (I suspect) many who are not only competent but who also realised that Shell historically was a bit different from the rest of the (American) oil major group. No more. Sadly Shell is now the worst of the oil majors by far in almost every respect. And for those of us who in our small ways helped build a company that we were proud of its is not just regrettable but a scandal.
on May 26th, 2009 at 13:37
Well finally there is justice. Champagne will flow today on the departure of Cook. She has single handedly institutionalised the promotion of incompentent and inexperienced women. Don’t get me wrong I think it is excellent that women are in senior positions in the Company, and diversity not only in ethnicity but also in gender is excellent for the Company but it should be on the basis of meritocracy, competency and experience. Cook has promoted individuals on the basis of their sex, both in Gas and Power and Global Solutions, the two businessess she was in charge of. Well I hope that the leadership in Shell realises how demoralising this has been for a lot of staff over the past 5 years and hope that Meritocracy in Shell, which under her tenure was dead will now get a new lease of life!
on May 26th, 2009 at 12:54
We were first to break the news about the departure of Linda Cook. There is more news of important developments at Shell which we will put into the public domain shortly unless taken up by a news agency.
on May 26th, 2009 at 12:20
Well, what’s the reason that Linda has bolted? Gas/Power and EP merging and Brinded got the nod.
on May 26th, 2009 at 11:31
Why has Cook stepped down? Was she pushed? Is it really over the CEO appointment?
on May 26th, 2009 at 07:06
Linda Cook is stepping down. Peace at last, peace at last. Now there is room for talented women instead of token women. Will she return her stay-on bonus? Very curious what bullshit story she wil now come up with!
on May 25th, 2009 at 17:44
Musaint: you are undoubtedly right in saying that there are other companies who pollute, and I believe that Shell’s staff care more about the environment than many of their competitors. However, that does not excuse Shell from responsibility for their releases of gas/CO2 in Nigeria (hot/cold flaring in contravention of Nigerian law), nor the impact of shale oil and tar sand projects in North America. The Brent Spar story was fabricated by Greenpeace, who have never fully regained their former credibility. Shell’s advertising tries to create an illusion of a company whose practices are environmentally sound and sustainable. Unfortunately this is no closer to the truth than Greenpeace’s story about Brent Spar.
on May 25th, 2009 at 15:08
Greenpeace & Friends of the Earth describe Shell “as the most polluting oil company”. Does this : (i) take into account that Shell is a larger worldwide operator than most? and (ii) take account that Shell has partners in most ventures? (i.e. is their partners % deducted from Shell’s numbers?). I bet as usual (aka Brent Spar) that Greenpeace have “expanded” their numbers to try and make a point!
At the end of the day the biggest polluters by a long long way are China, India and America. What about attacking their policies rather than the usual onslaught at oil companies? – the usual reason perhaps? …… they are easier to get at (e.g. Shell Nigeria vs Nigerian Government).
The likes of a left wing dross newspaper such as the Guardian really does write such nonsense. It’s a shame that again you have “expanded” your title to infer that the summit was hijacked by Shell. The Guardian states “polluters” in their title – I think you have again added more spice!!
As I’ve said before our recent summers have been cold, wet and generally awful – a little warming up of the weather will be a nice thing.
Hope this stirs up some response on this blog which has been rather quiet of late!!!
on May 23rd, 2009 at 07:05
Shell is so slow in response.I have written to Jeroen and Vosser on some suggestions to improve. They choose to keep quiet or ignore. One of which is Shell is too too heavy and like dinosaur.If the dont act today, they will not be any tomorrow..Greg
on May 21st, 2009 at 08:50
One shareholder apparently asked Job: ‘why reward failure?’ I will explain. Brinded has been in a top job since 1998 (MD of Expro until current position). He EACH year has promised more than he could realise. And as top dog his behaviour gets copied, Shell has been very hot on behavioural attitudes since many years. Those attitudes better be in line with the top or else! Remember the famous presentation in 2000 ‘Overpromise vs Underdelivery’? This attitude has become ingrained in the corporate culture of Shell. So Job is to be forgiven, he did not know better, he thought this was how Shell wanted it….
on May 20th, 2009 at 18:44
I wonder why nobody can raise the issue of pension payments at the AGM – or can they? Such derisive increase for this year really requires an explanation.
on May 20th, 2009 at 18:25
It is I think unprecedented for Shell to lose a resolution at an AGM – it tkes the institutional investors really to rebel for that to happen. Well done to them! Whatever else we have learned in recent times there are three things that stand out. First Shell leaders are shameless in their pursuit of personal wealth. Secondly that they don’t give a toss for Pensioners who (in the UK) received a pension rise of 0.9% – equivalent to
on May 20th, 2009 at 09:27
Once a greedy pig, always a greedy pig. The top of Shell (and this top is now broad and deep) knows no shame anymore. And you know: gorillas breed gorillas, so what will greedy pigs breed? Where are the days of van Wachem? Loyalty, professionalism, hard work and fair pay. And the norms were decency and honesty, the system corrected or weeded out the bad apples. Now it stimulates these bad apples.
on May 18th, 2009 at 09:30
The 79,000 shares given to vd Veer – were they share options? If so, they’re worth a lot less than the quoted
on May 18th, 2009 at 08:27
Shell is but another example of the greed culture which has undermined public trust in business and politics.
on May 15th, 2009 at 19:49
Hi, I am into Litigation Support Services in USA. I am looking at a contact person for these services in Shell Oil Company, Houston, Texas, USA. Can someone help me with this information.
on Apr 28th, 2009 at 12:51
Nowrooz: Not that too many people were lining up to go there. In spite of the spin, there is still a severe global shortage of good E&P staff, few of whom would choose to go to Nigeria anyway.
on Apr 28th, 2009 at 09:08
Posted by Nowrooz: Looks like manpower cuts for Shell in Nigeria during 2009
on Apr 24th, 2009 at 16:35
hmm anyone know where i can find shell’s info on the no. of branch plants they’ve got around the world?
on Apr 22nd, 2009 at 12:18
I know it’s off topic…anyone got gossip on the next BP chairman?
on Apr 11th, 2009 at 09:46
Shell should perhaps be congratulated on the fact that they are now considered to have achieved mediocrity…
on Apr 2nd, 2009 at 22:45
So, Sakhalin Phase 2 is finally completed? Or is it?? It is only 2.5 years late and cost +/- 2 billion dollars more than the 9.624 billion dollars that was originally sanctioned by Brinded and Van de Vijver back in 2003. Lets drink a toast with Mr Craig as he drinks his vodka with his Russian “friends”. What was the last project that Shell completed on time and on budget without killing anyone in the process?
on Mar 31st, 2009 at 17:07
Musaint
Unfortunately I could only afford to put my clocks on 0.9%…
on Mar 31st, 2009 at 16:41
Can any brit please explain to me why it is that very bad people seem to be knighted time and again? Is the process perhaps flawed? Sir Phil and Sir Fred. Why not Sir Scargill? Now that would have been good english humor…
on Mar 31st, 2009 at 14:50
1st April is tomorrow Paddy – you posted your RBS-RDS story too early!!
on Mar 30th, 2009 at 20:12
Readers may be interested in the comment by Paddy Briggs on news that Shell
on Mar 20th, 2009 at 18:02
Musaint, this proves that you can’t blame Shell for every unfortunate event in the oil industry. Sometimes it is innocent.
on Mar 20th, 2009 at 17:52
See that Total have been made liable for the Buncefield explosion – not Shell!!!!!
on Mar 20th, 2009 at 17:50
Thanks for the reasoning why the CFO “signs-off”. My ppoint is that he’s doing so “blind” as he has no technical nouse to back up his signature on such matters.
on Mar 20th, 2009 at 10:25
Musaint – you should refer to Oil Sand reserves in Canada, not oil shale. Shell does indeed hope to reap major benefits from its oil extraction technology in shales but not in Canada. The Company’s massive acreage position is in the US interior (and a deal has recently been signed with Jordan!).
The reason the CFO has to sign off to PROVED reserves is because of the intimate link with DDA (Depletion, Depreciation & Amortization) and the “pure” financial side of the books.
Now, much more of this and I will have to conduct on-line seminars for which I will charge
on Mar 20th, 2009 at 09:42
Gueszt: I have no knowledge of another reserves crisis, but the issue of reserves is far more complex than it might appear. A low oil price reduces the economic viability of marginal fields, but also increases the volume of oil to which a company is entitled under cost recovery contracts
on Mar 19th, 2009 at 20:51
Well done Shell in dropping wind, solar & hydro power. Not your core business, and recommended many times by contributors to this site. I’ve said before that English summers are too cold and wet so bring on the heat…..
on Mar 19th, 2009 at 19:48
To other `guest`. Is there another reserves scandal brewing re ur reference Shell being flexible on reserves definition. U seem to have insight.
on Mar 19th, 2009 at 09:50
Musaint: Shell are always flexible on the reserves definitions applied to different circumstances, and certainly don’t use SEC figures internally – I’m sure that at least one of Shell’s reserves definitions would support Greenpeace’s numbers. Don’t forget that SEC reserves excluded oilsands until very recently.
on Mar 19th, 2009 at 09:37
Screw Greenpeace until they get their facts correct – e.g. Brent Spar numbers!! e.g. is there SEC numbers that confirm that the Canadian oil shales make up one third of Shell’s oil reserves??
on Mar 18th, 2009 at 23:53
Musaint: I may be wrong, but I understood that Shell bought Fletcher Challenge several years ago. Elf were famous for providing “fringe benefits” – hopefully Total is slightly better behaved
on Mar 18th, 2009 at 18:26
A “major oil company” operating in Brunei could also be Total (TFE/Fletcher).
on Mar 18th, 2009 at 16:47
A “Major Oil Company” in Brunei is currently advertising vacancies for flight crew for a Boeing Business Jet (an executive jet based on the Boeing 737). How many major oil companies in Brunei can afford $50 million jets? Another little gift for the Sultan and his family perhaps?
on Mar 18th, 2009 at 13:37
Mr Donovan, I read this on your site: Of the five
on Mar 16th, 2009 at 11:57
Shell Pensioners in the UK will have received today a letter telling them that their pensions will go up by 0.9% w.e.f. 1st April 2009. To help the many thousands of Shell pensioners on pensions of
on Mar 14th, 2009 at 09:51
Musaint, the reason why the CFO signs off on things he does not understand is simple. It is part of Corporate Governance, he is the ultimate Controller. He has to verify that the process followed is correct and that no laws have been breached. The idea is to have an independent view. And just go back in your memory: who triggered the opening of the reserves scandal? Exactly, it was the Controller who stated ‘until here and no further’. Sad he was subsequently removed for presumably lack of loyalty.
on Mar 14th, 2009 at 09:40
You persist in wanting to let Shell executives off lightly by blaming SEC rules. Whenever you do so, I will remind Live Chat readers about the documented facts and leave the smoke and spin to you. Shell management still engages in breathtaking hypocrisy and deceit, as correspondence currently in progress will confirm when published. The outrageous machinations continue.
on Mar 14th, 2009 at 08:57
Think you missed the key part of my posting – it certainly wasn’t meant to start your rant over Watts et al. It was aimed at why does the Chief Financial Officer and in the OpCo’s the Finance Manager sign reserves numbers off?
on Mar 14th, 2009 at 00:34
REPLY TO MUSAINT: Saying something many times does not mean that what you have said is correct. Watts and Walter van de Vijver knew their actions were in breach of SEC regulations. You may recall the incriminating email from Van de Vijver to Watts saying “I am sick and tired about lying about the extent of our reserves issues and the downward revisions that need to be done because of far too aggressive/optimistic bookings.” There was also evidence in the emails of intent to destroy evidence of the fraud. These and other Shell executives, including Jeroen van der Veer, all signed Form 20F Declarations containing false claims in relation to Shell
on Mar 12th, 2009 at 19:24
Stated many times that Shell AND others were kicked for stupid antequated SEC rules. However, why was it (and probably still is) the Chief Financial Officer always the person to sign off reserves numbers. This person (in The Hague and the OpCo’s) has no knowledge to do this. Surely the likes of Bichsel etc. in Exploration and his equivalent in PE should be the ones to sign-off. Thereafter, head of the CMD. Pitty the likes of that prat Bichsel wasn’t more harangued.
on Mar 12th, 2009 at 10:33
You couldn’t make it up! Simon Henry who did his utmost to talk down the reserves scandal and to fail to recognize the culpability of senior executives at the time accedes to the top Finance job in Shell. And Jeroen van der Veer, who was a full member of the CMD at the time of the scandal and who has subsequently presided over one of the most disingenuous corporate communications campaigns ever seen from a multinational becomes a member of the “Corporate and Social Responsibility Committee” of the Board of Shell on his retirement. No further comment necessary!
on Mar 11th, 2009 at 20:54
Content of an email received today from an SEIC insider source:
From SEIC today:
“The End of Contract Bonus programme is currently under review of Shareholders. Therefore processing of the bonus payment has been suspended until further notice.”
So much for all of us that stayed on to see the project completed and based on a signed contract by SEIC to pay the bonus.
This is just the tip of the iceberg re the cost cutting that is underway.
Regards
on Mar 7th, 2009 at 19:28
I can’t help wondering if Nowrooz’s bonus is related to the acquisition of Shell by Exxon or Total… Maybe John Donovan should get a bonus too, for facilitating a takeover!!
on Mar 5th, 2009 at 19:06
Nowrooz – you’re not Brian Clough in disguise?? He was called “old big-’ead”. No doubt you thoroughly deserved the money from Shell but what a prat!!
on Mar 4th, 2009 at 22:49
Just been confirmed, I’m getting a massive bonus this month from Shell.
on Mar 2nd, 2009 at 15:05
The downturn is here… YES! From the same company that brought you record profits and shareholder returns in 2007 AND 2008.
It has gone from the petty to the ridiculous… How can a company that for the last two years has boasted the largest profits in British history now go on to be cutting sandwiches and fruit… and encouraging their employee’s to get their own lunch.
How is it possible that the company is run on such a day to day basis that you cannot plan for a 3 month downturn… Exxon foresaw this in April last year… why could we not? Now there are job-cuts and cost cutting exercises all over the place!!!!
EP New Business 30% reduction, Gas and Power 20% reduction, Shell Global Solutions 10% reduction in staff…. and Shell is doing it in a very clever way, making everybody re-apply for their own jobs…and if you don’t get a job internally – its your fault!
So in the next 6 months you will see massive numbers of very quiet redundancies going on in Shell… when only 6 months ago we were paying many of these same people retention packages to keep them IN the company… it makes no sense at all to be managing your business in this much of a short term way!
on Mar 2nd, 2009 at 09:51
Mr Donovan, I have sent you the latest cold wind rules email setting out further belt tightening measures. Shell top is now moving on to the more petty stuff. I expect they will soon be rationing tea bags and toilet tissue. Will the fat cats Brinded, Cook and Voser set an example by giving up their golden handcuffs? Fat Chance. Same applies to the gold plated pension of van der veer. One set of cold wind rules for our greedy ruthless bosses and another for the people like me working at the coalface.
on Mar 1st, 2009 at 11:06
On ‘Gold plated retirements’: just for the record, Watts did not lose his job, he was fired.
on Mar 1st, 2009 at 10:28
Why shouldn’t there be a Christian mafia? It seems they have Christ on the books se link. On this site. Dundee, City of Discovery, Hill of God, Fort of Fire, Gift of God are other names and horror of horrors it has a population of 144,000, …. something is definitely going on. http://royaldutchshellplc.com/2008/01/06/crackpot-or-genius-has-a-shell-boffin-stumbled-on-a-scientific-breakthrough/
on Feb 27th, 2009 at 09:35
A lay preacher who surprised one member of his flock by saying that it was Shell’s practice to steal intellectual property as required
on Feb 24th, 2009 at 12:45
Clearly any employee of Shell or any other organisation /company should be entitled to adhere to whatever religion they like. But as various recent posters suggest if religious adherence becomes a means to control/influence company decisions then something is very wrong.
I was aware during my Shell days that there was a Shell Christian group operating in Shell Centre in London
on Feb 23rd, 2009 at 20:09
Thanks for the article. In case any of the critics are interested, I have been subject to religious arm-twisting by supervisors and received cute little scripture quotations attached to company e-mails. I’ve also stood by while a married, womanizing manager held weekly Bible Study classes during extended lunch hours. Innapropriate and hypocritical, yet these individuals piously wear faith on their sleeves and get away with it. I wonder how long it would last if I were to wear Atheism on my own sleeve. Enough! This does not belong in the workplace.
on Feb 23rd, 2009 at 14:41
The dominant role of members of specific churches within certain businesses in Houston is well known: unless you attend the right church you are likely to be “out of the loop” in one of the key decision making processes – the Sunday meetings. The fact that the churches involved expect a contribution of around 10% of their members’ salaries is also well known. The churches involved are usually very keen to recruit new members, especially those who are well paid. So the best advice for the ambitious is to join the appropriate church.
on Feb 23rd, 2009 at 14:01
The dominant role of members of specific churches within certain businesses in Houston is well known: unless you attend a specific church you are likely to be “out of the loop” in one of the key decision making processes – the Sunday meetings. The fact that the churches involved expect a contribution of around 10% of their members’ salaries is also well known. These are not secrets. The churches involved are usually very keen to recruit new members, especially those who are well paid. So the best advice for the ambitious is to join the appropriate church.
on Feb 23rd, 2009 at 09:50
Musaint, it is good that Mr. D published this story about the Baptist Mafia. We had some 30 yrs ago a similar group of borne again christians running KSEPL. And precisely as you point out, it would attract a bunch of rabid lawyers in the US if this got published in a paper there. So much for freedom of expression in the land of the brave. I am very glad he provides a virtual Hyde Park Corner. Many good stories, some bad stories but it is teh reader that decides for himself!
on Feb 21st, 2009 at 11:50
Surprised and somewhat disappointed Mr.D that you wasted space showing the story about the “Baptist Mafia” in Shell Houston. I have to say that there are several American Shell staff who add very little value to the bottom line. However, a bigotted rant from the disaffected individual is nonsense. I’d love to see this nutter try and print this in a local (or national) paper in Houston and see how many lawers would be crawling over him!!
on Feb 21st, 2009 at 11:45
I suppose that Shell (and others?) have to “lend” the Nigerian Government money to help all parties in the end. (Very much along the lines that Greedy Gordon’s mob have had to bail out the UK banks rather than let them fail.) However, shareholders must surely want some guarantee that the funds will be repaid in some form or another. With such a corrupt Government in Nigeria I wonder how much of the “loan” will actually be spent on projects – little I bet with most going into the overseas bank accounts of corrupt officials. Shell has “lent” funds to Nigeria before, but, with little impact.
on Feb 20th, 2009 at 20:39
Mr.Donovan, sir,.Thank you very much for granting my request(malaysian judiciaryand corruption)Deep appreciation for your kindness.Thank you very much. Sir.
on Feb 20th, 2009 at 03:07
good day ,sir.requesting your post dated 2007/09/27 Malaysia-judiciary-and corruption for obvious reasons-the legal jurisdiction of choice.Hope my request will be granted.Thank you very much.
on Feb 19th, 2009 at 16:05
shell dubai HR talk – one to one – with HR of other companies to fix the salaries ( via HR forum off line discussions) is unethical…ask HR folks and conduct an independent process audit… truth will surface ….
on Feb 19th, 2009 at 02:03
REPLY TO
on Feb 19th, 2009 at 00:48
Salary surveys are common in every industry. HR folks participate to ensure that tney are paying market price. Any attempt to portray Shell’s involvement in this effort is a blatant attempt to twist the truth by a hate site with a clear agenda. Nice try. Oh a leaked email about managing 3rd party costs is unethical? Get real Donovan, you are so eat up with your obsession you have lost all objectivity and credibilty.
on Feb 16th, 2009 at 06:45
It seems the Cold Wind is already blowing at sakhalin Energy with a number of consultants having contracts cancelled – at no notice – whilst on rotation.
on Feb 15th, 2009 at 14:22
Is shell leadsership as honest as it claims to be ? year on year assurance letters are signed but truth is buried …. by those who are greedy and manipulative leaders…Comments from forum welcome…
on Feb 13th, 2009 at 19:10
Shell HR community in dubai has been engaging with HR folks of other companies. they call it HR Forum, which has been used as a platform to fix the salary of the local employees . Is it ethically acceptable and in line with SGBP? Shell Dubai country coordination team is well aware of it …..
on Feb 13th, 2009 at 17:16
Now we see how Brindeds “rally the troops” New Year message is being implemented. Between the lines it is clear to see a frenzied attempt to shift the responsibility and blame everyone else. Where will the people come from when the downturn eases. History repeats itself.
on Feb 13th, 2009 at 16:46
Ask Paddy, I believe he was in Dubai, don’t know what he was doing
on Feb 13th, 2009 at 14:21
In dubai most of the HR costs are coming from western expats who are having the best time pushing papers, hiding reality and achieving little. Is someone in Shell leadership taking a note of this ?
on Feb 13th, 2009 at 12:20
Guest: what you say is right. It just shows that I had a great vision in 1994. We do not need geologists, we have Schlumberger. And everyone is now politically correct. I have returned to my beloved world of bankers. Much more refined people, no dirty hands or complex designs. Only a small unintended oversight on the riskmanagement of all those complex derivatives that engineers had designed. It is clear we should stop designing.
on Feb 13th, 2009 at 09:41
Fighting talk from Shell, but without the contractors no useful work would ever get done – Shell’s own staff are too busy checking boxes and attending meetings to actually do anything useful – many of those that tried have long since taken their skills elsewhere in frustration. Shell will now pay the price of 15 years spent following the mantra that management presentations, business school buzzwords, and manipulation of numbers is all that is required to produce oil.
on Feb 11th, 2009 at 12:13
I hear rumours that Shell has borrowed money from the pensionfund to finance some projects. This deal was cheaper than getting credit from the banks. Can anyone confirm and if true is this ethical??
on Feb 10th, 2009 at 09:06
Restucci is simply too nice a guy to go and fire a few hundred or thousand people. But they must go in Dubai. They add no value and stop operating units from producing more oil and gas for lower costs. And to speak with Jennings on his farewell tour: Human Remains is totally overstaffed and over paid. He did apologise later, but there was no need for me to do so, the truth must be said!! My bet is that Dubai will reduce by 50%, all covered in nice stories. And just wait until the axe is wielded in the HSE community worldwide. Many, many will go.
on Feb 9th, 2009 at 19:21
It seems that the information given to Reuters today by Raoul Restucci could be significantly at variance with what he said to Shell employees. If anyone has a recording of what he actually said, please let me know. Your identity will not be revealed. If he lied to Reuters, we would like to expose that information.
on Feb 9th, 2009 at 18:05
Always wondered what the Shell people actually did for the business in Dubai. When I was there most of them were on the golf course everyday.
on Feb 9th, 2009 at 17:56
REPLY TO MUSAINT: We had no input into the headline you are complaining about. It was devised entirely by Reuters. The story may take an embarrassing turn for Mr Restucci in the light of further information received following publication of the article. I do not want to say anything further on the subject at this time. With regard to Dr John Huong, both cases remain active. I do not want to say anything further on that subject either because if I do so, it could result in the imprisonment of Dr Huong in line with injunctions obtained by Shell that remain in force. Personally I am appalled that as we approach the 5th Anniversary of Shell issuing defamation proceedings against the former Shell production geologist Dr Huong in respect of material published on our website (which was authored by us), Shell still had not progressed the action beyond the initial stages. The snails pace litigation has not even reached the discovery stage. When are Shell executives going to work up the courage to sue me for defamation instead of suing an unfortunate surrogate in Malaysia, who, as you will be aware, is a man of the highest integrity?
on Feb 9th, 2009 at 15:04
What’s the status of the Dr. John Huong case in Malaysia – seems very quiet on the court case. Knew John many years back – please wish him well.
on Feb 9th, 2009 at 14:55
For sure you will say otherwise Mr.D but the dramatic headline about “to cut some jobs” in Dubai is very tabloid!! Jobs in HR and Finance will be relocated that’s all and not cut. (That said, the truth is that in the Shell world HR, Finance and HR positions should be cut full stop.) Scare-mongering by people does not mean jobs will indeed be cut. Brinded’s email (also an add on to the story) I believe reflects reality – use this opportunity to release some non-performing staff & contractors. Hopefully core functions will not be decimated as in 1999 and which clearly is regretted by many in Shell now. I was involved in this and the subsequent cuts 2 years later – poorly thought out with senior managers from The Hague with clear, poorly thought out numbers, which they often refused to budge from. Of course HR merely behaved like nodding-donkeys througout, adding very little value as ever.
on Feb 9th, 2009 at 12:53
I heard at the weekend that Tom Botts is/ has taken over the EVP role in Manufacturing – correct?
on Feb 9th, 2009 at 08:37
It’s surprising that nobody has commented on Raoul Restucci’s announcement of staff cuts in Dubai (up to 50%)
on Feb 8th, 2009 at 12:29
I wonder what this Governor Amaechi has done for his River States people/ Very very little is my guess. He’s just blaming Shell and other companies for his and his Governments own inadequacies. I wonder what his many overseas bank accounts have in them and how the money was obtained.
on Feb 6th, 2009 at 18:33
how come no one from asia comments on Shell here ? are they scared or all is green out there ?
on Feb 5th, 2009 at 14:34
How many barrels of oil has Shell’s legal department produced? Where is the added value? How can any legitimate enterprise justify spending UKP150 million per year on lawyers?
on Feb 5th, 2009 at 03:17
Its interesting that while Malcolm Brinded is reported to have told employees in an email to make
on Jan 30th, 2009 at 17:17
Musaint, you apparently still believe in the tales of bankers and analists: ‘as do the so called expert investing banks’… And I like to take a bet that a great culling of staff at the jg1-B level is imminent. The dutch will be culled even more to complete the final ethnic cleansing. If I win the bet, you will read here an ‘I told you so’ and I will have a beer. And vice versa of course.
on Jan 30th, 2009 at 15:34
MUSAINT I agree about the deadwood, but I must say a lot of deadwood has already gone.
on Jan 30th, 2009 at 15:32
REPLY TO MUSAINT: This site has not made any comment on Shell’s results announced yesterday.
on Jan 30th, 2009 at 11:41
Damned if they do, damned if they don’t. If Shell had continued to make a Q4 profit they would have been berated by the usual greenies (who understand little about oil company profits). As it is some, including this site, appear to want to hammer them for the Q4 loss. Fact is they made a good yearly profit (best seen by a UK company), dividends are good again and Greedy Gordon can rake off yet more tax for this Government to squander. Must say that looking through todays papers the majority appear to be favouring Shell as do the so called expert investing banks. “Guest” there does not appear to be any redundancies as a result of the Q4 losses – that said there is still plenty of deadwood throughout the worldwide organization that needs pruning.
on Jan 29th, 2009 at 10:52
Is Shell’s Q4 “loss” an accounting exercise to ensure that some of this year’s profits are carried forward to next year, or could this be a taste of what we can expect in each of the four quarters next year? Or perhaps, just a cynical attempt to persuade employees and suppliers that there is a crisis requiring cost cutting, and reductions in headcount and/or salaries?
on Jan 23rd, 2009 at 15:19
Nowrooz
Just a moments respite from my traditional activities of sullying the environment, conspiring with military governments, fabricating “facts” about oil reserves, obfuscating about the business, firing people and screwing pensioners – oh and paying myself a seven figure bonus. Once a Shell exec………
on Jan 23rd, 2009 at 14:53
If I had known that Vince Cable was the guest on Desert Islands Discs I would have listened to the programme. He is the only British politician who warned years ago about the pending financial disaster. Brown poured scorn on his comments. Look where we are now.
on Jan 23rd, 2009 at 12:36
Paddy,
Pretty sad that have to listen to Desert Island discs during your retirement.Nothing to do anymore exciting.
on Jan 22nd, 2009 at 20:18
We are looking for refineries which can support us for unlimited amounts of Petrocoke Please mail to tr@dnnint.com
on Jan 22nd, 2009 at 18:16
Did anyone see the interview with Van der Veer on Shell.com that appeared on Friday but has now been taken down? He talks about cutting capex in it…we are wondering what happened to it.
on Jan 21st, 2009 at 20:56
I have a question that I’d like to ask this community. It relates to the behaviour of major EP’s (Shell included) and their investment towards growth strategies.
I work in the western Canadian energy industry and so this is contextual to investment in oilsands plays but I’m sure relevant around the world.
It
on Jan 19th, 2009 at 12:37
If Shell’s offer to provide seed funding for the development of new ideas sounds too good to be true, it probably is… disclosing novel ideas to Shell (or anyone else) without appropriate legal safeguards (patents or confidentiality agreements) is not recommended.
on Jan 18th, 2009 at 12:58
Excellent “Desert Island Discs” with Vince Cable today – Vince was formerly the Chief Economist of Shell. Interesting that Vince didn’t mention his Shell days at all – perhaps he is trying to forget them! He was, I recall, very good but I guess the rest of his life glistens more than the Shell years!!
on Jan 14th, 2009 at 09:34
“Nigeria is staring into a $5 billion budget hole due to the oil price swoon” – the author clearly doesn’t know too much about Nigeria or factual reporting. The real problem is due to the cancer of corruption that includes the President, State Governors, NNPC/DPR & Government officials. These are the cause of Nigeria’s ills, including this $5 billion black hole. Other Governments should freeze their overseas assets and investigate.
on Jan 10th, 2009 at 11:33
on Jan 10th, 2009 at 09:58
Blagboy
Thank you for your interest in my Shell investments. I have approximately
on Jan 9th, 2009 at 23:34
The following comment has been posted by “Blagboy”on the Paddy Briggs article “How will Shell respond to the threat of an ExxonMobil takeover?
Paddy, I would be interested to hear whether you are prepared to declare your interest in Shell shares and, if you hold any – how many (as, for example, does Guido Fawkes on his website). If you were to do this then I could evaluate this story far more objectively, but from the first read it seems as though you have a vested interest and that this is nothing more than an effort to ramp up the share price. (Apologies if you have already posted this elsewhere on this site.)
on Jan 9th, 2009 at 12:04
Musaint
You don’t need to be a a “left wing, tree hugging trouble maker” to be able to spot the lies and confusions of Shell’s corporate advertising! See my many learned articles on the subject over the years… Jeroen knows that his people have been peddling porkies and he has now all but said so.
Paddy
on Jan 9th, 2009 at 10:26
Greg Hill – hmmm, I am sure the relatives of the men who were asphyxiated in the Brent field and had to deal subsequently with Hill could have provided good references wrt job requirements relating to a CEO’s HSE responsibilities. Possibly Bill Campbell could have provided additional input, as could Grampian police , procurator fiscal, etc., etc.
on Jan 8th, 2009 at 22:49
Great pity Greg Hill left Shell. One of the few americans with a heart for people and not solely focussed on his own bonus. He has done exceptionally well in all his previous jobs because he can genuinely motivate people AND knows what is good for the business. And when needed he is tough as nails, but always honest. Hess really scored here!
on Jan 8th, 2009 at 22:08
REPLY TO MUSAINT: The headline was obviously meant to be read in conjunction with the selected extract printed immediately below it. If the headline appeared in isolation without the
on Jan 8th, 2009 at 20:57
vdVeer “admits Shell was dishonest”. Sorry Mr. D. that is NOT exactly what the article states !!! The words used are “seems to admit”. Nothing more than that, albeit vd Veer (as with many) avoided some questions. Clearly Moniot, as is the Guardian, is a left wing, tree hugging trouble maker, and I’m afraid even your headline expands the truth of the interview.
on Jan 8th, 2009 at 15:19
Corrib Pause Button. Shell would not see it as it sees so little else. In recent weeks it pomotes a shining progress report in the irish print media. It sees no problems. Everything going to plan – down to a commissioning date for 2009. Even though it has yet not secured a pipeline from well to half built refinery. It does not sit around a table with 2 Irish ministers to set up a community forum. Why would it be involved since everything is going so well. Shell does not see. Van der Veer would need to check out the Dhell Corrib press releases sice he admits to monbiot that he would rather see Shell say what it is and what it is about.
on Jan 5th, 2009 at 11:32
A great resource – many thanks!
on Jan 4th, 2009 at 01:52
Interesting suggestion from Business Week…however, Shell might not be able to come up with the necessary finance, while BP might just be able to do so…. the question then becomes whether Total would be willing to act as a white knight to save Shell from BP’s clutches.
on Jan 2nd, 2009 at 15:36
hollymp
Email me at paddy_briggs@yahoo.co.uk and I’ll be pleased to help you.
on Jan 2nd, 2009 at 12:07
Hi, really great site.
Im currently doing a piece of work for my degree regarding the effectiveness of Shell’s communication functions, both Internal and External. I would be really gratefull if someone could provide me with any expert information or guidance on where to find any good literature.
Thanks.
on Jan 2nd, 2009 at 08:32
Dear Fellow Pensioners (includes you too Paddy as we are all in the same boat!)- I have a couple of (final?)comments. To pick up on the “right on the nail” comments from fellow pensioner the real scandal in Shell EP has been the departure from the tried and tested practice of only having people at the top (leaders) who actually knew the nuts and bolts of the EP business. This started with the disastrous decision to appoint Cor (if you need geology go to Schlumberger) Herkstroter to the top job. He oversaw the destruction of a E&P organisation which was second to none, the envy of its peer group and a source of pride to all of us working in it. This massive error was compounded by importing huge numbers of US staff totally clueless as to the way the business worked in the many operating units of the world and were typified by an astonishing focus on their year end performance bonus requiring a declaration of success long before the “final result” was actually known. The modus operandi quickly became one of preaching from on high, intolerance of questioning (it’s my way or the highway) and a continual reference to a number of “management guru bibles” – US author only, please. (We were not to know then, but it was all terribly prescient of the US Iraq misadventure). Remember, Mission Accomplished – all Hype, Hypocrasy & Hyperbole with Honesty and Humility totally absent.
PE (petroleum engineering) became Powerpoint and Excel.The virtue and necessity of time consuming solid technical work became a luxury the company could not afford! Ten years on a massive effort has been expended to recover the situation – but of course in the meantime so much has been lost. That is the real scandal. I will never be an apologist for the truly dreadful Watts and his acolytes but in my more generous moments I honestly believe they did not fully understand what they were doing. I once asked him not to use the expression “economic reserves”; by definition reserves ARE economic and the look he gave me was one of “what on earth are you talking about?”. I will leave the matter there but continue to grieve for the company that lost its way.
on Jan 1st, 2009 at 11:44
Iain
Good analysis but a bit lopsided and I must react! Of course you are totally correct that the SEC was way behind modern technology and is now making some amends. But to conclude that Shell EP has been an industry pathfinder and somehow the whole world has erroneously dumped on Shell goes a bit too far. I know you very well and I am convinced that your words come from your heart and were not drafted by some Shell PR spindoctor. But you know that we started to lose the battle around the mid 90s on technology development. Until that time we were very good at inventing new technology, a bit less at implementing it quickly and globally and we dithered perhaps a bit longer than really needed. And our internal bureacracy could also be a bit improved at that time. And we were by far the biggest operator in the world and as such earning the money for many of our competitors. We outperformed many (most?) from the early 70s to the mid 90s. But after the mid 90s, all had to be changed in a major way and we lost basic business controls and created a new attitude in the workforce whereby short term views prevailed, promise was better than performance, open communication was a thing of the past and the ensuing cultural revolution led to many disasters. The breaking of SEC rules was just one of them and in my view a minor one but this point was magnified by everyone. It was fodder for the lawyers and easy to find a culprit that could be sacrificed. But there was something bigger going on behind the scenes, less obvious to the general public. We all know (and you certainly better than anyone) that companies like Schlumberger have a lot more know-how and technology development than we have. They
on Jan 1st, 2009 at 11:20
Iain
The reserves issue was a scandal not because there was confusion about the categorisation of hydrocarbon reserves. It was a scandal because at the very top of Shell there were lies, cover ups, disingenuous public statements, obfuscation and deceit. The revelations about all this led to further disclosures about the management style of Phil Watts and others in the command chain. Those of us who worked for Shell in the Watts era were not surprised at what emerged
on Dec 31st, 2008 at 23:47
Dear Guest – I have no problem with your comment; infact I agree with it. The SEC “uniform set of rules” to which you refer will now reflect the technologies and techniques of the 21st Century instead of those of the early part of the second half of the 20th. All EP companies will estimate and report accordingly – to the ultimate benefit of the investor community. As I wrote in my previous posting this notable advance is a direct result from the trials and tribulations of Shell and the so-called great reserves scandal. I use the term “so-called” because if all the volumes recategorised had vanished like the money of those investing with the unsupervised, unregulated Madoff, the word scandal would be justified. However the volumes have not vanished inspite of the tsunami of bogus indignation which washed over the company and the many affected employees.
I wish all who contribute and read the contributions on this site a very Happy and spite-free New Year
on Dec 31st, 2008 at 19:32
Hi. Good site.
on Dec 31st, 2008 at 18:35
Have to generally agree what Iain has said, some of which I have voiced earlier. I never realized that the SEC rules for reserves calculation were just for company to company comparison. If true then what a idiotic group the SEC are and the reason why companies such as Shell got nailed with the reserves scandle in 2004.
on Dec 31st, 2008 at 17:54
Iain, with both Brent and WTI both under $40 the SEC rules still won’t allow too many barrels of shale oil or tar sands to be booked. And at the risk of repeating what has been said many times: the SEC rules do not pretend to give an accurate estimate of technically/economically viable reserves, but only a clear set of rules to allow the reserves figures of one company to be compared with another. Annual reports don’t give an exhaustive financial analysis either, but use a uniform set of rules (GAAP) to ensure a degree of consistency between companies. That doesn’t mean the numbers are “right” – just consistent. As a PE I would also almost certainly differ from the SEC figures in making technically sound estimates. But the SEC does not pretend to produce technically sould estimates, just consistent, comparable numbers, prepared according to a uniform set of rules.
on Dec 31st, 2008 at 12:00
So – the SEC have now adopted new “rules” on reporting of hydrocarbon reserves and in doing so recognising the advances in technology used by the Shell petroleum engineering community to which I belonged for many years. In other words we had the confidence based on modern technology and our professionalism to call the volume “proved”. It is no surprise that the vast majority of the volumes were were obliged to “recategorise” is back in the proved category and would not have moved under the revised SEC “rules”. What a shame for all of us (especially the pensioner community) that the SEC had not spent more time overseeing the genuinely corrupt & greedy financial community instead of beating up the “corrupt & greedy” Shell EP business. At least Shell’s misery has led to reserve rule revisions which will benefit all those wishing to invest in EP companies. Infact, I can state that Shell has been proved to be an industry pathfinder (again) inspite of all the opprobrium heaped upon it.
on Dec 30th, 2008 at 16:19
Strange that only 3-4 years ago OPEC were stating they had a preference for a stable oil price around US$30 / bbl. Now the greedy Arabs, left wing Venezuela, corrupt Nigerians and Russian Governments want prices >US$50 / bbl. Let ‘em rot I say. Low oil prices will hopefully get the corrupt rich Sheiks out of English football.
on Dec 25th, 2008 at 14:54
Happy Christmas to you as well John. It is no exaggeration to say that this website is one of the most significant on the internet in holding a Corporation to account. For years now we have seen what happens when corporate greed and power goes unchecked
on Dec 25th, 2008 at 11:52
We would like to wish all visitors a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year – as happy as it can be given the bleak economic situation. Our thanks especially to regular contributors, Paddy Briggs, MUSAINT, “Guest” and a disillusioned Dutch Shell pensioner.
on Dec 22nd, 2008 at 12:44
Musaint: it might sound like a cracked record, but Shell has focussed on high capex projects recently, apparently believing that $100 oil was here to stay…I’m told that the “low case” used in screening exercises until very recently was $50/barrel.
on Dec 22nd, 2008 at 00:31
How come I have NEVER heard a Shell executive say ‘we (or I) should have done it differently’ or ‘we were wrong’. It is the same with politicians. And bankers. What does this tell us?
on Dec 21st, 2008 at 15:13
The irony (or one of them) is that Shell’s Scenario Planning is supposed to help the grappling with uncertainty. It doesn’t – and it never did. Knee Jerk is the order of the day – now more than ever…
on Dec 21st, 2008 at 10:27
I think your comment “Guest” is all too familiar – just like a cracked record I would say.
on Dec 20th, 2008 at 16:41
Presumably Jeroen’s comment about the viability of high capex projects improving as costs fall will be taken as justification for massaging the economics so that reserves can be booked even when sub-economic…in the vain hope that costs will fall sufficiently to solve the problem sometime next year…does this all sound rather too familiar?
on Dec 19th, 2008 at 13:37
WTI is now at $33.70
on Dec 19th, 2008 at 12:17
With the oil price at $36, a lot of SEC reserves will disappear…I guess Shell will be renting a lot of tankers in the next few weeks to keep oil off the market
on Dec 18th, 2008 at 11:05
The New Zealand story is truly scandalous. The checks and balances on Shell’s advertising seem completely absent these days. Much of the corporate advertising on the go in the UK is borderline disThe New Zealand story is truly scandalous. The checks and balances on Shell’s advertising seem completely absent these days. Much of the corporate advertising on the go in the UK is borderline disingenuous and the whole V-Power campaign has been shown by the (UK) Consumers Association to be making highly questionable claims. Corporate and Marketing communications in Shell always struggled but in my day at least we did try and ensure that what we put out was legal, decent, honest and truthful. I can honestly say that I never authorised advertising which made false or questionable claims
on Dec 15th, 2008 at 09:11
Peter, we have not reached peak oil production yet, although we may not be far away from it. However, the recent high oil prices have resulted in many projects being undertaken by the oil industry which will increase supply over the next few years. At the sane time, many other projects (generally outside the oil industry) have been undertaken which will reduce demand for oil (wind poower, wave power, nuclear power, improved fuel efficiency of vehicles, more energy efficient homes…). Most significantly, the rates of growth of many countries have been slowed by the price of oil, limiting the growth in demand for oil (and encouraging the use of alternative fuels). At $50 per barrel there is little incentive for the investments required, but at higher oil prices it becomes much more attractive to invest in existing fields (almost all of which still contain more than 50% of the oil originally in place). If the oil price is high, it becomes economically viable to increase the percentage of oil recovered.
on Dec 14th, 2008 at 20:29
What is Shell’s status with regard to peak oil?
on Dec 13th, 2008 at 16:13
Well written article Paddy. I seriously hope that Shell does get rid of its headquarters in London as indeed the amount of cost savings must be beneficial to the company. It will also reduce Greedy Gordon’e cut of the cake, so I expect him to kick up a fuss. That said, is there a requirement to have an “HQ” in the UK for some legal purpose? If yes, why not some sleazy office in Soho?
on Dec 13th, 2008 at 12:47
Paddy, good story, I agree mostly. But two flaws: Upstream is now run centralised since about 10 years. Have you noticed the results? We used to have the best brains at the coalface (in the opcos) and could deal with local circumstances. The other flaw is that you think Shell has become more Dutch. Ha ha ha ha, the dutch have been ethnically cleansed many years ago and with the retirement of Jeroen, they will all have disappeared. Perfidious Albion has struck many moons ago and in the process brought in their american brothers. Don whatever his name was (predecessor of Louw as head HR in EP) gave many speeches in the late 80s and early 90s pointing out that the Dutch only were doing reasonably well in the engineering sides of upstream and downstream but Finance, HR, Marketing, Commercial etc i.e. where all the bullshitters were/are, were firmly in hands of the brits. He said so much more eloquently than me of course.
But other than that your story is fine. Just change the word central office to head office. It shows your age (I often do the same…)
on Dec 12th, 2008 at 14:48
So now we know where the funding for the share buybacks, the dividends…and all those high capex projects came from… the name Robert Maxwell springs to mind
on Dec 12th, 2008 at 13:41
A couple of years ago the cost-cutting measure was taken to close the London office of the investment team who handled the Shell Contributory Pension Fund (SCPF). The management of investments in this UK fund (by far the largest fund in the UK with 40,000 members, mostly Brits) was transferred to The Netherlands and merged with the team who looked after the Dutch fund. The actual day to day investment management is separate but there is now one Dutch based investment department where there used to be two separate departments in London and The Hague. It would be interesting for anyone examining the performance of the Dutch fund to compare and contrast it with the SCPF. The rules in Holland and the UK are of course somewhat different but I can
on Dec 12th, 2008 at 12:42
Refer the posting of the Reuters article. The spokeswoman could not say how much it would cost Shell to bring the fund from 85% to 105%. Apparently we have yet another ‘token woman’ in this position. No doubt with a cute smile and very friendly. Maybe I can help. It is very simple: the obligations are around 12 billion euros, so Shell will need to cough up something in the order of 2 billion euros to repair it all. Same magnitude as the fines and moneys that had to be paid after the reserves scandal. Perhaps this sweet ‘spokeswoman’ should pick up the phone and call the pensionfund. They should know exactly Shell needs to pay!
on Dec 12th, 2008 at 12:28
Dear Mussaint and Nowrooz, your postings warrant a short reply. Have no fear, I am not suffering and have my private finances taken care off and zero worries there. Mussaint, I believe that they dropped to 85% (under 105% all alarm bells start and they need to go hat in hand to the authorities and do things) because they overinvested in stocks. And this brings me to the point I tried to make: Shell was endeared some years ago to the MBA jargon of consultants and other idiot gurus and introduced a.o. ‘Olympic Targets’. You remember them: ‘citius, altius, fortius’ (faster, higher, stronger). Couple this to the preferred attitude as fostered by Brinded et all of ‘Promise is better than Performance’ and you have a recipe for disaster.
And all the old codgers are still around and looking innocent. They simply do not feel shame. And yes, I have sent a letter or an email two years ago to the pensionfund asking them why not hive off the surplus and invest that in super safe and dull bonds. The pompous reply was that I need not worry, should look at their track record, they employed the best professionals in the world, were way within the legal limits and basically told me politely to piss off and mind my own business, all was well and I should look at the long term. Unfortunately I don’t have a copy anymore.
And Nowrooz, I hope I sufficiently explained why I posted this chat? I am not moaning about my own pension, I indeed have more than enough. But if you still take exception: I noticed many postings from you on this chatbox. My question to you: there are a few billion people who are hungry every day and yet you are wasting your time on posting chats on Donovan’s site! Why don’t you spend your time better and relieve some of that suffering?
And Mr. Donovan, you seem to have a direct line to Wiseman. Perhaps you could ask him to confirm or otherwise the rumour I have picked up a few weeks ago that Shell in this credit crisis has borrowed money from the Pensionfund or made the Pensionfund invest in some projects. If that is correct, I would like to see the opinion of Mr Wiseman on the ethics of this. No doubt it is within the law, but is it ethical?
on Dec 12th, 2008 at 09:37
Shell Pensioner, stop moaning think about the pensionioners who haven’t got a private pension to fall back on.
on Dec 11th, 2008 at 17:36
A quote from the blog at http://www.pacificenvironment.org/blog/
“We are struck time and time again by similarities between Shell
on Dec 11th, 2008 at 17:19
“Shell Pensioner” – couple of points / questions. Firstly if the Dutch legal limit is to have 105% coverage how come Shell has got away with 85%? I am sure that many, many, pension funds of large companies are suffering badly due to the collapse of world-wide markets, not just Shell. (Agree that a shift to bonds may have helped, however, hindsight is such a powerful tool!!). I’m not sure that the pension funds are that bad compared to others, and anyway I’m sure you’re not suffering because the “coverage” has come down – no doubt your monthly pension paid has not dropped has it?
on Dec 11th, 2008 at 17:17
Shell Pensioner
There is a number of things that you can do. First demand a comparison between the Dutch fund and the UK Fund. The UK Fund is presently around 100% funded – it was around 135% a year or so ago. The 100% is OK but not sparkling. Your fund’s 85% is not good and you are entitled to know why.
Secondly demand to know why the leaders of Shell have created a super Pension fund which allows them to have seven figure pensions. The sheer greed of this defies belief – but then greed breeds greed doesn’t it?
Thirdly you are entitled to know, as are all the UL Pensioners, how Shell chooses those that run the Pension Funds. Here in the UK the head honcho of the Shell Contributory Pension Fund is the millionaire Clive Mather. He was the guy who walked away from his assignment with Shell Canada with not only $CND10m in his back pocket but a commensurate Pension for life. Can we really trust such an individuals to look after the rest of us – let alone the poorer Pensioner on less than
on Dec 11th, 2008 at 13:37
I just received a letter from Shell Pensionfund (dutch) that the coverage has dropped to 85% (Dutch legal limit is 105%). About a year ago it was around 170% I believe. Some amateurs have been gambling with the fund and now there is a huge shortfall. I still have the letters of the past where they were congratulating themselves with the good management and strategies… And no doubt cashing in big bonusses. Why did nobody convert shares to bonds when there was this enormous surplus? That would be good husbandry. But like other shell functions, it always has to be better and more. First the stupid reorganisation of the nineties, then the reserves scandal, then the projects scandals, now the pensionfunds. And as a retiree there is nothing one can do.
on Dec 8th, 2008 at 11:35
Musaint
Don’t be silly! Haven’t you seen Shell’s latest Shell World magazine? On the cover we have the claim “Smiling customers, every site, every visit, every day”. That’s the rhetoric. The reality is, as ever, totally different.
on Dec 8th, 2008 at 10:35
I think it is unfair to point the finger at Shell stations only. Last Thursday for example I failed to ge windscreen wash from two Total garages near where I live. So I think it unfair to target Shell (do they actually own these garages?) as it would appear many others fail to keep their stocks updated.
on Dec 8th, 2008 at 09:50
Retail is detail
on Dec 7th, 2008 at 18:45
Mr Donovan. Like many colleagues I enjoyed your email discussions with Richard Wiseman. His ego needed deflating. Are you aware that it was his blunder that allowed you to grab the domain name for Royal Dutch Shell Plc? He boasted in an article in ManagingPartner magazine (10 October 2005 Volume 8 Issue 5) that he personally headed the legal team handling the unification of the group following the reserves debacle. Blowing his own trumpet Richard described himself as the
on Dec 6th, 2008 at 07:17
MUSAINT, we will make the declassified documents available to the news media. Shell knows th documents are authentic and has not challenged this fact. We will be pursuing the Shell Al Yamamah oil-for-arms story as will become apparent.
on Dec 5th, 2008 at 20:11
I know that you were involved with the Shell pensions “system” at one time Paddy. I am absolutely sure that your facts are correct, so have Shell ever commented / responded to the basic fact they are not looking after their pensioners? Couls Mr. D. write an email aka the “Shell Saudi” story? Better still, if these facts can be backed up with documentation, why not a letter to the tabloids?
on Dec 4th, 2008 at 23:29
So what is the view on Mark Williams appointment? So much for the rumours of the demise of a downstream executive director position!
on Dec 1st, 2008 at 11:20
Each to his own indeed! Having lived in a few places where freedom of speech is, shall we say, “limited” I’ll never take our freedoms for granted!!
on Nov 30th, 2008 at 23:35
Paddy Briggs: Musaint The conventional prejudices of the privileged of the saloon bars of leafy suburbia and the blue shires
on Nov 30th, 2008 at 18:40
Each to their own view, but, I will take bets from all and sundry that no Government will go ahead and lead the way viz renewables / oil shale etc without a desire to benefit themselves and not mankind as a whole. As for the UN, don’t get me started.(P.S. don’t frequent bars!!)
on Nov 29th, 2008 at 11:00
Musaint
The conventional prejudices of the privileged of the saloon bars of leafy suburbia and the blue shires
on Nov 28th, 2008 at 12:21
Nice idea to leave it to the likes of the UN, unfortunately they are very often as useful as the present Arsenal defence. Even if left to a Government they would each be strongly tempted to go the route that most proffers their own selfish desires (e.g Greedy Gordon would want it only if he could tax the hell out of it, Nigeria only if they could get the revenue into their overseas bank accounts). Apart from international oil and some Arab states (who are unlikely to be too interested), no Government / person will have the skill / money to go into some of the renewable areas that oil companies will go into. For sure when oil prices creep back up over many years as peak oil etc. is reached / passed then oil shales etc. will very definitely become viable. Then and only then will Governments truly step in for the pickings.
on Nov 28th, 2008 at 10:42
Fully agree. My guess is that oil sands will have a significant part to play along with all the other energy sources – sustainable and renewable. I want to see global energy supply and demand co-ordinated at the very highest level
on Nov 28th, 2008 at 10:17
Paddy, fair comment – and since all the majors follow the same policies to a large extent we have a never ending cycle of boom and bust. However, it’s worth remembering that BP was looking at the oil sands 40 or 50 years ago, recognising that they contained more oil than was known to exist in the Middle East. At that time they were sub-economic and technically challenging, but even after the oil shock of 1973 nobody tried to exploit them on a large scale. On a small scale oil sands are economically viable, but on the huge scale envisaged until a few weeks ago they may never be viable. On a small scale the environmental impact is manageable, but on larger scales the impact is unsustainable – and in terms of emissions of CO2 and other pollutants the environmental impact is comparable with China’s use of coal for power generation.
on Nov 28th, 2008 at 09:54
It
on Nov 27th, 2008 at 16:01
Shame about the oil sands: just when Shell thought it had solved it’s reserves problem by getting the SEC to change the rules, the falling price of oil has wiped out the economic case for the new oil sands projects…the capex of the existing projects is sunk, but the opex of these projects is also astronomical (in both cash and environmental terms)…how long the existing projects continue is anyone’s guess. Are oil sands going to go the way of the huge open cast lignite mines/power station projects in Germany??
on Nov 24th, 2008 at 18:06
Agree, Shell HR is lousy and they are liars!
I am an experienced Hire and less than 2 years, have had 2 job changes! It is the WORST corporate culture ever seen. The HR come and give conflicting statements, even if all are in same location – Shell Center.
Advise: DONOT JOIN SHELL – Shell treat external experienced hires BADLY, especially ones who question the rife cronyism and corruption!
Interestingly, one of performance measures in CEP (a leadership rating measure) is ‘Relationships within Shell’ – read that as ‘degree of closeness established’ with cheats and liars in the Top management.
Cheating, Lying and Bullying is in Shell’s DNA. I heard people are often Bullied and the Bully stays in Shell and victim forced to leave. That is how Shell manages Talent pipeline.
on Nov 23rd, 2008 at 13:44
Well said Paddy. The entertainment and some very serious matters are all in the pipeline.
on Nov 23rd, 2008 at 11:43
Curios that the “Fan” should want to be entertained on this site! I wouldn’t have thought that it is the purpose of the site to cater for such short attention spans. I think that over the past few weeks the site has come even more into its own. Some very good chat here, as well as the fine selection of news stories that the Donovans do for us. Even my own “blather” (not hiding behind a pseudonym!) has been well received judging by the positive Emails I have received – including some confidentially from surprising sources!! But I don
on Nov 23rd, 2008 at 10:00
Fan of the site? Nonsense. It is obvious from the rest of your comment that you are flying under false colours.
on Nov 23rd, 2008 at 05:54
I am really a fan your site, Donovan, but it has become stale and boring. No news, nothing. Briggs continues to blabber on – no idea of the real issues. Ditto your other guests. Get some fresh stuff. This site is becoming obsolete rapidly. I used you for my research, but your no good to me anymore.
on Nov 22nd, 2008 at 09:39
Musaint: I agree that many of the projects have a long lead time and you may well be right in your assertion that the oil price will have risen when these high capex projects come on stream. But the same arguments were being made in 1986/7 in the North Sea, and it took 20 years for the oil price to recover. In the meantime, huge capital investments are required, which have to be funded – perhaps no problem while interest rates stay low and money is easy to find. But it will not be possible to maintain the quarterly figures, dividends and buybacks on which the market is focussed, if the oil price stays low.
on Nov 21st, 2008 at 18:29
The speed with which some projects take to get to first oil etc. because some rather poor project management skills in Shell, they should be OK as by then the oil price may have come back up again.
on Nov 21st, 2008 at 18:18
Looks like Shell bet the farm on sustained high oil prices, while Exxon waited… How long can Shell survive with oil prices at ~$40/bbl? Many new projects were being screened at $50-$70/bbl prices. Increased prices will return, but with a deepening recession it may be a few years before we see $100/bbl again. In the meantime, where will the cash for the dividends, buybacks, and investments be found?
on Nov 20th, 2008 at 19:16
Ed Cooks of the FT paying compliments to Linda Crook…
on Nov 20th, 2008 at 15:04
Ed Crooks of the FT: who are your sources? Claiming Linda Cook is admired for her knowledge, I wonder which knowledge? She may have some dirt on many because she surely does not have great know-how on the business itself. She can smear many for the old Tejas Gas debacle. Believe me, she is the most senior ‘token women’ in the business world. And Brinded used to be a nice guy but the last few years he does not like anyone holding a different opinion. Those who do are removed swiftly. He has a huge brain but at the same time is the ultimate micromanager in the whole world. He also is a true believer of optimism and promising more than one can deliver. He has done so since his days as MD Expro. Never once did he meet his business targets… So, mr Crooks, better check your sources more carefully!
on Nov 19th, 2008 at 20:08
At $30 – $50/bbl many deepwater projects are likely to be still profitable (even afetr the likes of Greedy Gordon & corrupt Nigerian officials have taken their cut). Others may wish to comment on the other “White Elephants” you mention. My humble view is that not all will be turkeys as the service industries / rigs / construction yards now have to drop their rates to reflect this present economic environment and thereby lower the break-even $ price.
on Nov 19th, 2008 at 10:33
It looks as though Brent is about to fall through $50… Tar Sands? GTL? Shale Oil? Deep Water? These might be long term investments, but in the short term they are “white elephants” – the days of record oil company profits are now behind us.
on Nov 17th, 2008 at 17:51
If Total has $15bn to spend on a friendly takeover, they should perhaps visit The Hague… with Shell’s US liabilities now under control, and friendlier relations between France and the US, Total’s historical concerns about such a move would seem to have been addressed…
on Nov 13th, 2008 at 09:55
It’s noticeable that some of the large movements in Shell’s share price over the past couple of weeks involve relatively small quantities of shares being traded – are Shell’s repeated share buybacks being used to (mis) lead the market? With oil below $60 there will be far less free cash available for this kind of market manipulation.
on Nov 13th, 2008 at 09:16
Anyone who thinks that the euphemism “reclassification” somehow justifies the fraud that was perpetrated on the market should read the attachments to the depositions published on this site.
The intention throughout was to paint a rosier picture of Shell’s reserves in comparison with those of their competitors than could be justified by the facts (Shell’s primary competitors had to work with SEC rules too).
The fact that Shell provided incentives and bonuses to those who complied with Watts’ directives, and suppressed the views of their own reserves auditors should be evidence enough. Walter vd Vijver summed it up when he said that he was “sick and tired of lying”
Annual reports are supposed to be prepared according to a unified set of rules to allow comparisons to be made between companies. Deliberately inflating a company’s asset base (whether its oil in the ground, widgets in the warehouse, or cash in the bank) is fraud.
on Nov 12th, 2008 at 22:09
There was a reserves scandal. It wasdescribed by the US SEC as a securities fraud. The fraud by Shell executive directors cost Shell around $850 million in fines by regulatory authorities, class action settlements, and legal costs of suing parties. Add on Shell’s own legal costs and the whole bill would probably amount to over a billion USD. Of course this is not a major problem for an oil giant making obscene profits.
on Nov 12th, 2008 at 21:11
uscitizen – there is no relationship between remuneration level and “more reserve scandals”, your logic escapes me. Massive salaries (in return for competence??) did not prevent genuine scandals at Enron,Worldcom, Parmalat. By the way, there was no reserves scandal; there was a reserves reclassification.
on Nov 11th, 2008 at 12:22
USCitizen
on Nov 10th, 2008 at 23:32
Paddy – as usual your logic mystifies. You need to do some research before making comments like;
“As far as Director
on Nov 6th, 2008 at 11:28
MUSAINT
Thanks for your message. I
on Nov 5th, 2008 at 18:07
“Taking on the oil barons” – Paddy some reasonable points you put across. However, Obama will for sure fall away from some of his promises to do this that and the other (they all do). As for the usual tax oil companies due to their huge profits I just cannot agree with you on that. You know that to continue to try and find new oil costs vast sums of money, e.g. deepwater wells >$30 million which if dry …… Just cut the taxation on all oil products might help more. You also state that the Shell top man gets 10 times more than his predecessor of 10 years ago. That’s the norm I would expect for most companies after a period of ten years (Shell top boys are not high in the salary league). You have to pay to keep the top people even if you think they’re of limited use (vdVeer generally has had good reporting in the papers for turning Shell around and his successor is also well rated by the papers in the UK. As for Global Warming, well this summer in the UK has been bloody awful – cold and wet, so bring on global warming I say.
on Nov 4th, 2008 at 20:16
Guest – you raise the fundamental question that is so often missed in discussions of resources such as the tar sands. That is what is the relative “value” of “pristine environment” versus “economic benefits” – and we can add “social” to complete the classic SD deabte. The Alberta, and in fact Canadian, economy overall has been well served by the hydrocarbon extraction business for many years – however there are legitamite questions as to the “cost”. Governments have failed to provide strong balanced rules that lay out the trade off that is expected. Governments are the tool of the people who have to provide this “policy” input. With no balanced framework for industry to be held within (including for example limits on water use, social support requirements in small communities or…) we see industry push their view of acceptable. The fact that Shell “committed” to a GHG target for its first tar sands project of “5% less that the displaced imported crude” (on a wells to wheels basis) is lost in all the projects with no commitments. Likewise water reuse commitments and socail investmnets are quickly dismissed due to a lack of overall vision. The Alberta Government has begun a land use framewrork process that is designed to create policy rules on the trade offs and limits. Perhaps this is a limit on total amount of projects – time will tell. Some will say this is all too little too late but, in my view, we must get the framework fixed. There are many benefits and many costs – an all or none approach from either side of the spectrum is not tenable. We need to start working together with parties on all sides of the issue to seek a middle ground. The world will continue to produce and consume hydrocarbons for a significant time yet. Canada – both conventional oil and gas and oil sands will be part of it.
on Nov 4th, 2008 at 08:44
Canadian: While your comments about the energy balance and CO2 emissions are justified in some cases, much of the tar sand/shale deposits are deep and require huge energy inputs to develop/extract/process. I note that you did not respond to the most egregious failing of the tar sands developments, that of environmental impact. What price a pristine environment?
on Nov 4th, 2008 at 07:50
Notice that Safety was low down the list of priorities during Gordon Brown’s visit to the Pearl GTL plant, no Safety Helmets or any sort of PPE. Andy Brown should be given a rocket for that.
on Nov 3rd, 2008 at 18:24
Guest – Pembina Institute (hardly a friend of the tar sands)has suggested that as little as $1 to 3 / bbl would be all that it would cost to deal with CO2 emissions. We can argue if amount is right but even at $10/bbl the delta against the base breakeven cost of development is still within error range. My view – can have both. By the way comments stating no net energy value are factually challenged.
on Nov 3rd, 2008 at 14:03
have you heard of someone named Harry Lowe who presented a speech on the 10th of Nov in Nigeria? On the Climates and it Effects on the Environment.
on Nov 3rd, 2008 at 08:54
In calculating the breakeven point for the tar sands, what price do you put on the environment? And what price on the CO2 emissions from the extraction/refining process? Production of hydrocarbon fuel from tar sands requires the use of almost as much energy as is contained in the fuel produced
on Oct 31st, 2008 at 23:09
Musaint – depends on what you mean by “break even project costs”. YTD operating costs alone are in the $35/bbl range (for Syncrude – largest producer). Clearly if you are looking at new projects and want a return on capital break even will be much higher. Current view here is that new projects probably require greater than $70 oil to break even. Recent cost overruns would suggest that a number nearer $100 might be more appropriate.
on Oct 31st, 2008 at 11:25
Is the break-even project costs for oil sands production still around $30/bbl ??
on Oct 30th, 2008 at 08:20
Top of Voser’s agenda must be to hive off the Downstream. Refineries to a Refinery specialist company; Marketing as a new separately traded and customer focused Shell branded business. The split of British Gas into an upstream and downstream model (BG and Centrica) is the model. Royal Dutch then concentrates on what it does best – upstream oil and gas. Oh, and all the silly Renewables gets the boot as well.
on Oct 29th, 2008 at 21:31
Now that the first domino has been placed, who will replace Routs? Isn’t he due to retire around year end?
on Oct 29th, 2008 at 20:07
Surprised Peter got the job
on Oct 29th, 2008 at 16:45
Voser will succeed Jeroen v.d.Veer. Great relief it is not that silly woman Cook or the mother of all micrmanagers, the man with the facial hair, Brinded.
on Oct 28th, 2008 at 16:12
MUSAINT: When I reached 40 unbroken years and I’m still working, the milestone was not even mentioned at all. I pointed out the milestone to Head of HR in the region I work and he just said Shell don’t award 40 yrs service which wasn’t my question to him anyway.
on Oct 28th, 2008 at 08:30
The article discussing teh relative sizes of BP and Chevron omits to say that the market capitalisation of Shell is currently $134bn – Shell, BP, and Chevron are now essentially the same size and each is less than half of the size of Exxon. Which two of these three might we reasonably expect to merge?
on Oct 27th, 2008 at 17:36
“uscitizen” – you infer that I (and most others) post on this sort of website only when we feel wronged. In my case this is incorrect as I defend Shell far more than I attack them (Mr.D could confirm this or just look back in the archives). You also state that you do not get to see why the person complaining is upset or if their comments are based in reality. I believe in my posting I clearly gave my reason for complaint and I would ask you to check with many other E&P expats if they got a final thank-you (email, verbal, letter, phone-call etc.) from their bosses in The Hague upon retirement. I certainly did not after 30 years and ending up in a senior position. So my point that Shell regards its staff as its greatest asset most certainly does not apply to those about to retire. “Staff is our greatest asset” remains about the worst Shell HR driven statement ever – its there to look good. To say that my posting is dishonest seems somewhat over the top – all statements are what happened to me and what I feel about a poor HR feeley-feeley statement. Shell is a reasonably good company, it does provide a great deal of help to communities it works in, but, some aspects regarding its own staff are poor. Pensions for some are awful (see Paddy Briggs articles on this).
on Oct 27th, 2008 at 16:08
Musaint – it is a well proven fact that most people who post on these type sites feel they have been wornged and will post about that. What folks do not get to see is why they are upset or if the comments are based in reality. You will not be able to discern that about me either. But I am always telling people they must also talk about what they are proud of, I am proud of Shell. I have worked here over 28 years and see them treat people as their number one assett over and over. We take care of people during rough times, like a Hurricane. We took care of our peoples needs and the communities needs. So for you folks you wander to this site because you are mad about gas prices, remember this, Musaint has some reason to feel the way he does, what is it? I respond to his post by saying it borders on dishonesty and does not reflect my company! Ps I am not a Vice president, rather a working hand at a refinery!
on Oct 26th, 2008 at 12:20
There is little modern case for Shell, BP or the rest to be involved in petrol retailing or much of the rest of the marketing
on Oct 26th, 2008 at 09:43
People and especially the press (headlines, even if nonsense, can sell papers) who believe that Shell et al make their vast profits at the pump are stupid. Why does this story forever get printed. The pumps produce a very small amount of profit for oil companies. As for Greedy Gordon blaming them he is a moron. He taxes at the wellhead, at the pump and adds VAT on – he is the person to blame for pump prices.
on Oct 24th, 2008 at 18:45
Not too keen on “Mission Statements” – they often are there just to pay lip service to shareholders or “powers-that-be”. Just be honest and realistic – and that includes this site. I remember Shell clearly stating that “people were their greatest asset” – I have to unfortunately admit this was / is total bull-shit. After 30 years in the company and not one word of thanks from Central Office (telephone, fax, face-to-face, email etc.) such a statement from Shell is verging on typical HR dishonesty.
on Oct 24th, 2008 at 17:49
Great to see that oil prices are now at $63/bbl and falling – great for just about all I reckon. I wonder what Shell’s screening criteria is now? (Anyone in Shell going to supply this?!?!) I remember when it was 10-15-18 (Low-Medium-High) in scenario planning, and some projects still were tested at $7/bbl. Halcyon days!!
on Oct 24th, 2008 at 00:01
We are delighted to announce that the website is now operational on a new more powerful dedicated server, which will speed up site function and hopefully provide a reliable service. There is also an integral News Feed automatically updated with breaking news about Royal Dutch Shell on a 24/7 basis. All services including free access to a library of over 22,000 Shell related articles continue to be available free.
on Oct 23rd, 2008 at 04:31
Musaint, do you know how to breed corruption? Ask those involved in the Corrib project
on Oct 21st, 2008 at 10:20
I see the corrupt Nigerian Government is yet again raising taxes and trying to get great cuts in the profit of oil companies (mainly under the guise of the mismanaged and corrupt NNPC). You can bet that in 2 years time or so there will still be no money to spend on communities, schools, roads, basic welfare etc etc. Why – because once again the fat greedy corrupt bastards that are the cancer of Nigeria (Government, NNPC, DPR, State Governors etc.) have all pocketed the countries oil revenue in their foreign bank accounts. No doubt the likes of the Chinese will come in and bail them out in return for oil. Nigeria could be such a great country but are screwed everywhere by corrupt officials.
on Oct 21st, 2008 at 10:16
What a cool site.
on Oct 21st, 2008 at 09:10
You site very good and interesting . Thanks
on Oct 20th, 2008 at 23:22
Very interesting site. Hope it will always be alive!
on Oct 20th, 2008 at 17:58
why don’t you have iraq oil system
on Oct 20th, 2008 at 09:19
E&P staff cutbacks in Canada, Nigeria, Assen, Rijswijk, Aberdeem. Does this mean that Shell has finally accepted that its role has been usurped by the NOC’s?
on Oct 19th, 2008 at 16:48
I have read your mission statement and the Wikipedia article. Your website provides an invaluable service to Shell stakeholders by holding Shell senior managers to account. Keep up the good work.
on Oct 17th, 2008 at 21:50
Does anyone know how big the staff cuts in Aberdeen and Assen will be? Have the staff been notified yet if there staying or going?
on Oct 17th, 2008 at 17:37
We are not all crooks you know…
on Oct 17th, 2008 at 15:37
“Another Shell card scam” – not the fault of RDS. In most of the cases that I’ve seen recently they are a result of corrupt workers at Shell petrol stations – often Sri Lankans.
on Oct 17th, 2008 at 15:33
I wonder how goodd the package is this time round. Rumour has it that it’s not too good.
on Oct 17th, 2008 at 13:10
Guest. I hope you are correct
on Oct 17th, 2008 at 11:11
There are rumours of imminent large scale cutbacks in Rijswijk – good news for those who have been waiting for a package!
on Oct 17th, 2008 at 10:31
Any updates on the cancellation of Shell’s Canadian tar sands projects? With the current financial crisis and oil prices in free fall, these high capex, high environmental impact projects must be marginal at best
on Oct 16th, 2008 at 23:34
Hey, nice site you ve got!
on Oct 16th, 2008 at 16:43
What happened to Sibir today? Down 33%? Anyone know?
on Oct 16th, 2008 at 09:57
“Technical Glitch” sounds like a “cock up” to me.
on Oct 15th, 2008 at 15:16
Due to a technical glitch when carrying out security upgrades to the website, all postings on the new version of Live Chat had to be deleted. However, they can all be read by running a search on our internal search facility for “Live Chat Postings”, then select the article: LIVE CHAT POSTINGS 19 SEPT 2008 UNTIL 10 OCTOBER 2008