Listen and read proof in audio and transcript form of Shell CEO Ben van Beurden’s cover-up tactics in the OPL 245 Nigerian corruption scandal. Instruction given by him in the covertly recorded call to CFO Simon Henry was at odds with Shell’s claimed core business principles. Cover-up and obstruction, instead of transparency and integrity, says Shell critic John Donovan

Almost a year on from raids that led to over a dozen arrests, including of several former employees of the local unit of Royal Dutch Shell, charge sheets state that around 340,000 tonnes of gasoil were stolen from the oil major’s Pulau Bukom site in Singapore. Some of the incidents date back to 2014.

Smokes rises out of chimneys from a Shell oil refinery on Pulau Bukom, five kilometres to the south of the main island of Singapore on January 13, 2015. 

Around $150 million worth of oil was stolen from Shell’s biggest global refinery over several years, Singapore court documents reviewed by Reuters show, far more than reported when police first revealed the heist earlier this year.

Almost a year on from raids that led to over a dozen arrests, including of several former employees of the local unit of Royal Dutch Shell, charge sheets state that around 340,000 tonnes of gasoil were stolen from the oil major’s Pulau Bukom site in Singapore, in incidents dating back to 2014. read more

By Kelly Gilblom: 13 December 2018, 11:16 GMT: Updated on 13 Dec 2018, 14:04 GMT

• Nigeria seeks to recoup money in oil deal it calls corrupt

• Companies facing criminal charges over same block in Milan

The government of Nigeria is suing Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Eni SpA and other companies for more than $1 billion over a 2011 oil deal it says was tainted by corruption.

The suit, filed Wednesday in London, alleges that money the companies paid to acquire an oil exploration license in the Gulf of Guinea was diverted to bribes and kickbacks, the Nigerian government said in a press release. The transaction is already the subject of a separate, ongoing criminal trial in Milan. read more

Nigeria files $1.1 bln London lawsuit against Shell, Eni over oil deal

* Milan trial related to same oil deal ongoing

* Nigeria also suing JPMorgan over transfers for same deal 

LONDON, Dec 13 (Reuters) – The Nigerian government said it had filed a $1.1 billion lawsuit against Royal Dutch Shell and Eni in a commercial court in London on Thursday in relation to a 2011 oilfield deal.

The OPL 245 oilfield is also at the heart of an ongoing corruption trial in Milan in which former and current Shell and Eni officials are on the bench.

Milan prosecutors allege bribes totalling around $1.1 billion were paid to win the licence to explore the field which, because of disputes, has never entered into production. read more

NAM is the Shell/Exxon Joint Venture company responsible for the earthquake blighted Groningen Gas Field and consequential potential bill for untold billions to deal with damaged residences.

PRINTED BELOW IS A TRANSLATION INTO ENGLISH OF INFORMATION PUBLISHED IN DUTCH BY NAM ON 13 DECEMBER 2018

The gas year 2017-2018 ended on 1 October 2018. In this period, NAM produced 20.1 billion m3 of gas from the Groningen field. That is 1.5 billion m3 of gas less than was foreseen.
 
As a result of the quake at Zeerijp on 8 January 2018, Minister Wiebes of Economic Affairs and Climate commissioned NAM to release the intended production of 21.6 billion m3 of gas.

NAM has been asked to limit production to the extent possible within the applicable conditions. The security of supply for the Netherlands had to be taken into account.
 
This has resulted in 1.5 billion m3 less gas being produced from the Groningen gas field.
 
In addition, the last gas year was a warm year. Despite a cold period in late February – early March. ‘Groningen’ had to step in those weeks in order to meet the demand for low-calorific gas.
 
The figures on gas production in the Groningen gas field can be found on the NAM website. read more

Shell’s confirmation that it is expanding the Shearwater hub could lead to further North Sea investment, according to an analyst. The Shearwater platform will serve newly-sanctioned projects like Fram and Arran, as well as the nearby Columbus field. FULL ARTICLE

While it is true that Royal Dutch Shell gave shareholder activists on climate an early Christmas present, agreeing to reduce its carbon footprint by 20 per cent by 2035 and 50 per cent by 2050 ( FT View, December 7), a closer look reveals that the commitment is a cynical game. read more

Their hope and expectations were that Saro-Wiwa’s hanging would silence the Ogoni people and send signals to the rest of Nigeria’s Niger Delta about what awaits anyone who raises questions about the unfair and inhuman distribution of the wealth of the people of the Niger Delta.

By Fegalo Nsuke

Ogoni, the people and the land represent an oppressed nationality, a people persecuted by their own government for seeking respect for their human and environmental rights especially over their natural endowments, a people whose government have authorized its armed forces to unleash on them, unimaginable brutality with assurances that military crimes against the Ogoni people will never be questioned nor punished.

Over 4,000 Ogonis have been killed since 1993 in state-sponsored terrorism and quite regrettably, no one has been prosecuted, punished or indicted in the Ogoni saga. read more

FULL ARTICLE

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FULL ARTICLE

7 December 2018

Dow Chemical Co and Shell Oil Co have been hit with a lawsuit by the city of Arcadia, California accusing the companies of contaminating the city’s drinking water with a toxic chemical found in pesticides the companies once made.

Filed on Thursday in Los Angeles federal court, the lawsuit said the companies knew or should have known that the chemical, known as 1,2,3-trichloropropane, or TCP is toxic and renders drinking water unsafe.

The companies still manufactured and marketed pesticides containing the chemical for years, the lawsuit said. read more

OPL 245 & OML 42 corruption ridden Nigerian oil deals involving Shell and a former Shell Vice President, Peter Robinson, have become even murkier. See Reuters report below. No wonder Amnesty International has publicly asked the question of whether Royal Dutch Shell is a Criminal Enterprise in relation to its conduct in Nigeria? 

By Ron Bousso: 6 Dec 2018

LONDON (Reuters) – Royal Dutch Shell has concluded that a Nigerian oilfield sale where it suspects an executive took bribes was not linked to a separate court case in which he and Shell face corruption charges over a $1.1 billion offshore acquisition.

The Anglo-Dutch company filed a criminal complaint in March against Peter Robinson, a former vice president for sub-Saharan Africa, saying he took bribes in the $390 million sale of onshore Oil Mining Lease (OML) 42 to a Nigerian firm. read more

SOURCE

FULL ARTICLE

Jessica Jaganathan: DECEMBER 4, 2018

SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Royal Dutch Shell expects production at its Prelude floating liquefied natural gas (LNG) unit to start at the end of the year, a spokeswoman told Reuters on Tuesday.

“We continue to progress Prelude towards operations, with safety and quality being our main focus … We expect to see production around the end of the year,” she told Reuters in an emailed statement.

Prelude – which will process natural gas produced offshore northern Australia and export it as LNG – is expected to have an annual LNG production capacity of 3.6 million tonnes. It will also produce 1.3 million tonnes a year of condensate and 400,000 tonnes a year of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG). read more

One of the listed articles focussed on allegations that Shell was spying on its own employees. Runar Kjørsvik, a whistleblower from the Shell Nyhamna Gas Plant, had discovered to his shock and horror that Shell was in possession of surveillance photographs of him taken by persons unknown. He alleges that Shell used undercover agents to spy on him.

Norske Shell whistleblower, Runar Kjørsvik

By John Donovan

Nearly two years ago, I published an extraordinary series of articles about the sinister conduct at Norske Shell, the Norwegian subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell Plc.

Links are provided below in date order.

A translated example of one of the news articles published in Norway in the late few days is printed below. They reveal the pressure being put on the Norwegian government over the involvement of “external investigators” in so-called fact-finding surveys used in proceedings against employees. read more

By DAVID MEYER A year ago, Royal Dutch Shell said it was going to halve the carbon intensity of its operations and products by the middle of the century. That followed investor pressure, and now the energy giant’s shareholders have scored another major win. Shell issued a big announcement Monday: Not only will it be setting short-term targets in line with its longer-term “Net Carbon Footprint” ambition, but it will also be linking these targets with executive remuneration. Greener Shell = richer executives, or at least that’s the plan — the link will be subject to a shareholder vote at the company’s 2020 AGM. FULL ARTICLE read more

Printed below is an English translation of an article published today by the Dutch Financial Times, Financieele Dagblad.

Shell links concrete climate targets to the top reward

Royal Dutch Shell CEO Ben van Beurden

Bert van Dijk: 3 December 2018

Oil and gas multinational ShellRDSA € 26.71 – will set concrete medium and short-term climate goals. The remuneration of the top of the company is partly made dependent on the achievement of those goals. With this, Shell is meeting pressure from large shareholders who asked for it.

Shell announces the changes in a joint statement with shareholders. The changes must go into effect in 2020.

Climate agreement of Paris

In 2017, Shell formulated the ambition for the first time to reduce its CO₂ footprint (a measure to measure CO₂ emissions, ed.) Of its energy products by 2050. Although CEO Ben van Beurden then indicated that he wanted to be settled, the company did not give concrete medium and short-term goals. Shell did not want that, because the company was afraid, among other things, to lose too much flexibility when making business decisions. read more

Royal Dutch Shell will set carbon emissions targets next year and link these to executive pay, reversing its chief executive’s opposition and following intense pressure from shareholders who want fossil fuel companies to take greater responsibility for their contribution to global warming. FULL FT ARTICLE

The deal resulted in Shell taking a sizeable financial hit as a consequence…

FULL ARTICLE

‘Shell wants to be as transparent as possible, but we can not force ourselves to throw confidential information on the street on the basis of anonymous sources.’

Shell keeps profit tax in the Netherlands secret

Laurens Berentsen

Shell does not answer the question of whether it pays corporation tax in the Netherlands in addition to the income tax on gas extraction by the NAM. The oil company does not want to confirm or deny reporting on this in the newspaper Trouw. However, it can be concluded from the annual reports of Shell companies that the company does not pay tax on its profits in the Netherlands.

‘Shell wants to be as transparent as possible, but we can not force ourselves to throw confidential information on the street on the basis of anonymous sources.’ This is the reaction of CEO Marjan van Loon of Shell Nederland to the message from Trouw that the British-Dutch multinational does not pay any profit tax in the Netherlands. While Shell does make a profit in the Netherlands, even if the NAM remains out of consideration. For example, with its chemical plant in Moerdijk, the refinery in Pernis and petrol stations along the motorways. read more