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UpstreamOnline: Top Shell man quits Kashagan’

By Upstream staff

An executive of Anglo-Dutch supermajor Shell working on Kashagan, a project under pressure from the Kazakh government for being overbudget and behind schedule, has quit, company sources told a website that monitors the company.

John Donovan, a Shell critic who runs the website and acts as a conduit for whistleblowers at the company, said Shell insiders had told him that John Stubbs, a senior project manager on Kashagan, had left the company.

Stubbs previously worked for Shell in Nigeria, where he had a leading role in the $3.6 billion Bonga oil and gas project, and the North Sea, where he was project director on the $1.8 billion Shearwater gas development, which Shell said was up to 10% below budget.

A Shell employee told Donovan by email that Stubbs was one of an “elite band of great project management heroes” who had recently left Shell, leaving the company with a lack of talent to deliver on the big projects it is relying on for growth.

Shell said it was unable to confirm his departure.

The start of production at Kashagan has been delayed until the second half of 2010 from an initial 2005 target. Its cost has escalated from $57 billion to $136 billion, according to the Kazakh Energy Ministry.

The Kashagan consortium, led by Italy’s Eni, has blamed industry inflation and complex geology for the cost overruns, but Kazakhstan accuses them of mismanagement and is pressing for compensation.

In addition to Shell, the AgipKCO consortium also includes supermajors ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips, French giant Total, Japan’s Inpex Holdings and the Kazakh oil company KazMunaiGas.

04 September 2007 19:02 GMT  | last updated: 04 September 2007 19:02 GMT

http://www.upstreamonline.com/live/article139971.ece

This website and sisters royaldutchshellgroup.com, shellnazihistory.com, royaldutchshell.website, johndonovan.website, and shellnews.net, are owned by John Donovan. There is also a Wikipedia segment.

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