On Our Radar: Oil Washes Ashore in Nigeria

Bonus Group: USA USA USA Hardly surprising is it. The company is overrun by sycophantic, grossly over paid, sniggering middle managers with numerous degrees in sedimentology, or some subject as equally useless, with little to no technical ability or technical background, who are dependent upon technical staff who likewise have little, to no, practical experience and who have only ever seen a rig laid up in the Firth of Forth in photographs, or when they went for a jolly with their wives for an outing one day. They spend their time documenting 'Lessons Learned' on fancy spreadsheets which are then filed in some obtuse filing system and they never learn the damn lessons!

USA USA USA: Missed opportunities is not as bad as the botched opportunities. RDS has always claimed that there is limited capital and resources to exploit every opportunity. We all agree. But the fact that so many recent projects have failed to deliver production promises, that is more clearly a lack of management and leadership. Prelude? Penn Chem? Olympus? and the many others that have not delivered on schedule, cost or production. Then there are the projects that move forward with little to no assurance of these vital front end loading to verify that the promise is realistic. It is just more of the same - Bloat / Cut / Reorg and repeat...

Bonus Group: Exploration. One more for the pot! https://www.theguardian.com/business/2004/jan/20/india.oilandpetrol

Exploration: Here's a list of missed company-maker plays by Shell since 2000. The record of exploration performance is woeful and many of the responsible are still in leadership roles. Give up and turn to wind and solar indeed... Figures are total play discovered and recoverable, at 100% basis; 2001 - Mauritania-Senegal - 10 Billion BOE recoverable 2003 - US Gulf of Mexico Paleogene - 3 Billion BOE recoverable 2006 - Santos Pre-Salt - 45 Billion BOE recoverable 2010 - Campos Pre-Salt - 2 Billion BOE recoverable 2010 - Mozambique Rovuma - 23 Billion BOE recoverable 2011 - Angola Pre-Salt - 4 Billion BOE recoverable 2015 - Egypt Zohr - 3 Billion BOE recoverable 2016 - Guyana - 10 Billion BOE recoverable TOTAL MISSED BY SHELL SINCE 2000 = 100 Billion BOE recoverable!

Bogus Group: Or perhaps arrests and incarceration's to follow?

Bonus Group: Per my previous reference to 'moose pasture', see: https://www.shell.com/media/news-and-media-releases/2020/shell-sells-us-appalachia-assets-to-national-fuel.html Perhaps, more sales to follow?

Bogus Group: The detail of the previous post reveals https://www.michaelwest.com.au/the-second-british-invasion-how-royal-cronies-and-the-gas-debacle-took-australia-for-billions/

Bogus Group: More examples of toxic leadership. Another continent same consequence. https://www.michaelwest.com.au/covert-19-government-stacks-covid-commission-with-oil-and-gas-mates-cosy-deals-follow/

Bonus Group: Bogus Group, thank you for sharing the link. It sounds all too familiar, redolent of both BG Group and also the Shell reserves recategorisation debacle of the early 2000s. During any teleconference with BG's offices in Houston what were conspicuous by their absence were employees, vast acres of empty desks in the background in a highly expensive building. It would be interesting to know how Shell have covered-up the financial consequences of BG's mismanagement e.g. hectares of moose pasture acquired for shale gas development that never happened. There was good reason why BG Group delisted from the New York Stock Exchange, and that was because their global reserves would never have withstood scrutiny under SEC rules. One wonders what the auditors were doing? Perhaps, Helge Lund was not Andrew Gould's 'Fall Guy' after all and that he was complicit and therefore deserves little sympathy?

Bogus Group: In 2007, Statoil (now Equinor) under Helge Lund, drives expansion to ‘a higher gear’. In 2014 he moves to BG Group, in 2015 he prepares BG Group for Shell takeover. This article reveals a toxic mix of murky dealings, ineptitude, mammoth salaries and bonuses and extravagant lifestyles (sound familiar?). The revolving door of organisational failure continues to spin. https://www.newsinenglish.no/2020/05/11/scandal-losses-in-us-haunt-equinor/

17083: Hi John, looks like the Dutch Power Company Eneco helps a former Shell exec up the escalator. It is surprising to me that an IG heavy hitter thinks there are better opportunities elsewhere. https://renews.biz/59793/eneco-appoints-new-ceo/

Bogus Group: When your company general counsel authors a book “Practical Project Finance” on tendering, negotiation, financial structuring and management of infrastructure and energy projects, maybe the COO thought that corporate projects would run themselves, while he sampled corporate hospitality and champagne at Wimbledon. Oh yes! and we have the Value Assurance process, but why worry about that when you can apply ‘back’- end loading.