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Shell Insider Information Leaks to John Donovan

John Donovan in 1999

Extracts from the ebook “John Donovan, Shell’s Nightmare” (now available on Amazon websites globally)

Extracts from pages 155 to 164 inclusive

We receive insider information about Shell from a number of different sources.

The first is from Shell itself.

Shell has supplied Shell internal documents and internal emails directly to me in compliance with a series of SAR applications.

The internal documents revealed that Shell secretly set up a counter-measures team and mounted a global spying operation in a determined, but unsuccessful bid to stop the flow of Shell insider information to me.

Another source is from disgruntled Shell employees who have supplied insider information and Shell internal documents and internal emails.

The leaks have been very damaging to Shell, generating many news articles around the world, including a front story in the Financial Times (center screenshot).

On occasion, we have published internal emails from the most senior executive directors of Royal Dutch Shell Plc on the day they were sent e.g. this email from the then incoming Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Peter Voser.

We have also received Shell email sent to us in error. In June 2004, Richard Wiseman accidentally sent us a copy of an email about my father that he had intended to send only to the then Chief Executive Officer of Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Jeroen van der Veer, and the then No. 2 at Shell, Mr. Malcolm Brinded. Consequently, we knew that the top executive directors had been kept personally informed about our activities. It was also apparent from the email that Shell “PX” kept a standard response about us ready to use as needed. An item we have never seen despite numerous SAR applications.

I receive information from an American Pacer account that provides me with access to the USA courts electronic filing system. I search Pacer from time to time for litigation relating to Shell and make the documents freely available on my website. I have published many thousands of pages from legal documents, witness statements etc that would otherwise be hidden behind a paywall.

Prominent retired Royal Dutch Shell Group senior staff have contributed highly informative comments/articles published on the royaldutchshellplc.com website. They include former global executive Paddy Briggs; retired HSE Group Auditor, Bill Campbell, and retired Global Chief Petroleum Engineer, Iain Percival. This input provides an additional source of “insider” expert information.

I have provided examples in this chapters screenshot gallery of articles published by the world’s leading financial news media resulting from Shell insider information leaked to me.

Shell shock as long-timer Cook is first to go in Voser cull

Going: Linda Cook will leave Shell after nearly 30 years working for the firm

A management shakeup is looming at oil giant Royal Dutch Shell as anointed chief executive Peter Voser prepares to take the helm.

Shell yesterday announced the sudden departure of gas & power chief Linda Cook, who has been at the company for almost three decades. Cook will step down from the board next week and then leave her post at end of June.

The surprise decision is thought to be a prelude to wide-ranging changes at the top, as Swiss-born Voser succeeds Jeroen van der Veer as chief executive.

It comes amid a tumultuous month for Shell, which was last week rocked by the biggest City pay revolt on record.

Cook’s departure comes on the eve of a two-day meeting of the Anglo-Dutch giant’s leading officers in Berlin.

Voser is expected to use the summit to announce the culling of almost a third of Shell’s senior managers, according to a report on company gossip site Royaldutchshellplc.com yesterday. 

The unauthorised site, which has regularly obtained leaks from Shell insiders, said Voser will also announce the merger of Shell’s Gas & Power and Exploration & Production divisions at the meeting, which may help explain Cook’s departure. 

The firm refused to reveal the terms under which Cook is going, but by departing before 2011 she will have to forgo a ‘golden handcuffs’ present worth over £800,000. She is paid a basic salary of £825,413 year.

The company said American-born Cook, the most senior woman in Shell’s ranks, is leaving ‘by mutual agreement after 29 years service to the company’.

Any replacement is ‘the subject of a future decision,’ Shell said. The shares added 16p to 1,647p.

‘Peter is shaping his new team, and as you would expect for a CEO-designate, he has a say in senior management development,’ said a spokesman. ‘Her next plans are really a personal matter for her.’

Cook had been a possible rival to Voser for the position of chief executive. Fadel Gheit, an oil analyst at Oppenheimer in New York, said he did not want to see too wide-ranging a shakeout at the top of Shell.

‘The priority with this company is to ensure continuity,’ said Gheit. ‘You don’t want to shuffle the deck too much – you want to make an orderly transition.’

The position of Sir Peter Job, head of Shell’s remuneration committee, is also under question after the unprecedented pay revolt.

Shell is also this week being forced to revisit the dark circumstances surrounding the 1995 execution of Ken Saro-Wiwa, as relatives of the Nigerian environmental activist begin a U.S. court case. Shell has denied collaborating with Nigerian authorities in the execution of Saro-Wiwa and eight others.

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DOW JONES NEWSWIRES: JUNE 22, 2009, 11:26 A.M. ET

Leaked Shell E-mail Reveals 62 Senior Executive Appointments

LONDON (Dow Jones)–An internal e-mail from Royal Dutch Shell PLC (RDSB.LN) leaked to a blog critical of the company has revealed the appointments of 62 senior executives to new roles within the restructured company.

The e-mail dated June 16, sent by incoming Chief Executive Peter Voser, was published Saturday on the blog royaldutchshellplc.com. A Shell spokesman said the company does not comment on purported leaks.

Effective July 1, Ceri Powell, former Executive Vice President, or EVP, for Strategy becomes EVP for Exploration for the company’s international operations, the e-mail said. Dave Lawrence, former EVP for global exploration moves to head up exploration in the new Shell Americas division.

Ian Craig, the former head of the Sakhalin-2 liquefied natural gas project in Russia becomes EVP for Sub-Saharan Africa and will oversee the company’s troubled Nigerian operations, the e-mail said. Former Africa chief, Ann Pickard, becomes EVP Australia.

Charles Watson, former EVP of Shell Energy Europe, will head the company’s Russian and Caspian upstream operations.

All the above executives will report to the global head of Exploration and Production, Malcolm Brinded.

Blog Web site: http://tinyurl.com/lsjxwm –

By James Herron, Dow Jones Newswires; +44 (0)20 7842 9317; [email protected]

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AUGUST 3, 2009, 6:13 A.M. ET

Shell’s Leaked 300 VPs List Shows Deepening Restructuring

By Benoit Faucon of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES

LONDON (Dow Jones)–A Royal Dutch Shell PLC (RDSB.LN) list of over 300 vice presidents, some of whom have been recently appointed, available on a critic’s blog shows that the restructuring started by new Chief Executive Peter Voser is deepening.

The list, obtained by Website Royaldutchshellplc.com, was drawn after Voser launched a top management shake-up in the Anglo-Dutch oil major as it tries to adapt to the new reality of lower oil prices. The company, when contacted by Dow Jones Newswires, said it doesn’t comment on internal documents.

The restructuring has already been seen as a factor behind the high profile departure of head of gas and power Linda Cook. But the list shows the changes are now moving from top executives to lower levels of management.

As an example, African gas manager De la Rey Venter is now listed as VP for Shell’s critical global liquefied-natural-gas new business.

Bart van de Leemput is adding the management of Shell’s Dutch onshore joint-venture Nederlandse Aardolie Maatschappij to his responsibility as vice-president for non-operated European upstream ventures.

Many managers, however, remain at their current position. That’s the case for Mutiu Sunmonu, VP production for Africa which embattled business has recently made headway with some output resumption.

By Benoit Faucon, Dow Jones Newswires; +44-20-7842-9266; [email protected]

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Oil giant Shell prepares to cut jobs

Daily Mail & This is Money 8 September 2009, 10:04am

Royal Dutch Shell managers are beginning the grim task of telling staff where job cuts will fall as new chief executive Peter Voser wields the axe.

A report on company protest site royaldutchshellplc.com said about 15% of jobs in the exploration and production unit will be lost and employees will be told early this week.

However, there is doubt over that figure as reductions have not been finalised yet. Shell declined to comment.

Voser has said thousands of positions will go as he slims down the oil leviathan in a plan called Transition 2009.

In an email to staff last month he said: ‘We continue to operate in a challenging environment. That reinforces the urgency for us to step up our cost reduction efforts.’

The ‘A’ shares rose 18p to 1,703p yesterday.

In July, Voser struck a grim tone as he unveiled a 70% crash in second-quarter profits to £1.4bn. He also announced plans to hack capital spending by 10% and push through ‘substantial’ cuts to the firm’s 102,000-strong workforce.

It follows a 17,000 reduction in headcount between 2003 and 2008 and a cull of a fifth of the firm’s top managers already this year.

‘We simply don’t know when the global economy will recover, and we have to plan on the basis that this downturn could last quite some time,’ said Voser at the time.

World oil demand will fall by over 2m barrels-a-day this year, the sharpest fall since 1980, according to Shell.

This time last year, firms were riding high on the back of oil prices that peaked at $147 a barrel. But the global recession pushed prices almost down to $30 a barrel early in 2009. Since then, prices have recovered above $70.

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Shell image-making falls short on the forecourt

November 9, 2009 1:31pm by Kate Mackenzie

Shell is usually pretty pro-active in its approach to shaping its public image. It is eager to host and participate public discussions on climate change and CCS, and the company’s climate change scientist David Hone writes what is, for a corporate-sponsored effort, not a bad blog.

But those efforts tend to be focused on oil and gas production, or big-picture stuff such as the future of fossil fuels. They seem to be falling down a little, at least by comparison, when it comes to the somewhat more mundane downstream efforts. First, the poppy scandal. In the UK, Shell retailers are not allowing charities, including the Royal British Legion’s ubiquitous poppy appeal, to put their fundraising boxes on its service station counters. It’s easy to guess how that turned out: threats of boycotts from ex-servicemen and general accusations of heartlessness.

And in the US, Shell on Friday agreed to pay $19.5m for “numerous violations” discovered in an investigation into 1,000 gasoline stations around California. “Many dealt with failure to properly monitor underground storage tanks and spill alarm systems,” the AP reported. (Incidentally, the rather eye-catching gas station pictured above is in neither California nor the UK.)

Update: Shell has changed its mind about the poppies and published a rather abject apology about the whole affair. Royaldutchshellplc.com – probably company’s most eagle-eyed watchers – have published the whole thing and even gave them a pat on the back for it.

November 9, 2009 1:31pm

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Shell Data Leak May Compromise Safety Of Staff – Emails

04.02.10, 16:36

LONDON -(Dow Jones)- Royal Dutch Shell PLC (RDSB.LN) data containing the contact details of tens of thousands of employees, which the company said could compromise their personal safety, has been leaked to a blogger critical of the company, according to emails seen by Dow Jones Newswires.

The data, which includes mobile numbers and home postcodes of workers in dangerous locations like Port Harcourt, Nigeria, was leaked by a number of Shell staff to John Donovan, a blogger who is critical of the company and is a frequent recipient of leaks from within Shell.

Shell’s Niger Delta operations have been troubled by violence for several years. Attacks or sabotage on oil infrastructure in the region regularly disrupt production and employees are sometimes targeted.

Four expatriates working for a Shell Petroleum Development Co. contractor in Port Harcourt were kidnapped last month and later released unharmed. Two Nigerians were killed during the kidnapping.

“Some of the information is sensitive from the security point of view and in some cases personal safety could be compromised by its publication,” Shell’s Chief Ethics and Compliance Officer Richard Wiseman wrote in an email to Donovan. Wiseman asked Donovan not to publish the information on his Web site.

Donovan told Dow Jones Newswires he hasn’t yet decided whether to publish the data in full, but said he takes Wiseman’s warnings about safety of Shell employees seriously.

According to another email seen by Dow Jones Newswires, the data was leaked by a group of Shell employees in the U.K., the U.S. and the Netherlands who believe the company is abusing the environment and human rights in Nigeria.

Shell wasn’t immediately able to comment.

Shell has recently finished a major restructuring program during which many employees had to re-apply for their own jobs and 5,000 people were made redundant. Shell Chief Executive Peter Voser said there will be another 1,000 job cuts this year aimed at cutting costs by $1 billion and improving profitability.

Blog Web site: http://www.royaldutchshellplc.com

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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