“And speaking of Shell’s finest: enter Simon Henry, Shell’s former CFO and now newly appointed BP board member. A man intimately connected to the hydrocarbon reserves scandal.”
Ah, Shell and BP. Britain’s answer to “Which fossil-fueled supervillain do you prefer?” Now there’s murmuring that Shell—the world’s leading oil-slicked PR machine and gold-medal winner in the Deadliest Workplace Olympics—might consider buying BP, its slightly less polished cousin. It’s like Dracula pondering whether to adopt Frankenstein.
But before we get too sentimental, let’s remember what Shell brings to the table:
- A glorious history of employee care, like handing Dutch staff over to the Nazis during WWII, and later using workers as test subjects for carcinogenic chemicals. Experimental cruelty disguised as corporate efficiency.
- A North Sea platform scandal so outrageous it could be a Monty Python sketch, were it not for the dead offshore workers. Lifeboats were reportedly unseaworthy, and Shell’s internal policy was colloquially dubbed “Touch Fuck All.” Charming.
- The 2004 reserves scandal, where Shell admitted it had wildly exaggerated its hydrocarbon reserves. Shareholders were shocked. The SEC fined Shell $120 million, which the company could pay using just one of its greenwashing budgets.
- Nigeria, where Shell’s legacy is so soaked in blood, corruption, and environmental devastation that it makes the Exxon Valdez spill look like a spilt milkshake.
- Hakluyt, Shell’s in-house intelligence firm. If MI6 and Blackwater had a baby who hated Greenpeace, it’d be Hakluyt. This covert unit reportedly spied on activists, journalists, and anyone else who dared whisper the truth.
- Let’s not forget Shell’s ties to the apartheid regime, its cameo in the Al-Yamamah BAE oil-for-arms scandal, and its incestuous intelligence links through Hakluyt.
- And then there’s SPECTRE and SMERSH… oh wait, those are fictional. Shell isn’t. It’s worse.
Investors like BlackRock and Vanguard still happily line their pockets from Shell’s sludge-soaked profits. Because what’s a little ecological genocide when there are dividends to collect?
John Donovan, the relentless gadfly behind royaldutchshellplc.com, has made a hobby out of exposing Shell’s sins. The company, perhaps wisely, hasn’t dared sue him—because truth, inconveniently, isn’t defamatory.
And speaking of Shell’s finest: enter Simon Henry, Shell’s former CFO and now newly appointed BP board member. A man intimately connected to the hydrocarbon reserves scandal. According to SEC depositions and internal Shell emails, Henry knew since 2002 that reserves were overstated, yet he cheerily fed the lie to investors until the dam burst in 2004.
One email from Shell EP Chief Walter van de Vijver to Henry read: “Reserves bookings that should not have been made.”
Henry’s response? Shrug emoji. “Exactly what it says,” he told the SEC.
For his part in one of Shell’s biggest frauds, Henry was rewarded with millions in payouts, bonuses, and stock options. Crime doesn’t pay? Apparently it pays roughly £3 million plus a nice gig at Rio Tinto. Now he’s bringing that winning energy to BP.
Is Shell really buying BP?
Officially, Shell has denied any active discussions, but as The Wall Street Journal and every City gossip columnist has noted, “you can bet your bottom dollar” Shell has run the numbers.
Would this unholy union of sin stocks be blocked on competition grounds? Maybe. Would it unleash mass layoffs of Shell and BP’s 196,000 combined staff? Probably. Would it make investors giggle with glee? Absolutely.
But here’s a twist: the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority doesn’t allow funds to invest more than 10% in a single company. Shell and BP together would blow past that cap. The likely result? Fund managers will have to shed shares faster than Shell sheds ethics.
Of course, as CEO Wael Sawan insists, “I’m not buying BP.” For now.
Maybe he’s just playing hard to get. Or maybe, like Henry before him, he’s biding time before another multimillion-dollar bonus lands in his pocket, and another oil-soaked scandal gets swept under the Persian rug.
Stay tuned.
Disclaimer: This article is satirical, supported by public evidence, sourced quotes, and opinion. It has been reviewed for factual accuracy and tone. Any legal threats will be answered by quoting Shell’s own executives under oath.
LEGAL DOCUMENTS
Simon Henry 1: Simon Henry sworn deposition, Washington D.C. 16 Oct 2006. FOR THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT DISTRICT OF NEW JERSEY Civ. No. 04-3749 (JAP) (Consolidated Cases) Hon. Joel A. Pisano: 200 pages.
Simon Henry 2: Simon Henry testimony page 293 to 367
Simon Henry 3: Page 368 onwards of Simon Henry testimony ending page 392, continuing as related exhibits
Simon Henry 4: 75 pages of Exhibits relating to Simon Henry testimony
Simon Henry 5: 50 pages of Exhibits relating to Simon Henry testimony
Simon Henry 6: 50 pages of Exhibits relating to Simon Henry testimony
Simon Henry 7: 50 pages of Exhibits relating to Simon Henry testimony
Simon Henry 8: 38 pages of Exhibits relating to Simon Henry testimony
Simon Henry 9: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission interrogation of Simon Henry. 301 searchable pages. Commencing Tuesday, October 19, 2004
Simon Henry 10: Simon Henry Declaration for U.S. District Court of New Jersey: 18 pages dated 12 June 2007
United States Attorney Southern District of New York: Jun 29, 2005: – U.S. DECIDES NOT TO PROSECUTE SHELL. DAVID N. KELLEY, United States Attorney for the. Southern District of New York, announced …
Financial Services Authority: Final Notice Shell Reserves Fraud
US Securities and Exchange Commission: CEASE AND DESIST ORDER against Royal Dutch Petroleum Company and The “Shell” Transport and Trading co., p.l.c.
Related News Articles – Links all operational when first published
The independent; Reserves shock wipes £8bn from value of oil giant Shell: 10 Jan 2004
Simon Henry, Shell’s head of investor relations, said that, nothwithstanding the huge extent to which proven reserves had been over-booked, none of the executives involved would be disciplined. The calculations, relating mainly to reserves booked between 1996 and 2002, had been carried out in “good faith” but now Shell recognised it had to work to tighter specifications.
dawodu.com: Nigeria Doesn’t Have As Much Oil Reserves as Publicized – Shell: 9 Jan 2004
Analysts said they were particularly concerned that Shell appears to have not been following its own standard in booking reserves, namely by not booking reserves before a final investment decision on a project is made.
In a conference call with analysts and reporters, Shell’s head of investor relations, Simon Henry, confirmed this was the case in a number of projects, including the ChevronTexaco Corp. (NYSE:CVX – News)-led Gorgon project off Australia.
Around 50% of the adjusted reserves are in Nigeria and Australia, with no more than 10% of reserves from any other one country being downgraded, Shell’s Mr. Henry He insisted the people that had originally judged the downgraded reserves as proved made their decision with “reasonable certainty,” based on the technical and commercial conditions of the time.
Sun-Sentinel.com/Shell Restates Its Reserves, Shares Plummet: 10 Jan 2004
Shell’s proved reserves at the end of 2002 were 15.5 billion barrels, not the 19.4 billion stated earlier, spokesman Simon Henry said.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has asked oil companies to review their assessment of reserves in the Gulf of Mexico, Henry said.
The changes came because Shell is using a “tighter” definition of reserves, Shell’s Henry, head of investor relations, said on a conference call. Watts and other executives such as Chief Financial Officer Judy Boynton weren’t on the call.
EngineeringNews.co.za: Shell cuts reserves estimate shares fall sharply: 12 Jan 2004
Extract
However, investor relations head Simon Henry declined to restate the group’s three per cent a year output growth ability projection set last year. Chief executive Phil Watts was the director in charge of the group’s core upstream division from 1997, when some of the now questionable reserves were booked as proven. He was absent from a conference call with investors, analysts and journalists that followed the announcement, and investors were critical. “I’m surprised that Phil Watts is not on this call,” said David Cumming of Standard Life.
Businessweek: Shell: The Case Of The Missing Oil: 25 Jan 2004
Extracts:
Even though Shell cut its estimates of proved reserves from 19.4 billion barrels of oil (or the equivalent in gas) to 15.5 billion, “the hydrocarbons are there”, says Shell spokesmanSimon Henry.
Did Shell do anything illegal? There’s no evidence of that yet. “We were acting in good faith at the time”, insists Henry.
Toronto Star: Restatement of reserves rocks Shell: 9 April 2004
LONDON—The Royal Dutch/Shell Group of Cos. has replaced the chief financial officer of its exploration and production division, which is at the centre of the controversy over Shell’s oil and gas reserves estimates.
The group said yesterday that Simon Henry, the head of investor relations, will take over the position from Frank Coopman, who had been in the job since July, 2002. The division has until recently been solely in charge of booking oil and gas reserves.
CNNMoney: Now If Only Shell Could Find Some Oil: 17 May 2004
“There’s a limit to what we can do today to affect production in the next two to three years,” says Simon Henry, Shell’s head of finance in exploration and production. As those projects start producing, Shell will rebook some of the 4.4 billion barrels it moved into the unproved category in recent months. “There’s no question that the barrels are there,” Henry says. “We just didn’t have plans to commercialize them.”
To further boost its reserves, Shell is increasing spending on exploration to $1.4 billion this year and next, up from $1.3 billion last year. That’s nearly twice what some of its competitors are spending. Half that money is targeted on big wells with the potential to boost reserves by 100 million barrels each. “We’ve stopped doing a lot of the little bitty stuff,” says Henry.
“We maybe took our eye off the ball on exploration and made a strategic shift to negotiate for reserves,” says Henry.
ft.com: Trusted with Shell’s reserves: 13 March 2009
Extracts
Mr Henry has risen since then to become one of four executives on the Shell board, after bearing the wrath of shareholders as the head of investor relations when Shell first admitted it had a problem, on January 9 2004. It was he who came out to face the music when Sir Philip Watts, then chairman, would not, taking a conference call with angry investors.
ENDS
THE STORY OF SHELL PRODUCTION GEOLOGIST DR JOHN HUONG
*Dr John Huong, who worked for Shell Malaysia for 29 years, registered in a Shell internal document his deep moral reservations about misleading Shell shareholders over reserves. His concern was in relation to the computer reservoir-engineering model for the Kinabalu Field. Dr Huong stated in a Shell internal document, of which I have a copy: “Do you want to tell your investors that the volume carried in the ARPR (Annual Review on Petroleum Reserves) is suspected because a change in reservoir work will be expected! How can we live a day with a free conscience by getting the money from our investors through the 502F when our depositional model work is in question?” Dr Huong was later sacked. Following the publication of his whistleblower information on this website, eight companies within the Royal Dutch Shell Group collectively sued him for defamation, buried him in injunctions, engaged in dirty tricks and intimidation, even seeking his imprisonment in Shell’s determination to silence him. Dr Huong sued Shell for wrongful dismissal. The litigation went on for six years, during which Dr Huong felt in necessary to use bodyguards. Shell eventually settled to ensure that none of his evidence was heard in open court. The Donovan website was at the centre of the litigation.
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