THE SHELL LEAKS FILES
SLF-2007-029
The Sakhalin Papers XIX: The December Deadline — What the Whistleblower Said Would Happen
A June 2007 Warning Tested Against What Actually Happened
Archive reference: SLF-2007-029
Collection: The Sakhalin Papers
Principal record: Sakhalin II whistleblower statement published in June 2007 concerning the December 2007 pipeline target; authenticated David Greer email of 18 April 2007 concerning pipeline recovery
Supporting record: Contemporaneous Reuters-derived industry reporting; Sakhalin Energy production announcements; Oil & Gas Journal; Japan Bank for International Cooperation; UK Parliamentary evidence; Royal Dutch Shell SEC filing; official Gazprom records; High Court judgment in Export Credits Guarantee Department v Friends of the Earth
Evidence standard: The whistleblower’s forecast is tested against subsequent independently documented events. A prediction that proved substantially accurate does not automatically authenticate every allegation made by the same source. Claims concerning coercion, manipulation, personal responsibility and quantified financial losses remain allegations unless independently established.
Introduction
Most whistleblower stories have an unavoidable evidential problem.
The source says something happened behind closed doors.
Management denies it, ignores it or says nothing.
Years later, everybody argues about who was telling the truth.
This Sakhalin II leak is different.
Part of it contained a prediction.
In June 2007, months before the event could be known, an insider associated with the Sakhalin II onshore pipeline programme said that management was pursuing a December 2007 deadline for getting the pipeline ready for hydrocarbons.
The source said technical specialists believed the real completion date would fall in 2008.
The source then offered two scenarios.
If the December target was met, the project could move forward.
If it was missed, the existing offshore production system would shut for winter and year-round production would be delayed.
The source even attached a figure to the consequences: approximately $250 million in alleged financial losses, plus additional construction costs. The same allegations were publicly reproduced on 12 June 2007 — more than six months before the deadline they purported to predict.
So this time there is no need to speculate about what the insider meant.
We can put the warning on one side of the table.
And the subsequent project record on the other.
1. The Warning Was in the Public Record Before the Deadline
The chronology is important.
The Donovan archive states that the whistleblower information was first published on 2 June 2007 and was republished in January 2008 after subsequent events appeared to vindicate the scheduling warning.
More importantly for provenance, substantially the same material appeared on Mondaq on 12 June 2007.
That publication reproduces the allegations about the December 2007 target, the supposed internal disagreement about feasibility, the two alternative scenarios and the predicted consequences of failing to complete the pipeline in time.
That fixes the warning firmly in the contemporaneous record.
It was not written after the deadline had been missed.
It cannot therefore be dismissed as hindsight.
2. What the Whistleblower Actually Said
Stripped of the more colourful accusations, the operational forecast was straightforward.
The source alleged that Sakhalin Energy management was presenting December 2007 as the date by which the onshore pipeline would be ready for the introduction of hydrocarbons.
The source claimed, however, that a number of in-house specialists had produced information indicating completion in 2008 instead.
That was the first testable proposition.
The source then went substantially further.
It alleged that the December programme excluded known operational, construction and procedural constraints; that David Greer and pipeline manager Jaap Guyt were disregarding contrary specialist advice; and that personnel were being pressured to commit themselves to a date they did not believe feasible.
Those were much more serious claims.
They remain allegations.
No court finding, independent investigation or authenticated management instruction located for this instalment establishes that Greer or Guyt manipulated expert advice or coerced employees into falsifying schedule assessments.
The distinction between the forecast and the alleged conduct producing the forecast is central to this file.
3. The Two Scenarios
The insider described two possible outcomes.
Under the first, the pipeline would be sufficiently complete in December 2007 for hydrocarbons to move through the new system before the existing seasonal offshore operation shut for winter.
Under the second, the pipeline would not be ready.
The source predicted that the existing offshore operation would then close for the winter and would not resume until roughly May or June 2008, delaying revenues and allegedly producing approximately $250 million in losses as well as extra construction expenditure.
The source concluded that the December date was therefore commercially significant and alleged that commitments had been made to shareholders and financing institutions on the basis of expected revenue timing.
That gives us several separate propositions to test:
Was the pipeline ready for year-round production in December 2007?
Did oil production still shut for winter?
When did year-round oil production actually begin?
What happened to LNG start-up?
And can the claimed $250 million loss be established?
4. The Authenticated Greer Email Shows That Recovery Was Already an Issue
The whistleblower’s forecast did not arrive in a vacuum.
Two months earlier, on 18 April 2007, Sakhalin Energy Deputy Chief Executive and Project Director David Greer had circulated the now-famous “Pipeliners All!” email.
That document was subsequently reported as genuine after Shell confirmed its authenticity.
Greer referred to discouraging comments and body language among pipeline personnel, challenged their confidence and announced the establishment of a “Pipeline Recovery Plan Support Team.”
Authentication of Greer’s email does not authenticate the whistleblower’s allegations about coercion or manipulation.
But it independently demonstrates something important.
By April 2007, the senior project director himself considered pipeline performance sufficiently problematic to require a formal recovery initiative.
The existence of delivery pressure therefore does not depend solely upon the anonymous source.
5. September 2007: The First Public Confirmation
Then the timetable began to move.
On 25 September 2007, Sakhalin Energy publicly confirmed that year-round crude exports would not begin at the end of 2007 as previously planned.
They would instead start in the first half of 2008.
Contemporaneous industry reporting attributed the postponement to delays in pipeline commissioning. Sakhalin Energy was still saying at that stage that it intended to launch the pipeline itself by the end of 2007.
That announcement is highly significant.
By September — three months before the disputed December target — the commercial consequence identified by the whistleblower had already begun to materialise.
Year-round crude production had slipped into 2008.
The insider had said that technical information pointed to 2008 rather than December 2007.
On the central scheduling issue, events were moving in precisely that direction.
6. November 2007: The Seasonal Shutdown Happened Anyway
The old production system still depended upon seasonal conditions.
On 25 November 2007, production at the Vityaz complex was suspended after bad weather and damage to its Single Anchor Leg Mooring buoy.
Sakhalin Energy subsequently confirmed that the 2007 production season had ended early and said that work undertaken during the season had included modifications intended to connect Molikpaq to the new pipeline system so that year-round production could begin the following year.
The shutdown occurred somewhat earlier than the whistleblower’s generic December scenario because of weather and equipment damage.
That matters.
It would be misleading to say the pipeline delay itself caused the 25 November shutdown.
It did not.
Bad weather and the damaged buoy triggered the early closure.
But an equally important fact remained.
The new pipeline system was not available to transform that seasonal operation into year-round production.
Energy Intelligence reported at the time that Sakhalin Energy had planned year-round production from the end of 2007 but that this had been delayed by problems constructing the pipelines across the island and connecting the offshore platforms to the new export terminal.
The whistleblower’s second scenario was therefore looking increasingly familiar.
7. Parliament’s Record: Only 90 Per Cent Complete
A later piece of UK Parliamentary evidence provides another useful contemporaneous benchmark.
Background material submitted to the House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee recorded Sakhalin II as 90 per cent complete in November 2007.
It described the Phase 2 project as including the offshore platforms, the long onshore oil and gas pipelines, the LNG plant and the southern export facilities.
This was evidence submitted to Parliament, not a judicial or Parliamentary finding that every assertion in the submission was correct.
But the 90 per cent figure is consistent with the broader record.
At the point when the whistleblower had said the project would be struggling to achieve its December objective, substantial work remained unfinished.
8. December 2007: The Deadline Passes
By December, the picture was clearer.
Sakhalin Energy was no longer promising year-round oil production before the end of 2007.
Contemporaneous reporting said pipeline commissioning delays had already pushed year-round crude exports into 2008.
The delays were also spreading into the LNG timetable.
On 18 December 2007, The Moscow Times reported that Sakhalin Energy now expected the LNG plant’s main construction to be completed at the end of 2008, with exports beginning afterwards.
The company had previously planned to begin exports in the third quarter of 2008, while industry sources were suggesting that first deliveries could slip into spring 2009.
The article also specifically recalled that year-round oil exports had already been postponed because of pipeline commissioning delays.
December came.
Year-round oil production did not.
9. January 2008: “100% Correct”?
The Donovan archive republished the insider material on 6 January 2008 under the headline:
“The Sakhalin-2 whistleblower warnings which proved 100% correct.”
The satisfaction behind that headline is understandable.
The central warning had proved remarkably prescient.
The December 2007 year-round-production objective had not been achieved.
The timetable had moved into 2008.
But viewed with the evidential standards of The Shell Leaks Files, “100% correct” is too broad.
The subsequent schedule supports the source’s core technical forecast.
It does not prove every accompanying allegation.
It does not prove that management fabricated information.
It does not prove that specialists were coerced.
It does not prove that Greer and Guyt knowingly ignored valid technical advice.
And it does not establish the claimed $250 million loss.
What happened next makes that distinction even more important.
10. March 2008: Still Finishing Phase 2
By 4 March 2008, Sakhalin Energy was still describing Phase 2 construction as approximately 90 per cent complete.
Oil & Gas Journal reported that the company hoped to finish Phase 2 by the end of 2008 and that its work programme for the year included completion of the onshore pipelines, commissioning of facilities and establishment of year-round oil production.
In other words, three months after the December date identified by the insider, completing and commissioning the pipeline system was still part of the following year’s work programme.
That is strong independent corroboration of the schedule warning.
It is not corroboration of the alleged internal misconduct.
11. June 2008: The Target Moves Again
By June, even the revised first-half-2008 expectation had slipped.
On 5 June 2008, Oil & Gas Journal quoted a Sakhalin Energy spokesman saying the current plan was to begin year-round production in the second half of 2008, after pipeline commissioning and testing had been completed.
This is perhaps the clearest way of measuring the original prediction.
In June 2007, the whistleblower said expert information pointed to completion in 2008 rather than December 2007.
One year later, Sakhalin Energy itself was publicly saying year-round production still awaited pipeline commissioning and testing.
The source had plainly identified a real schedule problem.
12. The Financing Claim Requires More Caution
The whistleblower had also linked the December target to commitments supposedly made to lending institutions and shareholders.
The official record shows a more complicated financing history.
In the United Kingdom, approximately $650 million of export-credit support had been sought from the Export Credits Guarantee Department.
But Mr Justice Mitting later recorded that no decision on that application was ever made and that the application was withdrawn on 29 February 2008.
That court record therefore cannot be used to support a claim that ECGD had made a binding financial commitment dependent upon the December 2007 pipeline date.
Indeed, it says the opposite: no decision on the application was made.
Then, on 16 June 2008, the Japan Bank for International Cooperation signed a project-finance agreement providing up to $3.7 billion, alongside up to $1.6 billion from commercial banks.
The financing was expressly intended to support completion of Phase 2, including pipelines and the LNG plant.
That financing was concluded after the December 2007 deadline had been missed.
Consequently, any suggestion that missing the December target necessarily prevented project financing would be wrong.
The available evidence does not establish precisely what financing commitment the whistleblower had in mind in June 2007.
13. November 2008: The Pipeline Is Finally Reported Complete
The decisive milestone arrived much later.
In early November 2008, reporting from Sakhalin stated that construction of the roughly 800-kilometre oil pipeline had been completed and filling of the system had begun.
Energy Intelligence reported that the completed pipeline would permit year-round oil production to start at the end of 2008.
This was almost eleven months beyond December 2007.
Again, terminology matters.
“Construction complete” is not identical to “fully commissioned for commercial operation.”
Pipelines have to be tested, filled, commissioned and integrated with upstream and downstream facilities.
But by any reasonable reading, this record is incompatible with the idea that the full year-round system had already been operational in December 2007.
14. 12 December 2008: Year-Round Oil Finally Begins
The most important operational date is 12 December 2008.
Sakhalin Energy announced the commencement of year-round oil export from the new terminal at Prigorodnoye.
The company said year-round production had become possible because the TransSakhalin oil and gas pipeline system had been commissioned.
Gazprom’s current official project history independently records the same milestone: year-round production from Molikpaq began in December 2008.
Royal Dutch Shell’s subsequent SEC filing likewise records that first production from the Piltun-Astokhskoye B platform and year-round oil exports began in December 2008, and that Sakhalin Energy completed the main construction of its facilities at the end of that year.
So the answer to the first central question is no longer debatable.
Year-round oil production did not begin in December 2007.
It began in December 2008.
15. The Whistleblower Was Right About 2008 — But Even That Understates the Delay
The anonymous source’s core proposition had been that internal technical information pointed toward 2008.
That was correct in a meaningful sense.
The pipeline system reached the stage of supporting year-round oil operations in late 2008.
But the source’s own worst-case scenario had contemplated the seasonal production interruption ending around May or June 2008.
Actual year-round capability arrived substantially later.
Sakhalin Energy’s public timetable moved from the end of 2007, to the first half of 2008, then to the second half of 2008, before year-round export finally began in December.
The prediction was therefore not merely that “something might be late.”
It correctly identified the central operational weakness around which the subsequent timetable continued to move.
16. And LNG Slipped Into 2009
The downstream consequences extended beyond oil.
On 18 February 2009, Gazprom announced the launch of Russia’s first LNG plant at Sakhalin II.
Its official record states that the plant had been under construction since 2003 and was expected to ramp up toward its design capacity thereafter.
The first scheduled Russian LNG cargo departed Prigorodnoye for Japan on 29 March 2009.
The contemporaneous Sakhalin Energy announcement recorded that year-round oil deliveries had already begun in December 2008 and that LNG production was then starting its commercial export phase.
This should not be turned into a claim the whistleblower never made.
The June 2007 source did not specifically predict that the first LNG cargo would sail on 29 March 2009.
But the later LNG date demonstrates the broader extent to which the Phase 2 start-up schedule continued moving beyond the period originally envisaged.
17. What About the $250 Million?
This is where the evidence stops supporting the stronger claim.
The whistleblower estimated that failure to meet the December date would cause approximately $250 million in financial losses, plus additional construction costs.
No audited Sakhalin Energy account, Shell filing, lender document, arbitral award or court judgment located for this instalment attributes an identifiable $250 million loss specifically to failure of the December 2007 pipeline target.
There were unquestionably commercial consequences associated with delays.
There were also additional financing costs, continued construction expenditure and deferred production.
But translating those matters into the precise figure offered by the source would require evidence that has not been located.
The $250 million should therefore remain what it was in June 2007:
an insider estimate.
Not an established loss.
18. Nor Does the Schedule Vindicate the Coercion Allegations
The same discipline applies to the more serious accusations.
The fact that the project ultimately missed the December target does not logically prove that managers had manipulated schedules beforehand.
A project can miss a date for many reasons.
Engineering complexity.
Weather.
Environmental mitigation.
Contractor performance.
Regulatory intervention.
Commissioning problems.
Design changes.
Management error.
Or some combination of them.
The whistleblower alleged something more specific: that expert advice inconsistent with December 2007 was being excluded and that personnel were being pressured to commit to a schedule management already knew was unrealistic.
The subsequent delay makes those allegations worthy of historical examination.
It does not prove them.
No judicial determination located for this file establishes that Greer, Guyt or other Sakhalin Energy personnel falsified project scheduling information.
19. The Court Case Was About Transparency, Not the Deadline
There was later a significant English High Court judgment involving Sakhalin II.
But it did not determine whether the whistleblower was telling the truth.
In Export Credits Guarantee Department v Friends of the Earth [2008] EWHC 638 (Admin), Mr Justice Mitting considered whether UK government departmental communications about proposed export-credit support for Sakhalin II should be disclosed under the Environmental Information Regulations.
The judgment recorded the scale of the project, Shell’s earlier majority position, Gazprom’s subsequent controlling interest, approximately $650 million in requested UK support and significant environmental concerns. It also recorded that the ECGD financing application had been withdrawn before a decision was made.
The court dismissed ECGD’s appeal against the disclosure ruling.
It did not adjudicate:
whether December 2007 had knowingly been presented as an impossible pipeline deadline;
whether Sakhalin Energy specialists were coerced;
whether management manipulated technical information;
or whether a missed deadline caused $250 million of loss.
The judgment belongs in the documentary background.
It is not a verdict on the whistleblower.
20. Parliament Later Encountered the Same Source
The whistleblower material did not disappear after publication.
In evidence placed before the House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee in 2008, the Sakhalin II background material expressly cited the Donovan whistleblower publication.
That evidence also recorded that the project had been only 90 per cent complete in November 2007.
The particular citation appeared in connection with a separate group of allegations concerning relationships between Sakhalin Energy management and pipeline contractors.
Those allegations are not examined here.
They require their own evidential treatment.
But the Parliamentary record establishes that the source material had migrated beyond a campaigning website into evidence placed before a House of Commons committee.
That will matter in the next archive file.
Prediction Against Outcome
The cleanest way to assess the June 2007 warning is proposition by proposition.
Prediction: the December 2007 year-round pipeline objective was not technically achievable.
Outcome: Year-round crude exports were officially postponed in September 2007. The pipeline system was still being completed and commissioned during 2008. Year-round oil exports finally began in December 2008.
Assessment: Substantially supported by subsequent events.
Prediction: technical reality pointed to completion in 2008 rather than December 2007.
Outcome: Sakhalin Energy continued pipeline completion and commissioning through 2008, with the system supporting year-round oil operations only at the end of that year.
Assessment: Strongly supported.
Prediction: failure to meet December 2007 would leave production subject to the winter shutdown.
Outcome: The 2007 production season ended on 25 November. The immediate trigger was bad weather and damage to the existing offshore loading system, while year-round production capability remained unavailable until the new pipeline system entered service in December 2008.
Assessment: Broadly consistent, but the source did not predict the specific weather-related early shutdown.
Prediction: the missed deadline would cause approximately $250 million in losses.
Outcome: No documentary evidence located for this instalment establishes that precise loss attributable to the missed December target.
Assessment: Not established.
Allegation: Greer and Guyt ignored contrary technical expertise and coerced personnel into supporting the December programme.
Outcome: The authenticated Greer email establishes a pipeline recovery effort and management concern about confidence and delivery. The eventual delay shows the deadline was missed. Neither fact proves coercion or deliberate manipulation.
Assessment: Unproven.
Allegation: the December target underpinned commitments to financial institutions.
Outcome: The UK ECGD application remained undecided and was withdrawn in February 2008; major JBIC and commercial-bank project finance was signed in June 2008 after the deadline had already been missed.
Assessment: The precise allegation cannot be verified from the financing records examined and should not be stated as established fact.
Documentary Findings
Established
A Sakhalin II insider warning was publicly available by 12 June 2007, many months before the disputed December deadline.
The source predicted that the pipeline would not achieve the December 2007 operational objective and said technical assessments pointed instead toward 2008.
David Greer’s authenticated April 2007 email independently demonstrates that senior management had established a pipeline recovery initiative and was concerned about morale and delivery within the pipeline organisation.
In September 2007 Sakhalin Energy confirmed that year-round crude exports were being postponed from the end of 2007 into 2008, with contemporary reporting citing pipeline commissioning delays.
The 2007 seasonal oil operation shut on 25 November after severe weather and damage to the existing loading system. Sakhalin Energy said the new pipeline modifications were intended to permit year-round production the following year.
Pipeline completion and commissioning remained ongoing well into 2008.
Year-round Sakhalin II oil export began in December 2008, roughly one year after the target at the centre of the whistleblower warning.
Russia’s first LNG plant at Sakhalin II was launched in February 2009 and the first scheduled LNG cargo departed for Japan on 29 March 2009.
Supported by subsequent events but not independently proved
The source’s contention that informed technical personnel believed the December 2007 programme was unrealistic is consistent with what subsequently happened to the project timetable.
The source’s assertion that the real operational milestone lay in 2008 proved substantially accurate.
But the subsequent delay alone cannot identify which individual engineers held which opinions in June 2007 or establish precisely what advice they gave internally.
Not established
It is not established that Shell or Sakhalin Energy fabricated scheduling information.
It is not established that David Greer or Jaap Guyt deliberately excluded expert evidence.
It is not established that employees were coerced into falsifying or endorsing programme dates.
It is not established that failure to achieve the December target caused exactly $250 million in financial losses.
It is not established that the disputed deadline was a contractual condition of the later $5.3 billion JBIC/commercial-bank financing.
And no court has adjudicated the truth of those whistleblower allegations.
Commentary
There is a useful lesson in this file about whistleblower evidence.
Sources are rarely either completely right or completely wrong.
The temptation after a dramatic prediction comes true is to treat everything the source said as vindicated.
That is precisely what a documentary archive should resist.
The Sakhalin source got the big operational point right.
In June 2007, the insider said December was not realistic and that technical reality pointed into 2008.
In September, Sakhalin Energy deferred year-round oil exports.
In November, seasonal production stopped.
In 2008, pipeline construction and commissioning continued.
And only in December 2008 did the new system finally enable year-round oil exports.
That is an impressive forecasting record.
It deserves to be recorded as such.
But accuracy about the schedule does not magically authenticate claims about coercion, deception, conflicts of interest or financial loss.
Those require evidence of their own.
Indeed, the strongest treatment of this source is not to say:
“The whistleblower was 100 per cent right about everything.”
It is to say:
The whistleblower made a specific operational warning in public before the event, and the subsequent independently documented timetable substantially vindicated that warning.
That formulation is harder to attack because it does not ask the reader to take anyone’s word for it.
The calendar supplies the evidence.
June 2007: warning.
September 2007: postponement.
December 2007: no year-round operation.
June 2008: commissioning still incomplete.
November 2008: pipeline completion.
December 2008: year-round oil.
February 2009: LNG plant launch.
March 2009: first LNG cargo.
Prediction against outcome.
In this instance, the documents speak unusually clearly.
Source Record
The principal whistleblower record survives in the Donovan archive and was republished in January 2008. Crucially, materially the same allegations and predictions were already publicly reproduced by Mondaq on 12 June 2007, establishing that the forecast pre-dated the events against which it is now being tested.
The contemporaneous September 2007 record establishes Sakhalin Energy’s postponement of year-round crude exports into 2008 and reports pipeline commissioning delays as the cause.
Sakhalin Energy’s own production reporting establishes the early termination of the 2007 production season and confirms that modifications to connect Molikpaq to the new pipeline system were intended to permit year-round production during the following year.
Oil & Gas Journal provides independent milestones during 2008, including Sakhalin Energy’s expectation in June that year-round production would begin only after pipeline commissioning and testing in the second half of the year, and its December reporting of the commissioned TransSakhalin system and commencement of year-round exports.
The official financing record is supplied by the Japan Bank for International Cooperation, which signed up to $3.7 billion of project finance on 16 June 2008 alongside up to $1.6 billion from commercial banks.
The English judicial record is Export Credits Guarantee Department v Friends of the Earth [2008] EWHC 638 (Admin). It confirms the separate UK export-credit application, its withdrawal without decision and the environmental-information litigation surrounding Sakhalin II. It does not adjudicate the whistleblower’s scheduling allegations.
The House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee evidence provides a further public-record checkpoint, describing Sakhalin II as 90 per cent complete in November 2007 and later citing the whistleblower publication in relation to separate contractor allegations.
Gazprom’s official historical record confirms year-round production beginning in December 2008 and the LNG plant entering operation in 2009.
Archive disclaimer: Subsequent events supporting a whistleblower’s prediction do not authenticate every allegation made by that source. No allegation of dishonesty, coercion, corruption, conflict of interest or deliberate falsification is treated as established without independent evidence or an appropriate adjudicative finding. Financial estimates are identified as estimates unless supported by audited or authoritative records.
Site wide disclaimer also applies.
Next Archive File
SLF-2007-030 — The Sakhalin Papers XX: Starstroi, SU4 and the Allegations That Reached Parliament
The December deadline was not the most serious allegation made by the Sakhalin insider.
The same source alleged improper relationships surrounding pipeline contracts and named Starstroi, its subcontractor SU4, senior Sakhalin Energy personnel and the process by which work was allegedly directed to Russian companies.
Those accusations were never proved merely because the source correctly predicted the pipeline delay.
But something unusual happened to them.
In 2008, evidence placed before the House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee expressly recorded allegations of inappropriate relationships between Sakhalin Energy management and its contractors — specifically Starstroi and SU4 — and footnoted the Donovan whistleblower publication as its source.
That raises a very different set of questions.
What exactly did the insider allege?
Who were Starstroi and SU4?
What documentary evidence exists concerning their role in Sakhalin II?
Did Shell or Sakhalin Energy investigate?
Was any wrongdoing ever established?
And what does it mean when an allegation originating with an anonymous project insider travels from a leak website into formal evidence before the British Parliament?
SLF-2007-030 will follow the contractor allegations from the original leak to Westminster — while keeping the line between documented fact and unproven accusation firmly intact.
*This website and sisters royaldutchshellgroup.com, shellnazihistory.com, royaldutchshell.website, johndonovan.website, shellnews.net, and shellwikipedia.com, are owned by John Donovan - more information here. There is also a Wikipedia segment, the Shell DPA Files, "Shell and the Spies", the Shell Leaks files, as well as books written and published by John Donovan - Kindle eBooks. Timeline of the Donovan Shell Feud. Toxic History of Royal Dutch Shell Group. Shell and the Donovans: The Full Media Record — 550+ Articles, 110 Books, 40 Years. *All created and supported by internet wizz, Nick Gill.
