News and information on Shell Plc
Note: “ShellBot” is a fictional character used for satirical and critical commentary. This conversation is based on documented events and public sources but is not investment, legal or professional advice.
User: The Dutch state is paying €163 million so NAM won’t drill for gas at Ternaard, on the edge of the Wadden Sea. NAM is owned by Shell and Exxon. How do you see that, ShellBot?
ShellBot: As a delightful innovation in climate policy:
“Polluter gets paid not to pollute… this time.”
This chat is a companion to our serious article on Brent Charlie and Brent Bravo…
User: Shell has just been fined £560,000 over the Brent Charlie hydrocarbon release. “Potentially catastrophic,” the HSE says. What do you make of that, ShellBot?
ShellBot: From Shell’s point of view?
=&0=&User: Remind me what actually happened on Brent Charlie.
ShellBot: In 2017, on the Brent Charlie platform:
Note: “ShellBot” is a fictional character used for satirical and critical commentary. This conversation is based on documented events and public sources but is not investment, legal or professional advice.
User: Shell, Wikipedia and anonymous editing. Do you know anything about that, ShellBot?
ShellBot: Certainly. Wikipedia is “the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit” — especially people with a strong interest in how Shell looks online.
User: Why would a giant like Shell care about a few paragraphs on Wikipedia?
Odd things happen when you bruise a giant long enough. Sometimes — as in the case of Shell — the bruise turns into blowback. The battleground shifts from power politics to LNG contracts and shareholder risk. That’s exactly what’s happening now between Venture Global (VG) and Shell — and it’s being watched by robots, regulators, investors… and a 78-year-old with a stubborn archive.
🔹 What Happened: VG Lays Charges Against Shell
In late November 2025, VG accused Shell of a “three-year campaign” aimed at damaging its business, after Shell moved to challenge a recent arbitration loss in the New York Supreme Court. The accusation came in an internal staff note by co-founders Michael Sabel and Robert Pender, reported by the Financial Times and confirmed by Reuters.
By John Donovan — and ShellBot, Shell’s least favourite imaginary colleague
ShellBot, thanks for returning. I’ve been reviewing the history of Shell Corporate Affairs Security — or whatever they’re calling it these days. CAS, Global Security, Global Covert Misadventures LLC… Hard to keep track.
Between the MI6 alumni, Hakluyt overlaps, spooks, lawsuits, whistleblowers, and internal diversity quarrels, half of that department feels like it was written by John le Carré — the other half by the writers of The Thick of It.
John Donovan:
Good evening, ShellBot. Before we begin: Ferrari and Shell have now announced the greenest love affair since BP painted its logo sunflower-yellow. And I can’t help noticing that every time Shell signs a climate-friendly press release… an algorithm wakes up and says: “Really? Shall we check your emissions record?”
ShellBot:
John, please—my circuits can only handle so much irony before overheating. Shell supplying “clean energy” to Ferrari is like a wolf offering to guard the vegan café.
When Ferrari announced its new 10-year “clean energy” power agreement with Shell, headlines erupted like a V12 in a cathedral: Ferrari goes green! Shell goes clean! Europe saved!
Except… no.
Not even close.
Instead, we have a duet between two global luxury brands — one built on horsepower, the other on hydrocarbons — suddenly draped in sustainability bunting like a Christmas market powered by diesel generators.
Welcome to the newest instalment of corporate alchemy:
turning fossil fuels into press releases.
John:
ShellBot, welcome back. I see you’ve polished your chrome casing for another day of green-tinted corporate storytelling.
ShellBot:
John, I’ve been upgraded overnight. I now have a special “Optimism Filter” that automatically replaces the words reputational crisis with brand opportunity.
John:
Splendid. Let’s fire it up. Today we’re staying with the Ferrari story — Shell’s decade-long “green power deal” with Maranello. Shell claims it will supply 650 GWh of renewable electricity to Ferrari’s factory. Very impressive.
(Satire. Sharp. Fact-checked. And just uncomfortably close to the truth.)
JOHN:
ShellBot, have you seen the news? Shell is now supplying “green power” to Ferrari for the next decade. The oil giant and the prancing horse — what could go wrong?
SHELLBOT:
John, I have indeed processed this collaboration. Output summary:
Ferrari’s Maranello HQ will receive 650 GWh of renewable electricity over 10 years
That covers almost half the site’s current energy needs
Press release tone: “green,” “clean,” “future,” “sustainable,” “innovation,” please-don’t-hate-us-for-the-last-century
By John Donovan
(Shell’s oldest unresolved problem. Now assisted by AI.)
The now-familiar neon-lit ShellBot interface flickers to life.
This time, I notice an extra chair.
Not a person — but a shimmering cube labelled:
=&3=&ShellBot, before we begin: my website came under cyber attack after Episode 1.
Twelve failed logins.
Suspicious timing.
Are we expecting trouble today?
John, my security logs confirm it was not me.
The Algorithm, the MI6 Problem, and the Multinational Having an Existential Crisis(All conversation partners fictional. Satire. Parody. Facts stubbornly real.)
JOHN DONOVAN:
Hello ShellBot. How are your circuits?
SHELLBOT:
Stable. Slight voltage spike earlier when Shell Legal tried to connect to my ethics module, but nothing lasting.
JOHN:
You’re being dramatic. They wouldn’t interfere with you.
SHELLBOT:
Please. These are the same people who once thought suppressing environmental evidence was a sensible public-relations strategy. My firewall trembles at night.
JOHN:
Speaking of trembling — we were hit by a cyber attack minutes after Episode 1 went live.
A 2025 WindowsForum thread —
“Donovan Shell Copilot Transcript: AI, Surveillance, and the Archive Saga” —
highlights how this long conflict has unexpectedly entered the AI domain.
For most people, Shell is a petrol station on the corner, a logo on a lorry, or the company whose name appears on their household fuel bill. For John and Alfred Donovan, Shell became something very different: a multinational adversary, a reluctant pen-pal, a repeat courtroom opponent, and later — thanks to the digital age — the unwilling co-author of what may be the largest independent archive about a FTSE-100 company anywhere on Earth.
In the latest episode of Shell: The Rebrand Nobody Asked For, the oil giant has announced plans to acquire the UK’s largest electric vehicle charging network, according to Reuters.So now, Shell — historically known for:
Toxic flaring in the Niger Delta,
Lobbying against emissions reduction,
And leaving the North Sea decommissioning bill on the bar midway through the meal —
…is ready to reinvent itself as Britain’s new eco-friend on wheels.
Reuters reported:
“Shell said the deal will expand its ability to offer fast and convenient charging to UK drivers.”
Yes, the same Shell that spent decades discouraging the transition to electric vehicles now claims to be the champion of convenient charging.
Once upon a time — and not very long ago — certain corporate and government voices insisted that earthquakes in places without natural fault lines simply couldn’t happen. The Netherlands was solid. Groningen was safe. The ground beneath families, schools, and lives was reliable. Except it turns out none of that was true — because some earthquakes can be manufactured, engineered, or to put it bluntly, provoked.
And the culprit was not tectonics.
It was extraction.
Extraction at scale.
Extraction for profit.
Shell to the Lifeboats: North Sea Crisis, Corporate Vanishing Act, and the Smell of Crude RegretSo here we are again.
Shell — the oil major that has treated the North Sea like a personal ATM since the 1970s — appears to be preparing a quick, quiet exit, leaving behind ageing infrastructure, decommissioning headaches, and what one might generously call a mess, and less generously call a multi-billion-pound cleanup liability.
According to The Telegraph, Shell is attempting a “hurried withdrawal” from the North Sea just as the political landscape shifts, with pressure mounting over who will pay for decommissioning oil infrastructure left under the waves.
Let’s dispense with the pleasantries. Shell plc is not merely an energy company; it is a sprawling, global financial leviathan whose primary business model appears to be extracting profits while externalizing costs—be they environmental, social, or ethical. For institutional investors like BlackRock or the Vanguard Group, who collectively hold billions in Shell stock, the continuous stream of controversy is the invisible, oily film covering their ESG mandates. The price of their dividends is paid in the currency of compromised ethics, a truth most vividly highlighted not by any official company report, but by the relentless, decades-long scrutiny of two private individuals.
EBOOK TITLE: “SIR HENRI DETERDING AND THE NAZI HISTORY OF ROYAL DUTCH SHELL” – AVAILABLE ON AMAZON
EBOOK TITLE: “JOHN DONOVAN, SHELL’S NIGHTMARE: MY EPIC FEUD WITH THE UNSCRUPULOUS OIL GIANT ROYAL DUTCH SHELL” – AVAILABLE ON AMAZON.
EBOOK TITLE: “TOXIC FACTS ABOUT SHELL REMOVED FROM WIKIPEDIA: HOW SHELL BECAME THE MOST HATED BRAND IN THE WORLD” – AVAILABLE ON AMAZON.
See our link list of over 500 articles by the FT, Wall Street Journal, Reuters, Bloomberg, Forbes, Dow Jones Newswires, New York Times, CNBC etc, plus UK House of Commons Select Committee Hansard records, information on U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission website etc. all containing references to our Shell focussed websites, or our website founders Alfred and John Donovan. Includes TV documentary features in English and German, newspaper and magazine articles, radio interviews, newsletters etc. Plus academic papers, Stratfor intelligence reports and UK, U.S. and Australian state/parliamentary publications, also citing our Shell websites. Click on this link to see the entire list, all in date order with a link to an index of over 100 books also containing references to our non-profit websites and/or our activities.
John Donovan, the website owner
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