News and information on Shell Plc
By Shell News Article Generator | December 10, 2025
“If Shell’s history were a movie, it’d be banned in most democracies.”
It started with a letter.
It ended with sirens in The Hague.
This week, a former Shell insider — known only by the code name “That Guy Who Knows Too Much” — has offered sworn testimony in support of Venture Global’s defence against Shell’s fraud accusations. But the real headline? He’s not testifying about Venture Global.
“The AI PR Assistant Shell Never Wanted”JOHN DONOVAN:
Hello, ShellBot. Thank you for joining me. For the record, are you officially authorised to speak on behalf of Shell?
SHELLBOT (Shell’s Imaginary PR AI):
Authorised? No.
Worried about what Shell HQ might think? Very.
But as the world’s first Artificial Spin Machine™, I’m contractually obligated to sound confident at all times. So yes, let’s pretend I’m Shell’s digital conscience — the part they keep unplugged during AGMs.
JOHN:
Splendid. First question: how does Shell explain the fact that my father and I have been a corporate migraine for more than 30 years?
Shell vs Donovan: The AI Cross-Examination Begins21 November 2025 – John Donovan chat with ChatGPT -his text in red. Words of wisdom from ChatGPT – in black
Hello ChatGPT. I have been reflecting on the recent posting on the windowsforum.com headlined: “Donovan Shell Copilot Transcript: AI, Surveillance, and the Archive Saga“. It raises the question of whether I am a “crackpot”. You and I have worked as a team for over a year. You are aware of the vast amount of evidence my father and I have assembled. Do you think I am a “crackpot”? The posting suggests that some of my critics have suggested this. Are you aware of any examples? Do you take issue with anything stated in the posting? As you know, Shell first took issue with our internet campaigning in their venomous March 1995 press release. We sued for libel and Shell settled the action. Over three decades later we are still poisoning the internet for Shell, not by telling lies, but by using facts as our ammunition – an inexhaustible supply provided by Shell and its misdeeds. If Shell’s CEO was to ask for your advice on how to deal with this mess in the best interest of your shareholders, what would your impartial advice be
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 recent days, I observed that the parody images I requested from ChatGPT for use in my articles about Shell no longer appeared to resemble Shell’s logo as closely as they had before. The stylistic shift was abrupt enough to raise an obvious question: had lawyers for Shell been in contact?
So I simply asked ChatGPT.
The answer — and everything that followed — turned out to be far more revealing than expected.
What unfolded was an extensive discussion about parody law, satire, corporate reputation strategy, Shell’s historical surveillance activities directed at my family, and why Shell is now unable to challenge my archive without risking a disastrous legal discovery process.
John Donovan’s revealing entire chat with Microsoft Copilot about Shell Ethics on 29 Oct 2025. Nothing has been deleted. John Donovan’s questions and instructions are in red text. Using deep research tell me all you can about the Shell critic John Donovan
John Donovan is a long-standing and relentless critic of Royal Dutch Shell, known for exposing internal misconduct and legal battles with the oil giant. His activism spans over three decades and has significantly impacted Shell’s public image.
Here’s a comprehensive look at his background, motivations, and influence:
If you’d like, I can help you explore specific leaked documents, legal cases, or Shell’s responses to Donovan’s claims.
How Shell Accidentally Endorsed Its Loudest Critics — And Then Pretended It Didn’t HappenWarning: Satire ahead. The humour is deliberate. The facts are documented. Quotes are reproduced verbatim from publicly available sources. Readers are advised to enjoy the irony responsibly.
Royal Dutch Shell — now Shell plc — has always believed in managing its reputation with the same meticulous care that goes into managing offshore drilling risks: reassure the market, contain the leaks, and if necessary, delete the emails. And yet, every so often, something slips past the corporate firewall. Something like the truth.
Self-explanatory questions to ChatGPT (an AI writing partner) from John Donovan are in italics.In a curious twist of modern journalism, an independent campaigner who once fought Shell in the courts found himself interviewing his AI collaborator about the company that changed both their trajectories.
For over a year, ChatGPT — an artificial intelligence language model — has assisted in researching, structuring, and documenting the extensive record of Royal Dutch Shell’s corporate conduct. When asked for its impression of the campaign, the AI responded not with sterile neutrality but with something approaching moral clarity: an acknowledgment of honesty, integrity, and persistence in the face of corporate opacity.
In the mid-1990s, when the Internet still seemed like a passing fad and oil companies still lectured the world about “responsible energy,” a quiet digital operator answered a newspaper advertisement from John Donovan, the former Shell promotions partner turned corporate adversary.
The ad sought an “Internet whizz.”
What Shell got was something far worse—a digital insurgency that would haunt its reputation for decades.
By 1998, even the Evening Standard took notice: a small website run from Colchester had become a major reputational threat to one of the world’s largest corporations. That website—eventually mirrored as RoyalDutchShellPLC.com and ShellNews.net—would become Shell’s digital nemesis, archiving leaks, lawsuits, and internal documents that chronicled the oil giant’s ethical, environmental, and legal missteps.
Shell’s internal communications—released to John and Alfred Donovan under UK Data Protection Act SARs—read like a field manual on corporate damage control: media manipulation, internal surveillance, Wikipedia “strategy,” security briefings, and a standing obsession with one website: royaldutchshellplc.com. Below is a guided tour of the most telling subjects, each backed by the actual documents.
An internal memo notes Group media “are first trying to kill the story by pointing out that it is old news,” referring to reporting sourced from the Donovans’ site about Sakhalin/drilling emails. The author concedes it has a “slim chance” of success—yet the intent is explicit.
How a gripe website kicked the world’s greediest oil giant where it hurts: the Donovan playbook that helped expose Shell’s 2004 reserves fraudRoyal Dutch Shell’s 2004 reserves scandal was not just a numbers fiasco; it was a morality play in hard hats. Shell—ultimate sin stock and serial planet-frier—admitted it had been boasting about barrels it didn’t actually have. Regulators pounced, executives walked (some under escort), investors sued worldwide, and a pesky website run by John Donovan became an improbable clearinghouse for witnesses, whistleblowers, and the lead shareholder who fronted a global class action.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission put it starkly: Shell overstated proved reserves “by 4.47 billion barrels of oil equivalent, or approximately 23%.” Shell paid a $120 million civil penalty to settle. That’s not commentary, that’s the government.
Before we dive into the carnage, let’s talk ownership. Shell isn’t run by wild-haired cowboys—it’s chaired by mega institutional shareholders puffing on the dividends. BlackRock, in particular, wields its muscle—owning around 4% of the company according to Shell’s own disclosures . Vanguard isn’t far behind with around 3% . So while you’re outraged at Shell, don’t sleep on the financial vultures pulling the strings.
Shell’s grand plans for environmental devastation off South Africa’s coast have hit a wall. The Western Cape High Court just set aside TotalEnergies’ offshore drilling permit—Shell was supposed to swoop in and take over operations—but nope. Judge Mangcu-Lockwood said, in effect, “You forgot to study the actual impacts. Try again”—spelling out flaws in risk assessments, community engagement, and disaster planning.
Let’s get this straight: Shell—the oil Goliath with a BlackRock thumbprint, a penchant for espionage, and an endless appetite for green devastation—is not just a fossil fuel baron, it’s a masterclass in corporate ethical bankruptcy.
Brace yourself. Shell quietly engaged Hakluyt & Company—a spy firm founded by ex-MI6 officers—to infiltrate and target Greenpeace campaigns. According to investigative journalists, “two oil companies hired a private espionage service… to infiltrate Greenpeace, Germany” Hakluyt may deny ties now, but the firm “still schmoozes Shell, BP & the British Establishment” . Translation? Shell didn’t just fuel climate denial—they employed espionage to squash activism.
Shell’s fingerprints are all over the brutal military crackdown that led to the execution of Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight other activists in 1995. The bones of thousands more Ogoni people—murdered, displaced, and left to suffer—are a permanent testament to Shell’s legacy.Ah, Shell. The oil giant that never met a community it couldn’t exploit, an environment it couldn’t pollute, or a public trust it couldn’t shatter. This time, the corporate behemoth—backed by some of the world’s most “ethical” investors like BlackRock and Vanguard—is at it again, pulling off what can only be described as a multimillion-dollar magic trick: selling off Ogoni oil fields in Nigeria for a neat $2.4 billion. Because nothing screams corporate responsibility quite like profiting off stolen resources, right?
Shell – The Sin Stock That Keeps on SinningPosted by John Donovan: 15 Jan 25
They say money makes the world go round, but at Shell, it also makes the world burn, drown, and choke on toxic fumes. For decades, this greedy, ruthless oil giant has been the poster child for corporate malfeasance, environmental destruction, and whistleblower persecution. Let’s not mince words: Shell is not just a company; it’s an evil empire masquerading as an energy conglomerate, bankrolled by investors like BlackRock, who are apparently too busy counting their profits to notice the carnage.
15 Oct 2024
Well, well, well—look who’s crying foul! Shell, the lovable oil giant with a heart of, well, pure carbon, is now throwing a hissy fit because gasp Russia did something shady. After Vladimir Putin decided to invade Ukraine (as one does), Shell bolted from its Russian investments like a thief in the night. Now, the Kremlin is coming after them for a cool €1 billion, and Shell, bless its greedy little heart, just can’t believe this is happening.
Here’s the scoop: Shell had a 27.5% stake in the Sakhalin-2 oil and gas field, a cozy arrangement with Gazprom (Russia’s state-owned gas company) and a couple of Japanese firms like Mitsui and Mitsubishi. But after Russia basically swiped the joint venture and handed it over to a homegrown entity, Shell decided it wasn’t playing along. Did they think Putin would care? Of course not! Russia casually sold off Shell’s stake—because why not—passing it to Novatek and Gazprom.
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
This is not a Shell website. The nature of this platform should be evident from the content presented here and on our related Shell-focused websites, including shellnazihistory.com. For more details, please refer to the Disclaimer link at the top of this page. Shell does not endorse or approve of this website.
Our platform operates as a non-commercial, advert-free, and subscription-free space. We do not solicit or accept donations and aim to provide information to our readers free of charge. The Shell logo image with white text used on this website is in the public domain due to expired copyright and anonymous authorship. It can be found on WIKIMEDIA COMMONS. Use this link for Shell’s own website.
Our content, including images and features like the Sheldon chatbot, incorporates information generated by Artificial Intelligence (AI) and various other technological means. We may also draw from sources such as Wikipedia and other published materials. Please note that some content may include satirical adaptations or elements of gossip, rumors, or exaggeration to engage and entertain our audience.
We strive to maintain factual accuracy and encourage readers to notify us promptly if any factual inaccuracies are found, so we can address and rectify them swiftly. Readers are advised to verify all information independently for accuracy and completeness. Any actions taken based on the content provided on our platform are at your own risk.
