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Leaked Shell Emails

Irina Woodhead: The Whistleblower Shell Couldn’t Silence

Apr 3rd, 2025
by admin.
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Shell Games: Oil Slicks, Exploding Death Boats, and the Whistleblower They’d Rather You Forget

Here we go again. Shell—the ethical oil behemoth that brought you climate chaos, fiery floating gas factories, and ocean-wide slicks the size of small countries—is under fire once more. And what do you know? It’s not just a fluke or a rogue pipe. It’s a pattern. A very expensive, very dangerous, and very preventable pattern of catastrophic negligence—and the people trying to stop it keep getting burned. Literally and professionally.

The Bonga Spill: “Oops” Doesn’t Quite Cover It

Let’s rewind to December 2011. Off the coast of Nigeria, Shell’s pride and joy, the Bonga FPSO (Floating Production Storage and Offloading vessel), decided it was time to vomit 40,000 barrels of crude oil into the Atlantic. Over 685 square miles of shimmering disaster followed, making it one of Nigeria’s worst spills in a decade. Shell took hours to stop the leak after their crew noticed that more oil was disappearing than arriving. Genius. read more

This website and sisters royaldutchshellgroup.com, shellnazihistory.com, royaldutchshell.website, johndonovan.website, shellnews.net, and shellwikipedia.com, are owned by John Donovan. There is also a Wikipedia segment.

How the UK Government Bent Over Backwards for the World’s Favorite Polluter (Shell)

Nov 26th, 2024
by John Donovan.
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Posted by John Donovan: 26 Nov 2024

What happens when a corporate giant that’s been gleefully torching the planet decides to pack its bags and shack up in London? Apparently, a cozy, taxpayer-funded welcome party. Yes, you read that right: Shell, the literal embodiment of climate denial wrapped in PR spin, didn’t just waltz into the UK—it was stage-managed there by a government that treated it like royalty. A cache of emails now reveals the jaw-dropping lengths officials went to in order to kiss Shell’s, uh, fossil-fueled feet. Let’s dive in. read more

This website and sisters royaldutchshellgroup.com, shellnazihistory.com, royaldutchshell.website, johndonovan.website, shellnews.net, and shellwikipedia.com, are owned by John Donovan. There is also a Wikipedia segment.

Shell’s Secret Spy Saga: Like a Bad Spy Movie, But With More Oil and Less Charm

Dec 22nd, 2023
by John Donovan.
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Posted 22 December 2023

Oh, the irony! Shell, the ever-so-discreet and not-at-all-nefarious oil giant has been doing its darnedest to keep a lid on some rather unflattering information. But, like a leaky old barrel of their finest crude, the details just keep seeping out, much to their chagrin and our amusement.

Enter the protagonist of our story, John Donovan, and his website royaldutchshellplc.com – Shell’s least favorite bookmark. Despite Shell’s best efforts, Donovan has been quite the busy bee, collecting a swarm of Shell-related secrets. The list of names he’s disclosed reads like a who’s who of corporate espionage, featuring the likes of James J.D. Hall (Shell’s very own top spy), Crockett Oaks III, Mike Oliveri, and Walied Shater. It’s like a spy convention, but with fewer martinis. read more

This website and sisters royaldutchshellgroup.com, shellnazihistory.com, royaldutchshell.website, johndonovan.website, shellnews.net, and shellwikipedia.com, are owned by John Donovan. There is also a Wikipedia segment.

OPL 245: New Leaked Emails

Nov 28th, 2018
by John Donovan.
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NEW YORK NOV 26, 2018

Once the Zabazaba and Etan Integrated Development Project comes on stream in 2020, Nigeria will lose out on 30 per cent of all revenues from crude oil sales made from the field. This is thanks to the resolution agreement on the ownership of Oil Prospecting Licence (OPL) 245 proposed by oil giants Royal Dutch Shell and Eni S.p.A. in 2010 and signed by the Goodluck Jonathan administration.

According to industry experts, the #0percent revenue loss will be $4.5billion at the minimum, and could be up to $5.8billion.   read more

This website and sisters royaldutchshellgroup.com, shellnazihistory.com, royaldutchshell.website, johndonovan.website, shellnews.net, and shellwikipedia.com, are owned by John Donovan. There is also a Wikipedia segment.

Shell playing with fire in Russia

Oct 26th, 2018
by John Donovan.
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By John Donovan

Shell is a major investor in Putin’s Russia, which uses revenues from hydrocarbon sales to finance illegal and immoral wars against Ukraine and Syria. Not to mention the murder of Russian and UK citizens using outlawed radioactive and chemical weapons.

Shell’s main business partner in Russia is Gazprom, whose board is filled with former KGB and other questionable characters.

Shell is partnering with Gazprom on Sakhalin 2, the Nordstream II pipeline and the Baltic LNG project. read more

This website and sisters royaldutchshellgroup.com, shellnazihistory.com, royaldutchshell.website, johndonovan.website, shellnews.net, and shellwikipedia.com, are owned by John Donovan. There is also a Wikipedia segment.

Shell and Eni face one of the biggest corruption cases in corporate history over $1.3bn Nigerian oil field

Sep 17th, 2018
by John Donovan.
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Time running out for prosecutors to obtain potentially crucial documents seized in Geneva apartment raid

Ben Chapman: @b_c_chapman

Giant oil companies, offshore accounts, ex-MI6 agents, champagne lunches, a former Nigerian president and allegations of one of the biggest bribes ever paid – the corruption case against Shell and Italy’s Eni filed by prosecutors in Milan over a shady $1.3bn deal for a vast African oil field has could have been lifted from the pages of an espionage thriller.

The latest developments thicken the plot further with a cache of documents seized in a raid on a Swiss financier’s apartment that could be crucial to the case, leaving prosecutors in a race against time to get them to Milan as trial hearings get underway this week.

The Geneva raid uncovered a briefcase belonging to Emeka Obi, a middleman who received millions of dollars from the deal and is in the dock along with several senior Shell and Eni executives.

Inside the briefcase, Swiss prosecutors found a laptop, two Nigerian passports, five sim cards and a hard drive containing 41,000 documents that prosecutors believe could be crucial to the trial playing out on the other side of the Alps. read more

This website and sisters royaldutchshellgroup.com, shellnazihistory.com, royaldutchshell.website, johndonovan.website, shellnews.net, and shellwikipedia.com, are owned by John Donovan. There is also a Wikipedia segment.

Leaked Emails Reveal Shell’s Lies In 2012 About OPL 245

Sep 11th, 2018
by John Donovan.
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In evidence to the Committee, Shell stated that neither Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) nor Royal Dutch Shell (RDS) “is or was at any point in the past involved in OPL 245”. But a cache of leaked internal Shell emails tells a very different story. Far from being “uninvolved”, RDS — the London-registered company at the pinnacle of the Shell group — appears to have the controlling mind behind the important decisions relating to Shell’s involvement in OPL 245.

BY SAHARAREPORTERS, NEW YORK, SEP 11, 2018

Anti-corruption groups are calling for an urgent inquiry into what would appear to be highly misleading statements made by Shell in evidence to an investigation by the 2012 Ad Hoc Committee of the House of Representatives into the corrupt OPL 245 oil bloc deal.

In evidence to the Committee, Shell stated that that neither Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) nor Royal Dutch Shell (RDS) “is or was at any point in the past involved in OPL 245”.

But a cache of leaked internal Shell emails tells a very different story. Far from being “uninvolved”, RDS — the London-registered company at the pinnacle of the Shell group — appears to have the controlling mind behind the important decisions relating to Shell’s involvement in OPL 245. read more

This website and sisters royaldutchshellgroup.com, shellnazihistory.com, royaldutchshell.website, johndonovan.website, shellnews.net, and shellwikipedia.com, are owned by John Donovan. There is also a Wikipedia segment.

Shell Insider Information Leaks to John Donovan

Aug 4th, 2018
by John Donovan.
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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. read more

This website and sisters royaldutchshellgroup.com, shellnazihistory.com, royaldutchshell.website, johndonovan.website, shellnews.net, and shellwikipedia.com, are owned by John Donovan. There is also a Wikipedia segment.

The Disappearing $1.1 Billion Behind Shell, Eni Trial: QuickTake

Mar 5th, 2018
by John Donovan.
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Royal Dutch Shell Plc and Eni SpA are going to trial in Italy over bribery charges involving an oil field in Nigeria. Two things are unusual about the case. One is the sheer scale of the sum involved — $1.1 billion. The other is that the defendants include Eni’s Chief Executive Officer Claudio Descalzi, the company’s former CEO and a former top executive at Shell. The trial begins Monday in Milan.

1. What was the $1.1 billion for?

It was paid by the companies to the Nigerian government in 2011 for a license to drill in deep waters off the Nigerian coast. The license had been in dispute for years. It had originally been awarded in 1998 by the country’s military dictator, Sani Abacha, to Malabu Oil and Gas Ltd., a Lagos-based company connected to then-Petroleum Minister Dan Etete. Under successive governments, the license was canceled, awarded to Shell, and then awarded to Malabu again before the 2011 deal. Shell and Eni also paid the government about $200 million as a signature bonus — a onetime fee charged by some oil-producing nations. read more

This website and sisters royaldutchshellgroup.com, shellnazihistory.com, royaldutchshell.website, johndonovan.website, shellnews.net, and shellwikipedia.com, are owned by John Donovan. There is also a Wikipedia segment.

OPL 245: Shell Den Haag HQ was raided by 60 investigators

Jan 3rd, 2018
by John Donovan.
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Snippets from an article originally published by Dutch magazine Vrij Nederland on 9 November 2017. Translated from Dutch to English by Iefke Prins.

Clearly, Shell has played a crucial role in criminal activities; ‘the most important decisions were made at the headquarters in Den Haag’; Top management at Shell looked the other way and did not want any contact with Etete’; In the early morning of 17 February 2016, thirty tax authority investigators together with thirty Italian colleagues raided the Shell headquarters at the request of the Italian prosecutor. In the directors’ offices, 1800 pages of documents and e-mails were seized.; According to the e-mails, Shell was very much aware that Etete was corrupt.; On the day of the raid on Shell’s offices, the company’s CEO Ben van Beurden’s phone was wiretapped by Dutch police. In a leaked conversation with CFO Simon Henry, he mentioned ‘unhelpful e-mails’ from Copleston, who speculated ‘who would get paid what’. Van Beurden chalked up the conversations as ‘pub talk’, which he called ‘foolish’. He also decided that it would be better if the raid would not be reported to shareholders.; He instructed CFO Henry to ‘not voluntarily say anything other than what’s being asked’ to the authorities.; Shell’s behavior is all the more striking because the company was already under enhanced control by US authorities because of another Nigerian corruption case.

FULL ARTICLE BELOW

Bags filled with Naira’s were divided amongst politicians. Photo: Shuttershock.

A scheme to purchase an oil field from a corrupt Nigerian former minister of oil was devised and approved at Royal Shell’s headquarters in The Hague. The complete file landed on journalist Harm Ede Botje’s desk. A reconstruction.

A raid on Shell’s headquarters, two former UK Secret Service MI6 agents negotiating with a corrupt Nigerian former minister of oil affairs on behalf of Shell, a former Russian ambassador intermediary in talks with the FBI, a fugitive Nigerian ex-Minister of Justice, millions of dollars in kickbacks for employees of the Italian oil company Eni, bags of Nigerian Nairas being divided among politicians and businessmen. They seem the right ingredients for a riveting thriller, but these events actually happened. read more

This website and sisters royaldutchshellgroup.com, shellnazihistory.com, royaldutchshell.website, johndonovan.website, shellnews.net, and shellwikipedia.com, are owned by John Donovan. There is also a Wikipedia segment.

Shell and top managers are being prosecuted

Dec 22nd, 2017
by John Donovan.
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The Dutch Public Prosecution Service is also investigating whether Shell and four (former) directors, including the current chairman of the board, Ben van Beurden, will be prosecuted for this corruption case. According to Professor of Business Ethics Wim Dubbink, the argument that corruption is inevitable in some countries is “morally and legally an invalid argument”.

Translated from an article published in Dutch language on 21 Dec 2017 by nrc.nl

Corruption

The lawsuit in Milan is about paying over one billion euros for a Nigerian oilfield by Shell and the Italian Eni.

  • Hester van Santen
  • Erik van der Walle
21 December 2017

Justice in Italy took a historic decision on Wednesday. Never before have a company with the size of Shell and such senior managers been sued by corruption. In addition to Shell, the Italian oil company Eni is being prosecuted for bribery in the purchase of an oil field in Nigeria six years ago.

Also (former) top executives of Eni and Shell are prosecuted in the case, including the current CEO of the Italian oil company Eni, Claudio Descalzi. Four former employees of Shell are also suspects, including former British board member Malcolm Brinded. read more

This website and sisters royaldutchshellgroup.com, shellnazihistory.com, royaldutchshell.website, johndonovan.website, shellnews.net, and shellwikipedia.com, are owned by John Donovan. There is also a Wikipedia segment.

How Royal Dutch Shell/ENI Cheated Nigeria: Shell Emails Reveal Malabu’s OPL 245 Was Awarded For One-third of Company Estimates

Dec 5th, 2017
by John Donovan.
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Shell and Eni’s acquisition of Nigeria’s infamous OPL 245 oil block in Nigeria is now mired in an international corruption investigation that has spread to the United States, sources say, with a huge leak of documents of the companies revealing the deal was a financial disaster for the people of Nigeria from the beginning.  They also indicate that some of the money ended up in the hands of top politicians that include former President Goodluck Jonathan.  

BY SAHARA REPORTERS, NEW YORK DEC 04, 2017

Shell and Eni’s acquisition of Nigeria’s infamous OPL 245 oil block in Nigeria is now mired in an international corruption investigation that has spread to the United States, sources say, with a huge leak of documents of the companies revealing the deal was a financial disaster for the people of Nigeria from the beginning.

They also indicate that some of the money ended up in the hands of top politicians that include former President Goodluck Jonathan.

The companies, and several of their senior managers in Nigeria and Italy are already facing charges. read more

This website and sisters royaldutchshellgroup.com, shellnazihistory.com, royaldutchshell.website, johndonovan.website, shellnews.net, and shellwikipedia.com, are owned by John Donovan. There is also a Wikipedia segment.

RESTRICTED: Not to be circulated outside Shell

Nov 13th, 2017
by John Donovan.
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EMAIL SENT BY JOHN DONOVAN TO SHELL 13 NOVEMBER 2017

From: John Donovan <john@shellnews.net>
Subject: LEAKED ICO QUARTERLY COMPETITIVE REVIEW: Q3 2017
Date: 13 November 2017 at 12:43:37 GMT
To: Elizabeth.asselin@shell.com
Cc: “ben.vanbeurden@shell.com” <ben.vanbeurden@shell.com>

Hello Ms Asselin

I am in possession of a leaked 19 page document published by Shell yesterday 12 November 2017 entitled ICO QUARTERLY COMPETITIVE REVIEW: Q3 2017.

I note that it bears the warning:
“RESTRICTED: Not to be circulated outside Shell.

Your name appears as the lead contact. read more

This website and sisters royaldutchshellgroup.com, shellnazihistory.com, royaldutchshell.website, johndonovan.website, shellnews.net, and shellwikipedia.com, are owned by John Donovan. There is also a Wikipedia segment.

John Donovan 2017, still Shell’s nightmare

Aug 19th, 2017
by John Donovan.
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John Donovan in 2009. On its website, this former adman has posted more than 25,000 items on oil giant Shell. Reuters

My website royaldutchshellplc.com has been described by the FT as an open wound for Shell. That remains the case five years after the article extracts featured above and below. We still publish and feed to the mainstream media information leaked to us by Shell insiders. Most recently, an 88 page consultative document containing nothing less than Shell’s Global Transformation plans. We also regularly publish legal documents involving Shell that would otherwise be hidden was from preying eyes behind a paywall. read more

This website and sisters royaldutchshellgroup.com, shellnazihistory.com, royaldutchshell.website, johndonovan.website, shellnews.net, and shellwikipedia.com, are owned by John Donovan. There is also a Wikipedia segment.

Role of a hapless Ann Pickard in OPL 245

Jun 13th, 2017
by John Donovan.
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By John Donovan

During the period that Shell was conniving in setting up the OPL 245 deal, the company had a vice-like grip on the oil wealth of Nigeria and more power than the Nigerian government. This information comes from an analysis of leaked secret US embassy cables.

Ann Pickard, a then senior Shell executive, was directly involved in the OPL 245 deal, and the primary indiscreet source of the secret information.

Extracts below from various publications provide evidence of her role in OPL 245. They are followed by astonishing related extracts from a Guardian newspaper article about the leaked classified cables. read more

This website and sisters royaldutchshellgroup.com, shellnazihistory.com, royaldutchshell.website, johndonovan.website, shellnews.net, and shellwikipedia.com, are owned by John Donovan. There is also a Wikipedia segment.

How Shell, Eni Got Enmeshed in $1 Billion Scandal

May 9th, 2017
by John Donovan.
1 comment

Royal Dutch Shell Plc and Eni SpA have become entangled in a $1.1 billion bribery scandal involving a field in Nigeria that could potentially hold enough crude to meet three months of the world’s demand. At least three countries are probing the companies, and Italian prosecutors have named Eni’s Chief Executive Officer Claudio Descalzi and Shell’s former head of exploration and production, Malcolm Brinded, among people who could be prosecuted. Nigeria’s anti-graft agency also filed charges against the companies in March. read more

This website and sisters royaldutchshellgroup.com, shellnazihistory.com, royaldutchshell.website, johndonovan.website, shellnews.net, and shellwikipedia.com, are owned by John Donovan. There is also a Wikipedia segment.
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