News and information on Royal Dutch Shell Plc
By John Donovan
In the recent article (below”) about the OPL 245 corruption scandal, published under the translated headline “Eni-Nigeria trial, Prosecutor requests 8 Years sentence for Descalzi,” reference is made to “an axis of spies that runs through this story.”
It mentions the involvement of Shell’s MI6 hires responsible for generating the incriminating emails found in the raid and search of Shell’s HQ that has done so much damage to Shell’s reputation.
Translation of an article published overnight by the Dutch media organisation nrc.nl
High prison sentences demanded against former Shell employees
Lawsuit In a criminal case for alleged corruption by Shell and Eni when purchasing a Nigerian oil field, the Public Prosecution Service demands high penalties.
Merijn Rengers and Carola Houtekamer: July 21, 2020 at 22:22
The Italian Public Prosecution Service demanded unprecedented high prison sentences in Milan on Tuesday against four former Shell directors and employees for large-scale corruption. The prosecution charges it to a former member of the board of directors, a director and two advisers who participated in bribery in Nigeria. The amount of the kickback, more than $ 1 billion, makes this one of the largest corruption affairs a Dutch company has ever been involved in.
Translation of an article published overnight by the Dutch news media organisation, nrc.nl
Of course, Shell knew about the corruption risk, the prosecutor said
Lawsuit over oil field In a dim Milanese bunker, Tuesday was worked towards the denouement in the corruption case against oil companies Shell and Eni. Prosecutor Fabio De Pasquale calls it “the perfect economic crime.”
Carola Houtekamer: July 21, 2020
The lawsuit revolves around the acquisition of rights to the oil field “OPL 245”, for which Shell and Eni paid $ 1.3 billion. Photo George Osodi / Getty
Nigeria: Malabu Scandal – Activists Kick As Italy Appoints Accused Official As ENI CEO21 April 2020
The Italian government has re-nominated Claudio Descalzi as Chief Executive Officer of Eni, Italy’s largest multinational company and the country’s largest foreign oil producer in Africa.
Mr Descalzi is set to maintain the leadership role despite an ongoing criminal trial over corruption allegations surrounding the billion dollar 2011 acquisition by Shell and Eni of Nigeria’s OPL 245 oil license.
Italian prosecutors allege that the $1.1bn paid by Eni and their partner Shell for the OPL 245 licence was used to pay former Nigerian oil minister Dan Etete and was “intended for payment to a former Nigerian president, Goodluck Jonathan, members of the government, and other Nigerian public officials”.
In 2018, Italian prosecutors brought a criminal case over the alleged involvement of Shell, and the Italian oil multinational Eni, in a 1.3 billion US dollar bribery scheme linked to the license of OPL 245. This is the name of one of Nigeria’s most valuable offshore oil blocks.
Thirteen individuals, including some current and former senior managers of Shell and the Italian oil company Eni, are currently on trial in Italy relating to how the two companies acquired the block in 2011.80 The defendants include both companies, a former Royal Dutch Shell Executive Board Member and two former MI6 agents who worked for Shell.81
Oladeinde Olawoyin
The Nigerian government on Monday lost a bid to postpone a massive claim against oil giants, Eni and Shell, in a London court.
Royal Dutch Shell and Eni’s bid to block a $1.1 billion civil claim over corruption allegations in Nigeria will go ahead next month, Mark Pelling, a judge in a London court ruled on Monday.
The court ruled that it should not wait for a connected Italian ruling.
Nigeria wanted the April court date postponed until January 2021, when a connected criminal case in Milan will have concluded.
An Italian judge has ordered a controversial businessman, Aliyu Abubakar, to stand trial, for his role in the Malabu OPL 245 scandal.
Reuters reported Wednesday that the Milan prosecutors alleged that Mr Abubakar played a major role in one of the oil industry’s biggest scandal in years.
The controversial businessman, through his companies, received over half of the $1.1 billion paid by Shell and Eni for OPL 245. He also allegedly gave out more than $500 million in cash to powerful Nigerian government officials.
10 February 2020, 00:01 UTC
In 2020 Shell will face unprecedented legal scrutiny over decades of human rights abuses in Nigeria, Amnesty International said today, as the oil giant braces itself for conclusions in a string of European court battles. Allegations range from complicity in unlawful executions to systemic pollution and environmental damage in the Niger Delta.
(RELATED: Investigate Shell for complicity in murder, rape and torture)
Amnesty International has been researching Shell’s activities in the Niger Delta for more than 20 years, compiling compelling evidence of the company’s role in human rights abuses. In a report released today, the organization highlights the various cases that are finally putting Shell’s harmful operations in Nigeria on trial.
English translation of an article published by the Dutch news media giant nrc.nl
Former oil minister Dan Etete (r) was the owner of the oil field, but also infected after a conviction for money laundering. Photo Gindl Barbara / AFP
What’s the news?
The Italian prosecutor suspects that the former chief executive of Shell in Nigeria has benefited from the controversial purchase by Shell of the mega-oil field OPL 245 off the Nigerian coast. This is Sunmonu Mutiu, who led the Nigerian division of the Anglo-Dutch oil company.
Extracts from NIGERIA Africa Energy Intelligence article dated 07/01/2020As an Italian court continues its probe into the award of Nigeria’s most promising offshore block, all those involved in the deal at Shell are no longer with the major.
These include the head of upstream at the time Malcolm Brinded, former general counsel Keith Ruddock and legal advisor for Africa Guus Klusener.
Shell’s political advisor and ex-MI6 John Copleston, who met with Etete on several occasions to discuss the OPL 245 deal in 2010, has left…
Another former MI6 agent, Guy Colegate, who had advised Shell during the OPL 245 talks from Nigeria, left to work for Heritage Oil in 2013…
Hakluyt is known as a retirement home for ex-MI6 officers…
Hakluyt (now Holdingham Group Ltd) a private MI6 outfit, that met with …
Hakluyt, a UK-US corporate intelligence arm and offshoot to MI6
Created by former MI6 British Secret Service agents, Hakluyt is an ultra secretive firm whose client list reads like a who’s who of the business world…
The ensuing scandal catapulted Hakluyt to mainstream notoriety, and led several MPs to accuse MI6 of using the firm as a front for its own operations.
The screenshot Information about James W.D. Hall, Head of Royal Dutch Shell Global Corporate Security was downloaded on 11 June 2019 and assumed to be correct and current at that time. He is in charge of over 250 Shell security supervisory staff worldwide. Is he yet another Shell MI6 hire, as per his predecessor, Ian Forbes McCredie? The selection of authentic high-level Shell internal emails below provides some indication of the character and ethics of senior Shell executives and Shell’s hired spooks. More court exhibits will be added on a regular basis until further notice. 
U.S. Court Case 4:17-cv-01970Related article: Spectacular falling out of ‘Security Professionals’ at the top of Shell
Mr. Hall’s own e-mails and statements clearly prove that he violated Section 3.4 of Shell’s Code of Conduct, which states, in relevant part, that “[w]hen making employment decisions, including hiring, evaluation, promotion, training, development, discipline, compensation and termination, you must base them solely on objective factors, including merit, qualifications, performance and business considerations. . . . [Y]ou should understand the value of diversity and must not discriminate in any way based on race, colour, religion, age, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, disability, ethnic origin or nationality.”
It appears, according to court documents, at the request of ‘Royal Dutch Shell plc’ and four suspected former Shell employees who are mentioned by name and by name in the Italian summons. These are two former British secret agents, hired by Shell as oil men whose main task was to make the inscrutable Nigerian policy more transparent. And two senior Shell managers: former board member Malcolm Brinded and former Africa director Peter Robinson. The foursome is said to have been closely involved in preparing the bribes payments…: “He is a former head of the British secret service MI6, but really no more than a junior employee at Shell in Nigeria. By Merijn Rengers, Carola Wood Room, June 4, 2019
Room 7, where the largest corruption case in Dutch company history is fought, is bursting at the seams. It is warm and noisy and the available seats are already set aside early in the morning for at least 25 Italian lawyers, their crowd of assistants and prosecutors. The other listeners – Shell representatives, activists, interested parties – are forced to sit and sit in the back, or cage in two paying cells on either side of the courtroom where normally detained suspects await their verdict.
Esther Kiobel and John Donovan, 28 April 2019, days before a Dutch court ruled in favour of Esther and her co-plaintiffs in an action against Shell allowing their case to proceed
ARTICLE ENDS
Disclosure by the author of this article: The lead claimant Esther Kiobel, her lawyer Channa Samkalden of the Dutch human rights law firm Prakken d’Oliveira representing the widows, and the acclaimed human rights organisation Amnesty International, have all acknowledged the involvement of John Donovan in bringing *this case. (*See Writ of Summons in English and Dutch served on Shell 28 June 2017 – copy obtained from US Pacer public electronic court records) As Esther generously said on 28 April 2019, the Dutch case would not have happened without the help of John Donovan.
By John Donovan
Shell internal email communications obtained from Shell under the UK Data Protection Act 1998 provide proof of Shell’s intent to “kill” news coverage of John Donovan and his website, royaldutchshellplc.com.
Please read this Shell internal email about a half page news article written by then Sunday Times journalist Steven Swinford. It clearly indicates Shell’s intent to “kill” the article.
The article was about my intervention in the Sakhalin 2 project, which cost Shell its majority stake in the venture. Although the entire article was read to me over the phone by Steven Swinford hours before it was due to be published, it never appeared.
Shell’s CEO Ben van Beurden bows to Russian Leader Putin: Good Friday, 18 April 2014
Yesterday the Dutch newspaper Financieele Dagblad published a truly devastating article Shell gas leaks, fires and accidents about Shell playing fast and loose with the health and lives of its employees. Today there is mass coverage of the outrage over the £17m pay package awarded to Shell CEO Ben van Beurden. The revulsion also has to be seen against the damaging litigation engulfing the energy giant, including OPL 245 corruption charges and a related raid on Shell HQ involving BvB and his then CFO, Simon Henry. Both were embarrassed by a wiretapped conversation between them discussing obstructing the investigation and the revelation by BvB that Shell had hired hapless former MI6 “people” who had been cavalier with Shell’s OPL 245 secrets. Why is Shell rewarding such behaviour, which is completely at odds with Shell’s claimed business principles? 
Shell chief’s pay doubles to 143 times average UK employee’s
The chief executive of oil-company Shell saw his pay more than double last year to more than €20m (£17m). Ben van Beurden’s total salary in 2017, which was approximately €9m, prompted a shareholder revolt. The raise comes as the company increased its annual profits by almost $10bn and is largely down to long-term incentives kicking in. Dutchman Mr van Beurden’s pay is now 143 times larger than the average Shell employee in the UK.
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.
: More on Shell's proposed Upstream cost cutting. https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Shell-May-Cut-Upstream-Oil-Operations-By-40.amp.html
: Perhaps time to clear out the Brazil Asset? https://uk.mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSKCN26C0GI
: USA USA USA. BG Group was an Internet Cafe and Cappuccino Lifestyle company that could not get its ducks lined up in a row for the simple reason that it didn't know what a duck is. In consequence, its goose was cooked.
: @Bonus Group... Is it dirty... air and water emissions? health and safety conditions? government permissions? facilitating commissions? facility decommissions? corruption suspicions? sycophant ambitions? accounting omissions? that is all i have to say with respect to this petition... (please read it to the beat of Lizzo for the full effect...)
: 'Hiding behind NOVs for the dirty projects in Brazil and others.' Quote USA USA USA. For 'dirty projects in Brazil' read 'dirty tricks in Brazil'. This was the worst managed asset in BG Group, lurching from one lie to another and led by sociopaths. On the subject of dirty projects and hiding behind NOVs, BG Group's Western Delta Deep Marine (WDDM) gas fields in the Nile Delta used to produce 22,000+ BBL/Day of contaminated water which was tankered into the desert and dumped. How are Shell now disposing of that water now? It should be of interest to Greenpeace and to shareholders.
: It is very clear to most who understand how Shell operates, that it will try to be all things to all locations. We see it clearly in the greenwashing in the EU. The race for Arctic drilling, this time in Russia. Clean natural gas, like Prelude and Crux - only no one comments on the CO2 content of these fields that is vented into the atmosphere. Hiding behind NOVs for the dirty projects in Brazil and others. Hiding behind "contractors" and "suppliers" to avoid reporting fatal accidents on the books (like Pakistan / China / Singapore Nigeria / etc.) . It just one big PR exercise. the culture is make money at any cost... The petition is just more deception, any response will be simple lip service and highlighting how well the company listens to stake holders, while it continues to focus on just make money...
: petition. What a load of hot air and psycho-babble! You must have raised global temperatures by at least a couple of degrees through your post alone, not to mention the amount of Carbon Dioxide you have exhaled over your lifetime. But then because you are most likely Dutch, you think that just because Shell is listed as Royal Dutch Shell plc it is a Dutch company. Well it is not, it is a British Company listed on the UK Stock Exchange! Are you aware that Shell is not the oil and gas producing company on the planet contributing to carbon emissions? See: https://www.oilandgasiq.com/strategy-management-and-information/articles/oil-and-gas-companies Your faith in Shell as the sole company to lead the way in the development of Renewables is remarkable. On the one hand you criticise them for polluting the atmosphere through Carbon Dioxide emissions, but on the other hand you think that they should lead the way through energy transition at the expense of their shareholders and investors. The degree of ingratitude and hypocrisy expressed towards hydrocarbon producing companies such as Shell by so called Climate Change Activists, wearing synthetic fabrics, taking trains, planes and automobiles while living in centrally heated accommodation, is appalling. You do realise that without those companies you might not have survived birth, because your parents would have been living in a damp cave rubbing two sticks together while wearing animal skins? Like it or not hydrocarbons have enabled society to develop to where it is today and are a fundamental part of society. Hydrocarbons are not going away until they run out and they will become a lot more expensive before then. Regardless of whether or not you believe in Climate Change and man's contribution towards it, we all should be both seeking, and developing alternative forms of energy before the oil and gas run out and we return to living in caves. We should also be seeking to control all emissions and pollution, not just Carbon Dioxide. Those are the important points, not Climate Change. The Geological fossil record is littered with examples of past climate change. What next? Do we stop Continental Drift and Polar Wandering? Absurd.
: That’s the trouble with these climate fanatics, they produce so much hot air they themselves heat up the planet. So many words when far less will suffice - people start falling asleep “petition” and don’t bother reading any key points. Shell and others are trying to respond to the issue and are key to the debate and the future targets. It’s not just left wing loonies that will solve this problem. By the way “petition” it’s been bloody cold here in the UK recently and this summer has not been a good one - a little bit more warmth is welcome as far as I’m concerned.
: TO: Shell
Take real steps to ending climate change, and commit not to send lobbyists to the UN climate talks in Paris this year.
https://actions.sumofus.org/a/shell-dont-go-to-cop-paris
In a surprising turn of events, Shell's board of executives has officially endorsed a SumOfUs-backed resolution committing the company to take action against climate change.
We can't let Shell's stated commitment to fight climate change be mere greenwashing. If Shell's executives are really serious about tackling climate change, then they have to stop meddling with the climate talks. And with Shell responding to our pressure for the first time, we're in a real position to force them to act.
The UN negotiations are no place for fossil fuel lobbyists -- they are where global leaders, scientists and activists meet annually and decide on real climate action. Last year's talks in Peru collapsed in part because big polluters like Shell lobbied the UN climate committee and blocked resolutions simply because they affected their profit margins.
If Shell's executives are real about climate change then it should stop meddling with UN climate negotiations.
This shareholder resolution was partly brought by SumOfUs members who also hold shares in Shell. It commits Shell to reduce emissions, invest in renewable energy and remove bonus systems that promote climate-harming activities. This is an opportunity to pressure Shell to stop blocking real climate solutions and help save the planet.
That's why this is an opportunity to pressure Shell to do more. If we keep working, we can stop Shell from blocking real climate solutions and get the company out of official UN climate negotiations.
We need real climate change solutions, and we need them now. 2014 was the hottest year on record, there is already serious water scarcity in the Global South and by the end of the century the earth is expected to warm by 4 or 5 degrees. Each degree is another death sentence for animals, ecosystems and our survival.
Tell Shell to get serious about its climate commitment and stay out of the Paris talks!
Shell's letter to shareholders supporting special resolution on climate change, January 25th 2015.
TO: Shell
Take real steps to ending climate change, and commit not to send lobbyists to the UN climate talks in Paris this year.
Yes! Tell me if this campaign wins, and how I can help other relevant campaigns.
You can opt out of receiving our messages at any time. Just go to our unsubscribe page. By entering your details you confirm that you are 16 or older.
Fighting for people over profits
© 2019 SumOfUs, Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
: interesting but also for me very depressing. My sole concern re Prelude from the start was not that it technically would fail to adequately produce with an eventual return on huge capital invested, after all Shell has a well-deserved record of being technically ahead of the game re LNG process design, my concern was that in risk terms it was much more risky a project with regards to health and safety of employees than the overegged statements made during its early development by folks who were either incompetent to understand offshore installations residual risks or were purposefully misleading propagandists re the true risk levels. Anyway, perhaps your definition of the project as a White Elephant will bear out, It would be difficult to wager otherwise, but I still have a diminishing hope that it will live up to its potential, but when.............................?
: From an Operations view point this recent extended stoppage must represent a world record for the restart of a hydrocarbon producing facility of any type after a power failure. Details remain sparse as to the root cause of the total power outage. As this included the emergency power supplies from all sources begs the question were all these systems recovery interlocks "live tested". In my experience there is always a great deal of reluctance to initiate a live shut down test with all overrides or inhibits of certain sections being prohibited. This is the only way to ensure all the sequential safety systems function as design and will expose any flaws or unexpected issues to be highlighted.
: More on Prelude: https://www.boilingcold.com.au/inpex-slashes-value-of-prelude-lng-by-a-third/amp/
Comments RSS Feed