John Donovan prompt: Please provide an update on the John Donovan Shell Feud as of 1st August 2026.
Oil Price Fixing
Risk Factors: A Helpful Guide to Everything That Might Go Wrong (Except the Business Model)

Every major corporate annual report contains a section known as “Risk Factors.”
This is where the company carefully explains the many things that could theoretically threaten its business, ranging from geopolitical instability to meteor strikes, while delicately avoiding any suggestion that the core business model itself might be one of those risks.
Shell’s Annual Report is no exception.
Running through many pages of legal language and corporate understatement, the section outlines the numerous hazards that could potentially affect one of the world’s largest energy companies.
Shell in Nigeria: Environmental Legacy, Legal Battles, and John Donovan’s Documented Critiques
copilot.microsoft.com answers, in its own words, the question: Who is John Donovan linked to Shell? (Initial Question)
09 November 2025
John Donovan is a long-time critic and activist who has waged a decades-long campaign against Royal Dutch Shell, exposing alleged corporate misconduct and ethical failures.
Here’s a deeper look at his connection to Shell:
🧑💼 Background and Role
- Founder of Don Marketing: Donovan ran a promotional marketing company that worked with Shell in the 1980s and 1990s. Disputes over intellectual property and contract issues led to a bitter fallout.
- Shell Corporate Conscience Pressure Group: He co-founded this group to hold Shell accountable for its business practices. It was later dissolved following a confidential agreement with Shell.
📣 Activism and Campaigns
- and Related Sites: Donovan operates several websites—including and shellnazihistory.com—dedicated to publishing internal Shell documents, whistleblower accounts, and investigative reports.
- Publications: He authored “John Donovan, Shell’s Nightmare”, detailing his feud with Shell and accusing the company of unethical behavior, including theft of intellectual property.
📰 Media Recognition
- Widely Quoted Expert: Donovan has been cited by major outlets like The New York Times, Financial Times, Reuters, and The Guardian for his insights into Shell’s internal affairs.
🔍 Notable Themes in His Work
- Corporate Ethics: He frequently highlights Shell’s alleged failures to uphold its own business principles.
- Historical Investigations: His work includes controversial claims about Shell’s historical ties, including Nazi affiliations through figures like Sir Henri Deterding
🕵️♂️ Key Themes in Donovan’s Historical Investigations
- Shell’s Alleged Nazi Connections: Donovan has published extensive material alleging that Shell, under the leadership of Sir Henri Deterding, had ties to Nazi Germany in the 1930s. He claims Deterding admired Hitler and facilitated oil deals that supported the Nazi regime. These claims are detailed on his site , which includes archival documents and commentary.
- Sir Henri Deterding’s Role:
- Deterding was a powerful figure in Shell’s early history, serving as its chairman.
- Donovan argues that Deterding’s political sympathies and business dealings aligned with fascist interests, including support for anti-Bolshevik movements and German rearmament.
- Donovan has highlighted Shell’s operations in Nigeria and other regions, focusing on environmental degradation, human rights abuses, and complicity in political unrest.
- He often references Shell’s involvement in the Niger Delta and the execution of activist Ken Saro-Wiwa as emblematic of corporate negligence and exploitation.
- Donovan has published confidential Shell communications, whistleblower reports, and internal memos to support his claims.
- These documents often reveal internal debates about ethics, legal risks, and public relations strategies.
- He argues that Shell’s stated commitment to transparency and human rights is contradicted by its historical and ongoing actions.
- His work aims to hold Shell accountable for what he sees as a pattern of hypocrisy and moral failure.
📚 Publications and Online Archives
- Donovan’s websites serve as living archives, with thousands of pages of documents, commentary, and historical analysis.
- His work is not peer-reviewed but has attracted attention from journalists, academics, and activists.
Overview of Shell’s operations in Nigeria and John Donovan’s coverage
John Donovan has long documented and criticised Shell’s nearly century-long presence in Nigeria, focusing on oil spills, environmental damage, human rights abuses, corporate practices, and what he frames as a self-interested exit from onshore operations. His work combines archival documents, leaked internal material, commentary, and news-style posts hosted on sites he runs and manages.
Shell Celebrates Sky-High Profits While the World Burns
Greenpeace Demands Climate Accountability: Shell seems unfazed, pouring billions into the pockets of shareholders while the world burns.
POSTED BY JOHN DONOVAN JULY 22, 2023
Shell, the unapologetic polluting behemoth, is set to announce yet another round of astronomical profits, thanks to its reckless exploitation of oil and gas. With profits soaring to billions, Shell’s CEO, Wael Sawan, shamelessly dismisses environmental concerns and slashes green targets. Meanwhile, the world experiences catastrophic climate events, from scorching heatwaves to devastating floods. Greenpeace demands that Shell takes responsibility for the climate havoc it has caused and pays into the Loss and Damage fund, rather than pouring billions into shareholders’ pockets.
Windfall Tax on Oil Giants BP & Shell?
Mirror.co.uk
Oil giants’ profits for three months would be enough to give every household £450
Analysis by shadow Climate Change Secretary Ed Miliband shows that Shell and BP made combined profits of £12.37billion in the first quarter of 2022.
By Mikey Smith: Whitehall Correspondent: !4 May 2022Profits made by oil giants in the first three months of this year were enough to give every household £450 towards soaring energy bills.
Analysis by shadow Climate Change Secretary Ed Miliband shows that Shell and BP made combined profits of £12.37billion in the first quarter of 2022.
Bloomberg Law: BP, Shell Crude Manipulation Case Likely Headed to High Court

Bloomberg Law: Jan. 13, 2020, 4:58 PM
The commodities traders who unsuccessfully alleged North Sea crude oil market rigging by BP PLC, Royal Dutch Shell PLC, and other top energy companies signaled they’ll likely take the case to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The traders have until March 13 to file their high court petition, according to papers filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, which rejected their claimsin August and their rehearing bid in October.
The lawsuit accused the companies of manipulating the Dated Brent Assessment, a daily index that affects overseas prices for North Sea crude oil, also called…
Reuters Royal Dutch Shell News: 31 July 2018

Shell, Petrobras units probed for Brazil price-fixing
RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) – Brazil’s three largest fuel distribution companies are under investigation for fixing prices at the pump, police said on Tuesday…
Shell to make final investment call on Nigeria oilfield in 2019: official
The Secret Behind Better Oil Major Earnings

By Gregory Brew – Aug 02, 2017, 6:00 PM CDT
After several years of austerity and belt-tightening, the major international oil companies posted substantial profits in Q2 of 2017. The five largest private oil companies together generated more than $30 billion in profit, an indication that most have successfully adapted to the current bout of low prices, while a few have publicly indicated their belief that prices will hover around $50 for the foreseeable future.
What this means is that the “mega projects” that dominated many companies’ balance sheets for the last decade will become increasingly rare, as the majors pivot towards short-term, low-risk ventures with a faster turnaround.
Shell Executive Director Who Stole Nigeria’s Oil Money
By John Donovan
Nigerian Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke is back in the news. She must have Shell oil running through her veins.
Both of her parents worked for Shell. She joined Shell and went to the top becoming an executive director of Shell in Nigeria. She was subsequently appointed Nigerian Minister of Petroleum Resources in March 2010 by the corrupt Nigerian president Goodluck Jonathan, later implicated with Shell in the OPL 245 scandal.
Her elevation continued. She became the first female president of the OPEC – the oil price fixing cartel.
BP and Shell profits under renewed pressure as oil price hits 2017 low
Shell News Update Friday 9 June 2017
Shell: step up building huge North Sea offshore wind farms: DutchNews.nl: 9 June 2017
Wind energy not only has the potential to develop into the most important sustainable energy source, but it is also the cheapest means of generating power, according to Mark Gainsborough, head of Royal Dutch/Shell’s new energy division.
Energy Cos. Dodge Oil Price Manipulation Suits: LAW360: 8 June 2017
A New York federal judge on Thursday nixed multidistrict litigation complaints by derivatives traders and landowners alleging a slew of energy companies manipulated the price of North Sea Brent crude oil and Brent crude futures, saying they haven’t sufficiently linked the activity to any alleged economic harm they suffered.
SHELL NEWS UPDATE 30 MARCH 2017
Trump’s climate change executive order won’t change coal’s fortunes, Shell chair says: CNBC
EXTRACT: President Donald Trump‘s effort to roll back Obama-era climate change policies will not do much to improve demand for coal at America’s power plants, Royal Dutch Shell Chairman Chad Holliday said Thursday.
FT: Shell’s top oil trader defends North Sea Brent activity: Seeking Alpha
EXTRACT: Royal Dutch Shell’s (RDS.A, RDS.B) VP of crude oil trading is out with a strong defense against accusations that the company’s activity in the North S
ea crude market has skewed the benchmark Brent contract that underpins global oil prices.
Big Oil Vows to Keep Dividends Up as Prices Falter: Bloomberg.com
EXTRACT: “BP and Royal Dutch Shell have unsustainable dividends,” Neil Woodford, head of investment at Woodford Investment Management Ltd. who manages about $20 billion, wrote in a blog.
Oil prices shed early gains amid doubts over OPEC output cut



By Jane Chung and Keith Wallis | SEOUL/SINGAPORE
Oil prices erased early gains to trade almost flat in Asian session on Thursday on mixed U.S. crude stocks data and doubts over OPEC’s implementation of an output cut, although a weaker dollar aided sentiment.
International Brent crude futures were trading up 2 cents at $53.02 a barrel at 0807 GMT. Prices fell to $52.81 a barrel earlier in the session.
U.S. benchmark West Texas Intermediate crude was up 3 cents at $49.80 a barrel after dropping to $49.61 earlier.
By The Motley Fool Dec 5, 2016
Today I’m looking at the critical reasons to sell out of Royal Dutch Shell (LSE: RDSB).
A drop in the ocean
The oil sector’s major players breathed a huge sigh of relief last week after OPEC — responsible for four-tenths of the world’s oil supply — confounded the expectations of many and agreed to cut its output.
Saudi Arabia brokered a deal that will see production fall by 1.2m barrels per day, to 32.5m barrels beginning in January. The news prompted Brent oil to top the $55 per barrel marker for the first time since the summer of 2016.
Opec bends the markets
By Ed Crooks, December 2, 2016
In 451 CE, the great Roman general Flavius Aetius rallied a motley army of imperial troops and barbarian allies, and halted the advance of Attila’s Huns at the Catalaunian Plains in Gaul, buying the empire some time and temporarily interrupting its long-term decline. This week’s Opec meeting in Vienna had something of the same feel about it.
Opec’s power peaked in the 1970s, and the US shale oil revolution of the past half-decade has threatened to consign the cartel’s influence to history. But by agreeing a deal to cut production on Wednesday, the Opec ministers showed that if they all acted together they could still bend the oil markets to their will, at least for a while.
Exclusive: Saudis threaten to raise oil output again as sparring with Iran returns
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By Rania El Gamal and Alex Lawler | DUBAI/LONDON
Old disputes between Saudi Arabia and rival Iran resurfaced at a meeting of OPEC experts last week, with Riyadh threatening to raise oil output steeply to bring prices down if Tehran refuses to limit its supply, OPEC sources say.
Clashes between the two OPEC heavyweights, which are fighting proxy wars in Syria and Yemen, have become frequent in recent years.
Tensions subsided, however, in recent months after Saudi Arabia agreed to support a global oil supply limiting pact, thus raising the prospect that OPEC would take steps to boost oil prices.



























