Thursday, September 20, 2018   19.36PM / By Global Witness 

Conviction in middlemen’s fast-tracked OPL 245 trial a poor omen for Shell and Eni’s defence just days before major bribery trial hears first prosecution witnesses.

Today two middlemen have been found guilty of corruption offences relating to Shell and Eni’s 2011 deal for one of Nigeria’s most promising oil licenses. The judgement was first reported by Reuters who cited a legal source.

The two middlemen Emeka Obi and Gianluca Di Nardo have been sentenced to four years jail time and confiscations of over €100 million. The pair had opted for a fast tracked trial for their role in the deal. The fast track process in Italian law offers a possible reduction in any sentence. A larger trial including Shell, Eni and 13 other defendants is ongoing. The prosecution will start presenting their evidence next Wednesday. read more

…this judgment will send shivers down the corporate spines of the oil industry – and will surely alarm Shell and Eni employees and shareholders who have been repeatedly told that there was nothing amiss with the OPL 245 deal.”

September 20, 2018: Samuel Ogundipe

A Nigerian man and his accomplice in Italy were on Thursday sentenced to four years each for their roles in the controversial Malabu oil deal, marking the first victory for Italian prosecutors in the complex corruption case.

The deal, struck in 2011 under President Goodluck Jonathan, saw the Nigerian government stand as a negotiator in the controversial sale of OPL 245 oil block in offshore Nigerian waters.

Two international oil and gas giants, Royal Dutch Shell and Italian Agip-Eni, paid out about $1.1 billion to Dan Etete, a former Nigerian petroleum minister who had previously been convicted of money laundering in France. read more

From: John Donovan <johndonovan
Subject: Justin Welby
Date: 20 September 2018 at 11:50:12 BST
To: [email protected]

Email sent to Prominent Members of the House of Lords 

SUBJECT: Justin Welby, Archbishop of Cant, with a touch of Frank Spencer

Justin Welby is in hot water again. He has criticised another controversial company, last time Wonga and this time the tax-shy Amazon. Both later embarrassingly revealed to be businesses in which the Church of England is an investor.  He is currently the main target of Rod Liddle in his outspoken Sunday Times column, described as the Archbishop of Cant, with a touch of Frank Spencer. 

BBC Newsnight aired a related package on Friday 14 Sept drawing attention to the subject and the Church of England’s numerous questionable investments. In particular, its holdings in BP and Shell, both described as being “toxic”. Bearing in mind the history set out below, particularly the Nazi aspect and the antisemitism, how could the Church of England invest in such a toxic business, as Shell?

Shell has targeted perceived enemies, such as Greenpeace and The Body Shop, with undercover activity using Hakluyt & Co, the commercial offshoot of MI6 set up partly by Shell and BP.   read more

September 20, 2018, 08:07:00 AM EDT By Reuters

MILAN, Sept 20 (Reuters) – A Milan court sentenced two defendants in a Nigeria corruption case to jail on Thursday in what is a first ruling on one of the oil industry’s biggest graft scandals.

Nigeria’s Emeka Obi and Italian Gianluca Di Nardo were both found guilty of international corruption and each given four-year jail sentences, two sources with knowledge of the ruling said.

Lawyers for Obi and Nardo were not available for immediate comment. read more

19 SEPTEMBER 2018: By Prince Okafor With Agency Report

An Italian court has concluded plans to deliver its first verdict on the trial of top Shell and Eni executives, over alleged corruption in the controversial Malabu scandal tomorrow in Milan, Italy.

The Italian prosecutors alleged that $1.1 billion from the deal didn’t come into Nigeria where the oil field OPL 245 is located, but to accounts belonging to former Minister of Petroleum, Mr. Dan Etete.

The Italian judge, it was learnt will decide, for the first time, whether $1.1 billion of the sum paid was siphoned in bribes to win the license to the field. read more

MILAN, Sept 18 (Reuters) – Oil majors Shell and Eni will be carefully monitoring a first ruling this week by a Milan judge in one of the energy industry’s biggest corruption scandals for clues to what might be round the corner for them.

The two companies are embroiled in a long-running graft case revolving around the purchase in 2011 of one of Africa’s biggest oilfields – Nigeria’s OPL 245 – for about $1.3 billion.

The case, which involves Eni CEO Claudio Descalzi and four former Shell managers including one-time Shell Foundation Chairman Malcolm Brinded, has spawned legal cases spanning several countries and is expected to drag on for months. read more

The trial starts this week, with defendants that include former Shell Vice President for sub-Saharan Africa Peter Robinson, and former company board member Malcolm Brinded.

LONDON—Senior executives from oil giants Royal Dutch Shell and Eni are facing corruption charges in Milan over a $1.3 billion deal for a huge African oil field.

Italian prosecutors allege that $1.1 billion from the deal didn’t go to Nigeria, where the oil field OPL 245 is located, but to accounts belonging to former oil lawmaker Dan Etete. Etete is accused of subsequently distributing hundreds of millions of dollars to others as bribes, including to former Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan. read more

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

Article published by The New York Times 16 Sept 2018

OIL INDUSTRY

Corruption trial of major oil companies resumes.

On Tuesday, the trial of two large oil companies, Royal Dutch Shell and Italy’s Eni, is expected to resume at a court in Milan after a summer break. The first session would most likely be devoted to procedural issues, but prosecutors are expected to lay out their case in the weeks ahead. Prosecutors are charging the companies with corruption over a deal for an offshore oil exploration tract off Nigeria. Both companies have denied wrongdoing. read more

The Canadian Press: Hina Alam: September 13, 2018: 4:23 PM EDT: Last Updated September 13, 2018. 7:32 PM EDTVANCOUVER — Shell Canada Ltd. has given up its offshore exploration rights, clearing the way for the creation of Canada’s first protected marine area under the Canada Wildlife Act. The company voluntarily released permits for about 50,000 square kilometres in an area off British Columbia’s coast to allow for the creation of the Scott Islands marine National Wildlife Area. FULL ARTICLE read more

Sir Henri Deterding was Director General of the Royal Dutch Shell Group when his initial massive donation of food to Nazi Germany was announced in a Reuter’s Wireless report dated 20 December 1936. 

The donated food on that occasion filled 7,000 railway wagons.

Despite criticism in the news media, specifically linking the money saved on food to Nazi rearmament, Deterding continued to donate Dutch food for Nazi Germany, where he now lived after marrying his secretary, a young German woman. Like him, an ardent Nazi.  read more

Printed below is an English translation of an article published today by the Dutch Financial Times, Financieele Dagblad. 

Maarten Wetselaar: ‘There has been a period of thirty years in which the industry and we also only talked about the largest oil platforms that were built and the deepest wells that were drilled.’ Photo: Michel de Groot

‘The energy transition gives power back to the customer’

Bert van Dijk: Energy: 12 Sept 2018

ShellRDSA € 27.85 + 1.05% is still an oil and gas multinational, but is sorting for a future in which it will become one of the largest electricity companies. ‘We are faced with a revolution’, says Maarten Wetselaar, member of the Executive Board of Shell in an interview with the FD. He is responsible, among other things, for the New Energies division that was established two years ago. read more

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

In 2008, the then Shell CEO Jeroen van der Veer (above) forecast that “Demand for oil and gas would outstrip demand within 7 years

By John Donovan

According to an article published by the Houston Chronicle – Is peak oil demand coming soon – Royal Dutch Shell now forecasts that crude oil demand will crest in the late 2020s.

It is salient to note that in 2008, the then Shell CEO Jeroen van der Veer forecast that “Demand for oil and gas will outstrip demand within 7 years… see below. read more

Printed below is an English translation of an article published today by the Dutch Financial Times, Financieele Dagblad. 

Shell is investing $ 200 million in The Hague campus

The headquarters of Shell in The Hague. Photo: Peter Hilz / HH

Bert van Dijk: 10 Sept 2018

Oil and gas multinational Shell RDSA € 27.20-0.44% will invest more than $ 200 million in a new Shell campus in The Hague in the coming years. It concerns the renovation and expansion of the current monumental headquarters of the company on the Carel van Bylandtlaan. The company also expects to create hundreds of new jobs in the New Energies division in the coming years, the global headquarters of which will be on the new campus. Shell announced this today.

The New Energies branch focuses, among other things, on forms of energy that emit less CO2, such as solar and wind energy and biofuels. The division investigates new commercial models that the company can apply in the global energy transition. read more

Ben Marlow, executive business editor: 9 SEPTEMBER 2018 • 8:39PM

Like a pair of mysterious soothsayers, Maarten Wetselaar and John Abbott are peering into the future. The world they see is almost unrecognisable from the one we inhabit today, and yet it is only just around the corner. In the west, the petrol car has become obsolete. Lorries are powered by liquid natural gas. Freight liners criss-cross the oceans fuelled by hydrogen. Solar and wind provide the energy to our homes. And the petrol station has been reimagined as an unlikely retail hotspot where people routinely gather to do their food shopping, pick up parcels, and sip artisan coffee. A convoy of vehicles are being rebooted at one of many charging points on the forecourt. FULL ARTICLE read more