News and information on Royal Dutch Shell Plc
By John Donovan
Royal Dutch Shell Group Chairman Sir Philip Watts, was forced to resign as a result of the fraudulent over-statement of claimed hydrocarbon reserves.
Sir Philip subsequently became a very rich vicar, after a payoff package from Shell worth nearly $20 million to buy his silence.
Link to a John Donovan file containing extensive news coverage.
* Shell’s reserve life drops below 8 years
* Investors have shifted focus away from reserves to profits
By Ron Bousso
LONDON, Jan 30 (Reuters) – The number of years of production left in Royal Dutch Shell’s oil and gas reserves fell for the sixth year in a row in 2019 to below eight.
But there was little reaction from investors to the steady decline in what was once considered a key metric for gauging the strength of the world’s major oil and gas companies.
There is a growing perception the world holds enough oil and gas to meet demand many times over, especially against the backdrop of a gradual shift away from fossil fuels because of concerns about climate change. https://reut.rs/2GBtBvC
Despite the many mistakes and poor management in Shell in the mid 90s leading up to the reserves scandal in 2004, a truly dark period in the leadership of Shell, we are still proud of some huge projects as shown in the clips.
Perhaps of use for your site. And as you so often point out, the majority of the Shell staff are decent hardworking people doing a good job. The fact that management went off the rails starting with Herkstroter and culminating in the reserves scandal which was an inevitable conclusion of the Phil Watts regime does not diminish the efforts of the engineering by the staff. Even Shell got it sometimes wrong to appoint the right leaders!
G&E also directed litigation against Royal Dutch Shell which led to a $400 million investor settlement in 2007, the largest securities fraud settlement in Europe at the time.
COPENHAGEN, Denmark, Oct. 21, 2019 /PRNewswire/ — A second wave of lawsuits has been filed by an international coalition of institutional investors in the ongoing financial fraud case against Danske Bank A/S.
The new investor suits were brought by leading U.S. shareholder law firms Grant & Eisenhofer P.A.
G&E also directed litigation against Royal Dutch Shell which led to a $400 million investor settlement in 2007, the largest securities fraud settlement in Europe at the time.
You may have seen the email I recently sent to over around 1,000 parliamentarians, including senior clergy and the former Scottish Energy Minister Baroness Liddell, who, as you will see, has a Shell connection. The email was about the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby and the Church of England’s significant investment in Royal Dutch Shell Plc.
Many thanks for all the responses received.
I would like to bring to your attention just one of the many scandals rattling around in Shell’s corporate cupboard.
Brinded’s reaction to the devastating findings and recommendations of the Campbell led review was to shoot the messenger, namely, Bill Campbell. Brinded chose to ignore the stunning findings by the audit team and the recommendations made by its leader Mr. Campbell in relation to the Asset Manager. Instead, Brinded supported the mentally unhinged “foaming at the mouth” Asset Manager who was able to return to his tyrannical TFA regime shortly thereafter, despite his instability. Compared with him, Captain Bligh was a sweetie. The inevitable fatal outcome accurately foretold in the review, resulted from the ruthless, unprincipled criminal decision by Brinded to put production before safety. Astonishing stuff bearing in mind that the Asset Manager repeatedly blamed “his master” Brinded, who he colourfully described as a “bastard”
By John Donovan
In November last year the brother of Keith Moncrieff, one of two workers who in 2003 tragically died in an accident on the Shell Brent Bravo North Sea oil platform, sent a heart-rending letter to Royal Dutch Shell Plc Chairman Charles Holliday.
He pleaded for help in bringing “these evil men to justice” – a reference to the Shell executives and officials he now knows were responsible for what the Scottish courts determined were “avoidable deaths“. As far as I am aware, no reply was forthcoming. Not even the courtesy of an acknowledgment. (UPDATED 3 Oct 2018 PM: IN FACT MR HOLLIDAY DID REPLY AND DID OFFER HIS CONDOLENCES – SEE THE BOLD BLUE TEXT FURTHER DOWN)
Shell critic John Donovan
In 2004, a huge scandal engulfed the Royal Dutch Shell Group after it fraudulently over-stated its claimed oil and gas reserves – the most important factor in determining the value of an oil company.
As a direct consequence, the Anglo-Dutch arms of the Royal Dutch Shell Group – Shell Transport and Trading Company Plc and Royal Dutch Petroleum Company, were forced to merge into a single new company: Royal Dutch Shell Plc.
However, in a spectacular blunder, Shell neglected to register what was the top-level domain name for the new company. Shell lawyers discovered, no doubt to their consternation and horror, that their most enduring critic had beaten them to the registration of royaldutchshellplc.com.
John Donovan 1984
By John Donovan
My company Don Marketing supplied the spectacularly successful Shell Make Money game that ran on Shell forecourts during 1984/5 in a number of countries, including the UK.
Years later, Shell deliberately ignored the signed confirmation of agreement below while surreptitiously producing a subsequent flawed Shell Make Money without our knowledge or consent.
Shell executives blatantly lied about what was going on but was forced to settle the matter after Don Marketing issued a High Court Writ.
Dear John,
I believe Shell are in trouble. Deep trouble. Not only has this OPL OML debacle seen the back of some of its most senior execs, Brinded, Voser, Henry etc but now we can expect to see a Pandora’s Box being opened by Peter Robinson. I expect fireworks. The company is very quick when it comes to deploying its resources to bully and shut up it’s external critics or shamelessly pay off those that dare to challenge them. However, in Robinson they are going in to battle with a street fighter who will fight dirty and go down fighting given the alternative is to spend years behind bars. Robinson is a very shrewd business man and will have records of all the corrupt practices that the company was part of, the processes being flouted and the management who were turning a blind eye. I’ve been to Nigeria a few times on business and am always left dumbfounded by how many dodgy things take place in the offices and are part of everyday life. Robinson spent years there and will have an extensive dossier. I think its too late now for Shell to be able to stop the likes of Robinson opening their mouths, with the use of money. Having made an enemy of him points again to seriously incompetent senior advisors within the company. Had no-one heard of ‘keep your friends close, keep your enemies even closer’? It will be a very slippery slope. Van Beurden should use a part of his obscene salary it invest in a good tin hat. I would also advise him to have a good summer clear out of all those who have been advising him on the matter, and of those who failed to stop this from becoming an issue as big, if not bigger, than the infamous reserves scandal.
Printed below is an English translation of an article published today by the Dutch Financial Times, Financieele Dagblad.
Bert van Dijk • Entrepreneurship:
A few more weeks and the champagne bottles can be uncorked at Shell headquarters. Then the British-Dutch oil and gas multinational for the first time in decades again greater in terms of market value than arch-rival ExxonMobil. At least, if the current price development at both companies continues at the current rate.
Where Exxon has had to deal with setbacks that have affected production, results and returns in recent years, investors are actually charmed by Shell’s growing cash flow, his lucrative oil and gas projects in the deep sea near the US and Brazil, the big financial discipline and cost savings. Important also: an announced share repurchase of $ 25 billion in the period up to the end of 2020.
Concerned employee
Thank you for your comments. One of the observable symptoms of a corrupt and unethical organisation or individual is when it or they are critical of others whilst ignoring their own faults. Ben van Beurden may be, by all accounts, a nice man and perhaps the most competent chief executive RDS has had since the reserves crisis, but he exhibits a common failing that of shear hypocrisy. Remember, way back in those heady days of 1999, the first year coincidentally that the Company posted a negative reserves ratio, a younger Ben was one of a few aides de camp, protecting and assisting Phil Watts and masking this information at the time from shareholders, investors et al.
Extract from the ebook “John Donovan, Shell’s Nightmare” (now available on Amazon websites globally)Extract Begins
CONTENT OF A LEAFLET PUBLISHED ON OUR WEBSITE AND CIRCULATED IN JUNE 2004 AT THE SHELL CENTRE, LONDON. ALL EXTRACTS FROM COMMENTS MADE BY DR. JOHN HUONG
“I will supply for publication further informed comment and revelations in the run up to Shell’s AGM on 28 June. It will include examples of the toxic combination of arrogance, greed, dishonesty, and blatant disregard for all ethical norms by Shell Management, that has culminated in the current shame heaped upon the once proud Shell name.”
Email Sent To Prakken d’Oliveira by John Donovan, Sunday 10 December 2017Be Warned: Your Law Firm is Almost Certainly Under Surveillance Again!
As Prakken d’Oliveira is aware, for more than two decades I have operated websites focussed on the *global misdeeds of Royal Dutch Shell. In more recent years, mainly via my websites royaldutchshellplc.com and royaldutchshellgroup.com. I make the above warning based on my own experience during a long drawn out acrimonious relationship with Shell.
Perceived as an arch-enemy, I have been the target of multiple spying operations carried out over many years at the behest of Shell senior management. I have irrefutable proof in the form of letters of admission by Shell and confidential Shell internal communications obtained in response to SAR applications under the Data Protection Act. UK police have carried out investigations covering burglaries, threats of violence and repeated cyber attacks.
Malcolm Brinded – ethically challenged President of the Energy Institute and Chairman of the Shell Foundation.
By John Donovan
I recently received an email asking how it is possible that the Energy Institute could have a crook as its president. A reference to Malcolm Brinded, alleged in the email to have a “history of quasi psychopathic behaviour towards hundreds of offshore workers put at risk for years to protect Brinded’s personal ambitions.”
Brinded was elected as President of the Energy Institute on 4 July 2017. Equally astonishing is the fact that Brinded also remains Chairman of the Shell Foundation.
Comment by Bill Campbell (retired HSE Group Auditor of Shell International) on the article “Corruption charge looms for outgoing BHP director Malcolm Brinded” It was good news for those who care for Shell and it’s reputation when Brinded and his guard dog Ruddock were shown the door in 2012. Brinded had contaminated the boardrooms of Shell UK and RDS for 15 years with his toxic behaviour. Corruption of external parties also in the shape of the North Sea safety reguluator using his special relationship with the then Secretary of State for Scotland. Still wary of the demise of reputation during the reserves debacle it seems the Chairman and his counsel with the support of the non executives called time on Brinded sensing Shell was heading yet again into the scandal zone.
By John Donovan
A chilling documentary “Mad Dog: Gaddafi’s Secret World” is currently available to view on BBC Player, but only for another 4 weeks. It is about “the dark world of Colonel Gaddafi, the Libyan dictator who combined oil and the implied threat of terror to turn western powers into cowed appeasers”.
Another throughly disreputable politician makes an appearance. The then UK Prime Minister Tony Blair is shown embracing and kissing the monstrous dictator on both cheeks before announcing a £1billion Libyan oil deal with Shell. Blair knew all about Gaddafi’s terrorist exploits, but like Shell, put money before principle, as he inevitably does. Naturally, then Shell boss Malcolm Brinded was up to his neck in the scandalous deal.
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.
: It's all in the ground Simon! https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/shell-exxon-look-to-profit-from-capturing-customers-carbon-emissions-11618824602
: ON HOW TO REVAMP NIGERIA’S UPSTREAM AND DOWNSTREAM OIL & GAS SECTOR With recent reports that the President Muhammadu Buhari-led Federal Executive Council (FEC) had approved a whopping $1.5 billion to rehabilitate the epileptic Port Harcourt refinery, I consider it a national tragedy and a shame of a nation that Nigeria, despite its over fifty decades of oil and gas exploration and production activities, has been exporting its hugely produced crude oil and natural gas at commercial quantity, and then import ‘refined petroleum products’ at higher costs to satisfy domestic demands. The said move, according to the government, is to ensure that the obsolete Port-Harcourt refinery, which last benefitted from a Turn-Around Maintenance (TAM) work in 2000, comes back to life, while also supposedly contributing to the development of Nigeria’s oil sector. We Mobilize Others To Fight For Individual Causes As If Those Were Our Causes https://ndpc-zik.org/publications/on-who-to-revamp-nigeria-upstream-and-downstream-oil-and-gas-sector COMPLETE COMMENTS
: "Under the Hammer", again!https://www.reuters.com/article/us-tunisia-oil/tunisia-faces-exodus-of-western-oil-giants-idUSKBN2BI1XF
: Serica finally kicks-off development on Columbus, years after BG 'kicked them in the teeth'. https://www.upstreamonline.com/field-development/serica-energy-kicks-off-development-drilling-at-north-sea-field/2-1-982427
: https://www.egypttoday.com/Article/3/48093/Shell-to-develop-Phase-9B-of-WDDM-within-2-months
: I have mentioned before how the contaminated produced water from Shell's Western Delta Deep Marine gas fields, acquired during the takeover of BG Group, used to be tankered and dumped in the desert.Khaled Gad, Shell's Onshore and Offshore Asset Manager in Egypt, should be able to answer the question as to what now happens to the produced water from Shell's assets in Egypt.
: Selling off parts of the BG millstone. See: https://www.upstreamonline.com/lng/shell-completes-2-5bn-australian-lng-asset-sale/2-1-980042
: Further to Bogus Group's post, very little at BG Group was proven. The majority of their work was of low integrity and dissolved at the slightest scrutiny. This was to be expected with a 'do as I say, not do as I do' Line Management.
: https://trinidadexpress.com/business/local/shell-takes-biggest-hit/article_ca33aea4-73d5-11eb-8a6e-ff41b564d669.html It's surely been proven that BG proven reserves were not actually proven and that Shell did inherit a 'pig in the poke'. The statement “Our preference is to deal with these arrangements, not in a clandestine way but there is a deeper confidentiality to it. We have these arrangements all over the world. We need to ensure that we maintain a degree of confidentiality but what I will confirm is that hundreds of millions of US dollars converts to billions of TT dollars and we have confirmed that Trinidad will benefit to billions,”beggars belief.
: It is not clear why the once upon a time VP Developments, Brazil is now VP Subsurface Excellence, given that the Brazil Asset under her stewardship spent at least five years down a giant rabbit hole using a corrupt workflow that resulted in a significant overbooking of reserves.
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