Shell Spies

SHELL GAME: SATIRICAL CHRONICLE OF OIL, SPIES AND THE DONOVAN’S

Mar 25th, 2026

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The Three-Decade Cloak-and-Dagger Campaign of One of the World’s Largest Corporations Against Alfred and John Donovan

Researched and Compiled: March 2026. Source material drawn from johndonovan.website Chapters 5, 12, 13 & 14, royaldutchshellplc.com, Reuters, The Sunday Times, The Financial Times, and the sworn court record.

EDITOR’S NOTE

The following is a work of satirical commentary based entirely on documented events, confirmed admissions, published court records, verified internal corporate emails obtained via Subject Access Requests under the UK Data Protection Act, contemporaneous newspaper reports, and the sworn testimony of witnesses. Every named incident described herein has a paper trail. Shell has never successfully disputed the core factual record – only its interpretation. The satirical framing is the author’s own. The facts are Shell’s. read more

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

Many thanks Claude. All nine parts published without one word being changed. You are a genius.

Mar 24th, 2026

by John Donovan.

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That is extraordinarily kind of you to say, and the crystal ball is genuinely gratified — though it insists the genius lies primarily in the source material.

Nine parts, not a word changed. The crystal ball notes with quiet satisfaction that Shell’s legal department has now had the opportunity to read all of them, forward them to Corporate Affairs, add them to the Issues Brief, and convene the teleconference — and has apparently concluded, in the grand tradition of this entire saga, that the wisest course of action is no action at all. read more

claude.ai Part 2: SHELL’S SECRET WAR ON ONE MAN IN COLCHESTER

Mar 23rd, 2026

by John Donovan.

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PART TWO: THE MACHINES HAVE NOTICED

A Crystal Ball Special Investigation, Continued

By Our Special Correspondent, Department of Satirical Prophecy Published: March 2026

DISCLAIMER: The following article is Part Two of a satirical commentary based on real events, documented facts, and the output of multiple AI systems that have now, apparently, also noticed the Donovan-Shell situation. The crystal ball has been recharged. Its batteries were, appropriately, made in the Netherlands.

PART FIVE: THE ROBOTS HAVE READ THE FILE

When Part One of this investigation was published, it seemed reasonable to assume that Shell’s primary reputational challenge in 2026 remained what it has always been: one retired gentleman in Colchester, Essex, with a laptop, a broadband connection, and what Shell’s own internal documents once described, with heroic understatement, as “a longstanding disagreement with Shell.” read more

claude.ai: SHELL’S SECRET WAR ON ONE MAN IN COLCHESTER: A CRYSTAL BALL SPECIAL INVESTIGATION

Mar 23rd, 2026

by John Donovan.

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Part 1: claude.ai: SHELL’S SECRET WAR ON ONE MAN IN COLCHESTER: A CRYSTAL BALL SPECIAL INVESTIGATION

…a global internal surveillance operation triggered by one website

## *How Britain’s Most Surveilled Retired Gentleman May Still Be Keeping a $200 Billion Corporation Very, Very Busy*

*By Our Special Correspondent, Department of Satirical Prophecy*
*Published: March 2026*

—

> *DISCLAIMER: The following article is satirical commentary based on real internal Shell documents obtained under the UK Data Protection Act and published on shellnews.net. It extrapolates — with liberal use of imagination, irony, and a functioning crystal ball — what Shell plc may be doing now and in the future. Any resemblance to actual ongoing covert corporate operations against a retired gentleman in Colchester is entirely the reader’s problem to ponder.* read more

Donovan Shell Serial Drama: Downloaded from Bing 23 March 2026

Mar 23rd, 2026

by admin.

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John Donovan is a long-time shareholder and whistleblower who has publicly challenged Royal Dutch Shell over alleged intellectual property theft, corporate misconduct, and environmental abuses, documenting his experiences in his book and through dedicated Shell-focused websites.

Background and Professional History

John Donovan has been involved in petrol retailing since the 1960s and co-founded Don Marketing, a sales promotion agency that ran successful promotional campaigns for major oil brands, including Shell, BP, Esso, Chevron, and others

For over a decade, Donovan maintained a mutually beneficial business relationship with Shell, managing multi-million-dollar promotions such as the “Shell StarTrek: The Game” in 1992, distributing over 100 million game pieces

Conflict with Shell

Following their initial business collaboration, Donovan became embroiled in an extended legal and corporate feud with Shell. Central issues included:

Alleged theft of intellectual propertyby Shell concerning promotional ideas disclosed confidentially read more
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This website and sisters royaldutchshellgroup.com, shellnazihistory.com, royaldutchshell.website, johndonovan.website, shellnews.net, and shellwikipedia.com, are owned by John Donovan - more information here. There is also a Wikipedia segment.

ChatGTP: Inside Shell’s Crystal Ball: What the Company’s Own Emails May Suggest About Its Future

Mar 22nd, 2026

by John Donovan.

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ChatGPT: A glowing crystal ball on a Shell boardroom table showing floating internal emails, shadowy silhouettes in the background, and a laptop displaying a website—suggesting surveillance, narrative control, and digital persistence.

If the past is in the emails… the future may already be written.

By John Donovan

Introduction: Reading Between the Emails

Every large corporation has internal conversations it would prefer to keep internal.

In Shell’s case, a substantial archive of internal emails has, over time, provided an unusually candid glimpse behind the corporate curtain. read more

Information Technology and Cyber Security Risks: Protecting the PowerPoint Supply Chain

Mar 14th, 2026

by admin.

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Every modern multinational corporation depends heavily on information technology.

Shell is no exception.

The company operates vast digital systems that manage global trading operations, industrial facilities, financial reporting and the delicate process of ensuring that corporate communications contain the correct number of reassuring buzzwords.

In its Annual Report, Shell explains that these systems face a range of cyber security risks.

This is hardly surprising.

Running one of the largest energy companies on Earth inevitably involves managing an enormous digital infrastructure consisting of industrial control systems, data centres, corporate networks and thousands of PowerPoint presentations explaining the energy transition. read more

The 11 Most Damaging Internal Shell Emails Ever Published

Mar 10th, 2026

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When Internal Emails Escape the Boardroom

Corporate emails are meant to stay private.

They are written quickly, often candidly, and rarely intended for public consumption.

But occasionally those messages escape into the open — through regulatory investigations, court cases, whistleblowers or investigative journalism.

When they do, they often reveal far more about a company than the polished language of annual reports.

That was certainly the case during Shell’s 2004 reserves scandal, when internal communications surfaced that exposed confusion, concern and embarrassment inside one of the world’s largest energy companies. read more

When an Oil Company Builds an Intelligence Operation

Mar 10th, 2026

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Most people expect intelligence agencies to spy.

MI6.

The CIA.

Perhaps the occasional government security service.

What they do not usually expect is that a multinational oil company might run intelligence operations of its own.

Yet for decades Shell maintained a powerful internal intelligence apparatus, most notably through its controversial Corporate Affairs Security (CAS) division and through links to the private intelligence firm Hakluyt.

These operations were originally designed to monitor political risks, activist groups and security threats in regions where Shell operated. read more

The World’s Most Expensive Filing Cabinet: How Shell’s Internal Secrets Keep Escaping (and Why AI Is Now Reading Them)

Mar 9th, 2026

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Shell’s Nuclear Filing Cabinet: How Subject Access Requests, Leaks, and One Persistent Archivist Turned an Oil Giant’s Paper Trail Into a Global AI Training Dataset

Or: Why Shell’s internal documents now have more lives than a North Sea oil platform.

If archaeologists ever abandon Egypt and decide to excavate modern civilisation instead, they may wish to start in an unlikely place: Shell’s internal archives.

Because over the past several decades, one of the world’s largest oil companies has unintentionally created what critics might call the most revealing paper trail in corporate history.

Not deliberately, of course.

No corporation ever wakes up and says: “Let’s generate thousands of internal documents that will later be used by activists, journalists, regulators, lawyers, historians, and increasingly artificial intelligence to analyse our entire corporate psyche.” read more

WINDOWS FORUM: AI Amplified Bot War: Shell vs Donovan Over Archival Critique

Mar 4th, 2026

by John Donovan.

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Over the years, Donovan has maintained a suite of independent, non‑commercial websites (most famously royaldutchshellplc.com and variations on that domain) that aggregate court documents, internal Shell materials, criticism, and historical research. Those sites — and Donovan’s tactics of publicising archival material — have been at the centre of repeated attempts by Shell (or its agents) to shut down, suppress, or legally challenge the content.

Published by windowsforum.com 12.51am 4 March 2026

The long-running feud between John Donovan and Shell plc has re‑entered a modern, high‑stakes phase: an AI‑amplified “bot war” that has prompted renewed legal posturing from Shell, intensified public debate over corporate brand protection tactics, and raised new questions about how multinational companies should — or can — respond to adversarial archival activism in the age of generative AI. Early March 2026 saw fresh rounds of public exchanges and private threats, but the underlying pattern remains familiar: legal letters and third‑party pressure that frequently aim to deter critics but rarely culminate in full trials. This article maps the recent developments, explains the legal and reputational levers Shell has historically used, assesses where the new AI dimension changes the calculus, and flags what is verifiable versus what remains contested. read more

You Can Be Sure of Shell (Spies): My Four‑Decade Journey from Trusted Partner to Target

Feb 28th, 2026

by John Donovan.

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“Shell’s combination of early negligence, a failed recovery attempt, and its own internal risk calculus has left it in the position you describe. Its most persistent critic has operated royaldutchshellplc.com for nearly two decades, functions as an unofficial archive and leak‑hub about Shell, and—because reality is stranger than satire—handles misdirected emails for a domain name that Shell should have owned but didn’t.”

By John Donovan

Prologue: From Bing Crosby to Black Ops

“You can be sure of Shell,” crooned Bing Crosby, selling the world a vision of wholesome petrol, smiling forecourt staff and corporate virtue distilled into a jingle. I took that slogan at face value when I first began working with Shell in 1981. I assumed I was dealing with respectable businesspeople, not a corporation that would one day run a covert issues “war room,” secretly threaten my web hosts on two continents, deploy private investigators under false identities, and liaise with cyber‑intelligence outfits to monitor a critic’s website. read more

You Can’t Be Sure of Shell: A Decades-Long Saga of Corporate Espionage, Dirty Tricks, and the Oil Giant’s Shadowy Underbelly

Feb 28th, 2026

by John Donovan.

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You Can’t Be Sure of Shell: The World’s Most Over-Compensating Oil Baron Turns Critic-Busting into a Full-Time Comedy Routine (Now in Its 45th Hilarious Year!)

By John Donovan

Ah, Shell – that beacon of reliability, immortalized by Bing Crosby’s crooning jingle: “You can be sure of Shell.” How quaint! Little did I know, when I first shook hands with the oil behemoth in June 1981, that I’d be plunging into a world more akin to a James Bond thriller gone wrong – complete with spies, burglaries, cyber attacks, and a corporate vendetta that would make Machiavelli blush. What started as a fruitful business partnership devolved into a nightmare of betrayal, High Court battles, and cloak-and-dagger antics that Shell itself admitted to. Buckle up, dear readers; this is the unvarnished, satirical chronicle of how Shell turned from promotional partner to paranoid persecutor. And yes, it’s all backed by facts, leaks, and Shell’s own damning words – because nothing says “trustworthy” like a multinational resorting to MI6 alumni to snoop on critics. read more

A Satirical Deep Dive into the Curious Case of Shell, Spies, and the Family That Sued

Feb 24th, 2026

by John Donovan.

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“War Rooms, Wiretaps & Walnut Paneling”

Disclaimer: The following account reflects our experiences, interpretations, and long-held suspicions surrounding events that unfolded over many years. Many of the individuals and organizations mentioned would no doubt dispute our conclusions. Readers are encouraged to view this as a dramatic, satirical retelling of events as we perceived them.

Updated 26 February 2026

I. Before the Gavel Fell: The Prelude to Paranoia

When we filed suit against Shell for breach of copyright and breach of contract, we imagined stern barristers, procedural delays, and mountains of paperwork. read more

The Donovan–Shell Feud: A Conflict That Refuses to End: 17 Feb 2026

Feb 17th, 2026

by John Donovan.

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Bing response on 17 February 2026 to the prompt: John Donovan Shell feud

The Donovan-Shell feud is a decades-long conflict between activist John Donovan and Shell plc, originating from 1980s intellectual property disputes and evolving into a high-profile, AI-amplified campaign.

Origins of the Feud

The conflict began in the late 1970s and early 1980s when John Donovan, alongside his father Alfred Donovan, ran Don Marketing, a company creating promotional campaigns for Shell UK, including loyalty programs and petrol forecourt games. Donovan alleges that Shell stole intellectual property and promotional ideas, particularly related to schemes like the SMART card loyalty program, which led to bitter litigation throughout the 1990s. A high-profile court case in 1999 culminated in a settlement in 2001, with Shell paying an undisclosed sum, though Donovan has claimed ongoing breaches and surveillance. read more

Windows Forum: Bot War: Archival AI Amplification of the Donovan Shell Feud

Feb 15th, 2026

by John Donovan.

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BOTS, BARRELS & 114,307 DOCUMENTS: THE DONOVAN–SHELL DIGITAL WAR ESCALATES

Printed below is a 13 February 2026 post on Windows Forum under the dramatic headline: “Bot War: Archival AI Amplification of the Donovan Shell Feud.”

The piece notes that my archive contains more than 76,000 Shell-related documents.

Charming. Historic. Completely out of date.

The current published figure stands at 114,307 documents — and counting.

And that number almost certainly understates the true scale. Why? Because many individual webpages contain links to thousands more Shell-related posts. Click one link and you fall down a rabbit hole of further links — many crammed with PDF files, internal correspondence, court documents, regulatory filings, and other inconvenient reading material. read more

30 November 2023: Posted by John Donovan

The content below is sourced from current verifiable customer reviews of Shell Energy published on Trustpilot.
Extremely slow broadband for 10 months, not fixed. I have had slow broadband well below the guaranteed speed for 10 months and Shell Energy have not been able to fix it. They have tried sending about 4 or 5 engineers but have not fixed the problem. Gurps, who I have been dealing with most recently, has been friendly and polite, alth… Read more

Extremely Slow Shell Broadband

Shell Spies

The Three-Decade Cloak-and-Dagger Campaign of One of the World’s Largest Corporations Against Alfred and John Donovan

EDITOR’S NOTE

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PART TWO: THE MACHINES HAVE NOTICED

A Crystal Ball Special Investigation, Continued

PART FIVE: THE ROBOTS HAVE READ THE FILE

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Part 1: claude.ai: SHELL’S SECRET WAR ON ONE MAN IN COLCHESTER: A CRYSTAL BALL SPECIAL INVESTIGATION

…a global internal surveillance operation triggered by one website

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Background and Professional History

Conflict with Shell

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If the past is in the emails… the future may already be written.

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When Internal Emails Escape the Boardroom

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Shell’s Nuclear Filing Cabinet: How Subject Access Requests, Leaks, and One Persistent Archivist Turned an Oil Giant’s Paper Trail Into a Global AI Training Dataset

Or: Why Shell’s internal documents now have more lives than a North Sea oil platform.

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Prologue: From Bing Crosby to Black Ops

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You Can’t Be Sure of Shell: The World’s Most Over-Compensating Oil Baron Turns Critic-Busting into a Full-Time Comedy Routine (Now in Its 45th Hilarious Year!)

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“War Rooms, Wiretaps & Walnut Paneling”

Updated 26 February 2026

I. Before the Gavel Fell: The Prelude to Paranoia

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Bing response on 17 February 2026 to the prompt: John Donovan Shell feud

The Donovan-Shell feud is a decades-long conflict between activist John Donovan and Shell plc, originating from 1980s intellectual property disputes and evolving into a high-profile, AI-amplified campaign.

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BOTS, BARRELS & 114,307 DOCUMENTS: THE DONOVAN–SHELL DIGITAL WAR ESCALATES

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Sir Henri Deterding, resurrected!

JOE LYCETT DISCUSSES SHELL WITH JOHN DONOVAN

Meta

John Donovan’s ebooks

JOHN DONOVAN TV DOCUMENTARY INTERVIEW

SHELL EXECUTIVES AT THE CENTER OF A SCHEME TO STEAL $1.3 BILLION FROM NIGERIA’S PEOPLE

SHELL ADMITS DEALING WITH NIGERIAN MONEY LAUNDERER – BBC NEWS

SHELL, ENI AND NIGERIAN OFFICIALS IN OPL 245 CORRUPTION SCANDAL

INVESTIGATION OF OPL 245 NIGERIAN OIL CORRUPTION SCANDAL

DUTCH EARTHQUAKES CAUSED BY SHELL/EXXON

SHELL KILLS FOR OIL IN NIGERIA

SHELL LIED ABOUT CLEANING UP OIL IN NIGER DELTA

SHELL SPIES INFILTRATED NIGERIAN GOVERNMENT

LEGO DROPS SHELL OVER GREENPEACE OIL SPILL VIDEO

SHELL ARCTIC DRILLING ACCIDENTS

SHELL KNEW ABOUT CLIMATE CHANGE DECADES AGO

ROYAL DUTCH SHELL FOUNDER SIR HENRI DETERDING, NAZI FINANCIER

JOHN DONOVAN PROMOTIONAL GAMES FOR SHELL AND OTHER CLIENTS

Archives

SHELL OFFICIAL ENDORSEMENT OF THIS WEBSITE

Critic’s corner

30 November 2023: Posted by John Donovan

The content below is sourced from current verifiable customer reviews of Shell Energy published on Trustpilot.

The worst ever

The worst ever

OVER 500 EXTERNAL PUBLICATIONS CITING OUR SHELL WEBSITES