News and information on Royal Dutch Shell Plc
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.
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.
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.
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.
Time running out for prosecutors to obtain potentially crucial documents seized in Geneva apartment raidThe 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.
Article published by The New York Times 16 Sept 2018OIL INDUSTRY
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.
EMAIL BEING SENT THIS WEEKEND TO EVERY UK MP. 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.
BBC Newsnight aired a 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.
I can speak with some authority in relation to the toxicity of Shell.
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
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.
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
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.
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.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.
Royal Dutch Shell should apologise for antisemitic conduct and Nazi supportBy John Donovan
I strongly believe that Royal Dutch Shell should be held accountable for its outrageous antisemitic actions against its own employees, which cost some of them their lives. The same applies to Shell’s huge financial support for Nazi Germany that contributed to the deaths of some 50 million victims in WW2 including those poor souls who perished in the Holocaust. Shell’s leader, Sir Henri Deterding, was an ardent Nazi feted by Adolf Hitler. Shell has never apologised or expressed any remorse.
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.
Printed below is an English translation of an article published today by the Dutch Financial Times, Financieele Dagblad. 
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.
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
In February 2007, someone at Shell stated an intention in an internal email dated 2 February 2007, to put pressure on The Sunday Times to “kill” an article about our intervention in the Sakhalin 2 project (which according to The Sunday Times article cost Shell £11 BILLION).We also discovered that from 2006 onwards Shell secretly kept and regularly updated “Focal Point” information about our activities. Some of the information in the reports is inaccurate.
We have copies of reports updated in 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010. I have supplied one example from each year.
The “Focal Point” seems to be a person rather than the title of the document. I believe the person was Xxxxxxx Xxxxxxx.
It is plain from the reports that there was anxiety at Shell about the possibility that I would ask a question at the AGM. A list of possible questions and rehearsals of responses are listed in the Focal Point reports.
: After the Shell BG merger completed in 2016 , a lot of really good people lost their jobs , it was handled terribly by the HR dept and the so called 'General Managers' culled some of the best experts they had ...in less than a year of the redundancies Shell were struggling and now with the lack of expertise...they have had to take in contractors to fill staff positions ..within a year of the redundancies ... they could be liable if people took this issue up.. Also Shell were looking at hiring back some old boy network ...who are now pensioners to come back in as managers to help out with the problems ..LOL . they have so much dead wood staff on their books and the company is ran like a club. I'm glad to be away from the farce that Shell became , the malaise started around about 2004 when they began to lose the plot. The BG merger for many was a final nail in the coffin, some of the hand picked people for the new club don't know their arse from their elbows. The only way Shell actually make profits is when the oil price goes high... when Brent is low they can't compete within their quartile or peer groups. I'll keep abreast here on the blog
: I’ve just come across an article "Tips & Insights: A World-class Combination" about the proposed combination of Royal Dutch Shell, one of the largest companies in the world and 'best known for its gasoline stations' and BG Group, a natural gas specialist.
The article centres on Sarah Franklin, (BG chief counsel, with a list of responsibilities, including health and safety after her name), who would be BG’s legal lead for integration planning.
Franklin has apparently added other governance matters, including human rights and whistleblowing investigations to her legal skill set. She set up BG’s first whistleblowing program.
If you are a Shell employee, be extremely cautious about the content of the two preceding paragraphs. If you have concerns, especially those with a safety connotation and you wish to engage with her……….beware.
: I listened to the then BG Group chief executive drool over the Petrobras ‘partnership’ at his award speech for GB Personality of the Year by the Brazilian Chamber of Commerce in 2013 (https://youtu.be/pfknsxjT2Rw). He described many extraordinary moments during this partnership, a relationship that had flourished with ‘mutual trust and respect and super giant discoveries’, which was going from strength to strength. He was looking to a very long future with many more Eureka moments for BG and its partners in the years and decades to come. So why would they want to put such ‘jewel’ in the Shell crown and who was responsible for this? At that time did anyone envisage the fall from grace in the coming months and years? Since then there has been turmoil in both companies, what could possibly have gone wrong. Insiders will know the answer.
: Andrew Gould, Chairman of the disgraced BG Group, who allegedly was seeking a knighthood by joining the company has gone to ground. Given his contractor mind set coupled with his training as an accountant does not bode well for the industry. His LinkedIn profile shows that he is still Chairman of BG Group, as well as being a Board Member (Non Executive!) of Saudi Aramco. Given that Saudi Aramco are going to drop their IPO, this could well leave 'Mr Corridor' twiddling his thumbs and wondering how he can manoeuvre back into a position where he can achieve his ambition of being knighted.
: It looks like Prelude has 19 helicopter fights per week. All of them are routed to the "Posh Arcaida" which is an accommodation vessel with up to 750 beds on board.
An article I read dated 17th March indicated that more than 17,500 people had been moved by helicopter since arrival.
: Andrey Golubel. It's an oil painting, what would you expect?
: There's a bit of pattern here. Corruption seems to be running through the veins of Shell. We see in all these recent tax articles how they seem to be snuggled up in bed with the Dutch Government. Will anything come of this? Of course not silly. It has been going on for years. There is even a department called Government Relations which is staffed by - yes you guessed it - former government employees. Where was Van Beurden a few days ago, for three whole days? The very secretive Bilderberg meeting in Turin (Guardian article by Charlie Skelton can be found on this website), along with many of the worlds elite businessmen and politicians, AND the Dutch king. The outcomes of the meeting were not something I saw on any of the Shell internal or external communication messaging. Funny that, seeing how they always share even the most mundane van Beurden news. So will Shell be brought to account for its actions in OPL? I somehow doubt it. But there is some hope. Will the real Slim Robinson please stand up.
: For centuries “The Mocking of Samson” was thought to be a copy of a famous Dutch painting. Then a Shell microscope made a remarkable discovery.
: This gets interesting....Enron links to Dynegi, links to accounting scandal, custodial sentences, links to BG Group, links to Non Exec Directors in BG Group, more links to Dynegi 'strays' on the BG Exec committee!!! Interested parties may want to dig deeper.
: Biggest Fraud in History. I object! BG Group was clearly the biggest fraud in recent oil and gas industry history after Enron. The company had over-inflated its reserves on little substance and fact, and the auditors were either gullible or complicit. BG had been lucky with production, but the Geoscience supporting the production was usually fabricated. What they didn't understand they speculated about or made-up. The Board bid the shareholders up the cobblers, Project Berkshire in the Brasil Asset was a classic example of this deceit - the Emperor's new clothes. Their undoing was not that they had lied to the shareholders, but that they actually believed their own lies and flawed integrity. Their assurance process was corrupt and their cappucino and pepper plant culture led to them failing to meet targets. Ultimately, they managed to get away with it by selling-out to Shell after a protracted period of alignment, who turned around the toxic purchase by spewing-out most of BG's worthless assets, Caveat Emptor!
: Lawyers for the many parties involved will be reading these series of postings with great interest as will the Italian Prosecutors.
: UPDATE 6 JUNE 2018: Overnight developments: After putting "A Mole" in direct contact with one of the key investigative organisations in relation to the OPL 245 corruption scandal, this anonymous source has now supplied them with more information relating to the OML 30 Nigerian oil deal involving Shell/Heritage Oil and Guy Colegate.
I am also in contact with a person who appears to be a key player in the OPL 245 scandal. I await promised documents from this insider source to whom I have also guaranteed anonymity.
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.
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