News and information on Shell Plc
More information here about John Donovan (above), his website royaldutchshellplc.com and his main contributor on Shell safety issues, Mr Bill Campbell.
Links here to several hundred articles and features by a host of publishers including the FT, Wall Street Journal, Reuters etc., containing references to Donovan Shell focussed websites, my late father or me, or in respect of Shell safety issues, our valued contributor, Mr Campbell.
Despite his sleazy record, Malcolm Brinded (above) remains President of the Energy Institute
By John Donovan
The Shell cover-up surrounding the deaths of two workers on the Shell Brent Bravo North Sea platform is coming under active scrutiny again as a result of an initiative by retired Shell *safety guru Bill Campbell. Bill is acting on behalf of the family of one of the deceased platform workers, Keith Moncrieff.
For over a decade, the truly extraordinary story about what happened was withheld from the families of the deceased and from investigating authorities by Shell and those parties over whom Shell had influence.
Comment by retired Shell International Group HSE Auditor Bill Campbell on the recent Energy Voice article:We are living it appears in an age of stupidity. Academic papers give many reasons for this including use of technology, calculators, mobile phones etc and the dumbing down of debate through usage of the internet. Moronic behaviour is common even in those who lead us.
If you are looking for a world class example of stupidity look no further than Shell and its incident on Barque.
We have discussed leakage of hydrocarbons a lot recently, to reduce them to zero is the Industries greatest challenge and top priority. But here we have a significant leak of some 200 cubic metres of gas mainly methane caused it seems by stupidity, how else can you describe this, its like driving while texting, behaviour totally unexplainable to rational individuals. The ONLY reason we pressure test process vessels and pipework using water or inert gas AND prior to the introduction of hydrocarbons is to provide assurance that when the hydrocarbons are finally introduced there will be no leakage, and consequentially no risk to people.
By John Donovan
Shell employees can potentially end up financially destitute or in jail for acts of negligence, for lying or falsifying records on behalf of Shell, or when giving misleading evidence on behalf of Shell in a court case.
The news story below – Oil Worker Faces Stiff Penalties After Airport Spill – comes after years of claims from Shell senior management about the top priority it gives to safety issues.
Shell appointed a safety Czar in July 2007.
In 2008, it was discovered that even the life boats on a Shell North Sea Oil rig were unseaworthy.
(THE ABOVE SCREENSHOT IS FROM AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT PUBLISHED SUNDAY 28 DEC 2014)
ARTICLE BY BILL CAMPBELL, RETIRED HSE GROUP AUDITOR, SHELL INTERNATIONALIn the usual manner *TFA Malcolm the Tank Engine arranged for his apprentice Marc Carne to take over as CEO of Network Rail, but like his disciples Bjorn Berget, Chris Finlayson, Gregory P Hill, dear Marc is a follower, not a leader, how otherwise would TFA Brinded have recruited them as his obedient servants in the first place.
Outside the protected arena of Shell, and in the public domain, we sense their true worth.
Final article in a series of five articles by Bill Campbell, retired HSE Group Auditor, Shell International, about risks relating to the Shell Prelude FLNG project.With the implementation of the recommendations post Piper A, turned quickly into legislation, the potential consequences of hydrocarbon releases have been markedly reduced, but Floating FLNG facilities cannot comply, other than that front end gas feed from the reservoir will be shut in and the process gas flared, huge amounts of volatile hydrocarbon liquids remain stored in the hull, which is also the primary structure supporting the process, utilities and the living quarters.
Prelude for example has in its hull, tanks with a capacity to hold 220,000 m3 of LNG, when the cryogenic liquid is returned to gas this equates to 132 million m3 of methane. It also has capacity for 90,000 m3 of LPG and 126,000 m3 of Condensate, with an overall capacity Shell states equivalent to 175 Olympic swimming pools.
“…why spoil a good story by the introduction of facts including the facts about Shell’s great Alaskan misadventure for example…”COMMENT RECEIVED FROM MR BILL CAMPBELL, RETIRED HSE GROUP AUDITOR, SHELL INTERNATIONAL RE OUR ARTICLE ABOUT SHELL EXPLORATION MANAGER ROLAND SPUIJ (PERSON ON RIGHT)
TALKING THE TALKRe your article: Shell exploration manager Roland Spuij – deluded or ignorant?
Deluded and or ignorant, no, Mr Spuij is just reading from the script, repeating the standard Shell propaganda that Safety is our No 1 priority and will never be compromised, despite any facts to the contrary.
Although as he says Shell were not involved in the Transocean Deepwater Horizon disaster – according to Peter R Voser a disaster that Shell in any case would have avoided due to its superior standards – he fails to mention the Transocean SEDCO 711 incident when this mobile drilling unit had a near blowout whilst operating in the North Sea on behalf of Shell – you covered all this in detail at the time on your web pages.
By John Donovan
Despite his scandal-ridden record at Shell, Chris Finlayson was recently appointed as Chief Executive of BG Group plc.
We have already published articles relating to his involvement in the Shell reserves fraud and his time as head of Shell in Russia, when he played a starring role in the Sakhalin 2 debacle, which cost Shell untold billions.
This article takes us back even further, to his time as a director of Shell’s North Sea operations and his involvement in the notorious “TOUCH FUCK ALL” policy adopted by Shell Expro, which ruthlessly put production and profits before the safety of employees.
By John Donovan
Printed below is an email sent to Grampian Police on 10 Sept 2012 by Bill Campbell, the retired HSE Group Auditor of Shell International. The email was copied to Jorma Ollila, Chairman of Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Keith Ruddock, General Counsel Shell EP and Geoffrey Podger, Chief Executive of the UK Health & Safety Executive.
The email relates to the Shell Brent Bravo Scandal. In 2005, Shell was fined a record £900,000 at Stonehaven Sheriff Court, for a series of safety failings on the Brent Bravo platform, which led to a gas leak inside the giant platform’s utility leg and the tragic avoidable deaths of two workers, Keith Moncrieff and Sean McCue.
By John Donovan
I received the email below from Bill Campbell, the retired HSE Group Auditor of Shell International in response to my recent article:
Mystery of how Shell escaped Brent Bravo criminal prosecution: 7 Feb 2012
In 2005, Shell was fined a record £900,000 at Stonehaven Sheriff Court, for a series of safety failings on the Brent Bravo platform, which led to a gas leak inside the giant platforms utility leg and the tragic deaths of two workers, Keith Moncrieff and Sean McCue. Prior to the explosion Mr Campbell had informed Shell senior management that a safety audit he led had revealed a Touch F*** All safety culture on the Brent Bravo platform and that safety records had been routinely falsified. Shell management’s failure to take appropriate remedial action led to the subsequent explosion.
By John Donovan
An article published in Scotland by The Sunday Times may help to explain why the health and safety division of the Crown office and Procurator Fiscal Service decided not to prosecute Royal Dutch Shell for alleged criminal offences arising from an explosion on the Brent Bravo platform.
In 2005, Shell was fined a record £900,000 at Stonehaven Sheriff Court, for a series of safety failings on the platform which led to a gas leak inside the giant platform’s utility leg and the tragic deaths of two workers, Keith Moncrieff and Sean McCue.
“The drip, drip, drip of negative information has been every bit as corrosive to the company’s reputation as the oil leaking from its pipe. It was not until a week after the oil was first spotted that the company apologised.”By John Donovan
We have printed below extensive articles published over three pages of The Sunday Times on 21 August 2011.
It was this development which sparked a number of other major news stories published the following day.
The Sunday Times approached us for our help, which we were pleased to provide over a number of days. We put the newspaper into contact with our Shell related sources, including Bill Campbell. We provided a considerable volume of information from our extensive files. We also supplied documents referred to in the article, including the letter the HSE offshore division sent to Shell on 18 July 2011, which we now put into the public domain. This was kindly supplied to us by the HSE press office.
22 August 2011
Shell says according to its estimates a leak at one of its platforms, 110 miles east of Aberdeen, Scotland had spewed 1,300 barrels of oil. The leak was detected on 10 August.
Following the spill, UK government inspectors are preparing to question a number of key players involved in the North Sea oil leak. This would include staff on the platform, officials at the company’s headquarters and the helicopter pilot who spotted the sheen.
Meanwhile, even as the investigation gets under way, an analysis of oil and chemical leaks from Shell’s Gannet platforms showed that the platform had seen at least 34 spillages since 2002, ranging from 1litre to 590 barrels.
Published: Aug. 22, 2011 at 8:52 AM
LONDON, Aug. 22 (UPI) — Internal documents and British safety records indicate there were problems with North Sea oil production after Shell announced it closed its oil leak last week.
Royal Dutch Shell said that divers shut a relief valve and stopped an oil spill from its Gannet platform. At the height of the spill, reported Aug. 10, around 1,500 barrels of oil was dumping into the North Sea.
Bill Campbell, whom The Daily Telegraph described as a “former senior Shell employee” questioned the company’s performance at Gannet as claims from 2003 surfaced over the platform’s maintenance record, the newspaper in London reports.
Posted by John Donovan ([email protected])
Comment from an expert source that technically the Shell North Sea oil leak is an uncontrolled blowout. Fortunately on a much smaller scale that the BP disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.
If the leak at Gannet is coming from the flowline between the well and the platform, it should be a very simple matter to shut it in but after 5 days, the flow continues.
According to Shells news releases, the leaking flowline connects a subsea well to to the Gannet platform. A subsea well has a Christmas tree on the wellhead at the seabed to control flow from the well into the flowline, so if the leak is from the flowline it is a very simple matter to close in the line and depressurize it and the leak would stop immediately.
Serious spills of oil and gas from North Sea platforms are occurring at the rate of one a week, undermining oil companies’ claims to be doing everything possible to improve the safety of rigs.
Shell has emerged as one of the top offenders despite promising to clean up its act five years ago after a large accident in which two oil workers died.
Documents obtained by the Guardian record leaks voluntarily declared by the oil companies to the safety regulator, the Health and Safety Executive(HSE), in a database set up after the Piper Alpha disaster of 6 July 1988 which killed 167 workers. They reveal for the first time the names of companies that have caused more than 100 potentially lethal and largely unpublicised oil and gas spills in the North Sea in 2009 and 2010.
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.
See our link list of over 500 articles by the FT, Wall Street Journal, Reuters, Bloomberg, Forbes, Dow Jones Newswires, New York Times, CNBC etc, plus UK House of Commons Select Committee Hansard records, information on U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission website etc. all containing references to our Shell focussed websites, or our website founders Alfred and John Donovan. Includes TV documentary features in English and German, newspaper and magazine articles, radio interviews, newsletters etc. Plus academic papers, Stratfor intelligence reports and UK, U.S. and Australian state/parliamentary publications, also citing our Shell websites. Click on this link to see the entire list, all in date order with a link to an index of over 100 books also containing references to our non-profit websites and/or our activities.
John Donovan, the website owner
This is not a Shell website. That fact should be abundantly plain from the overall content of this home page and our sister Shell focussed websites, including shellnazihistory.com. Click on the Disclaimer link at top of this page for more information. You Can Be Sure Shell does not endorse or approve of this website. There are no subscription charges nor do we solicit or accept donations. No advertising is accepted. It is an entirely free to use non-commercial website drawing attention to the negative side of Shell. The Shell logo image with the white text used on this website, as per the above example, is in the public domain because its copyright has expired and its author is anonymous. It can be found here on WIKIMEDIA COMMONS. Use this link for Shell’s own website.
