“And speaking of Shell’s finest: enter Simon Henry, Shell’s former CFO and now newly appointed BP board member. A man intimately connected to the hydrocarbon reserves scandal.”
Ah, Shell and BP. Britain’s answer to “Which fossil-fueled supervillain do you prefer?” Now there’s murmuring that Shell—the world’s leading oil-slicked PR machine and gold-medal winner in the Deadliest Workplace Olympics—might consider buying BP, its slightly less polished cousin. It’s like Dracula pondering whether to adopt Frankenstein.
But before we get too sentimental, let’s remember what Shell brings to the table:
- A glorious history of employee care, like handing Dutch staff over to the Nazis during WWII, and later using workers as test subjects for carcinogenic chemicals. Experimental cruelty disguised as corporate efficiency.
- A North Sea platform scandal so outrageous it could be a Monty Python sketch, were it not for the dead offshore workers. Lifeboats were reportedly unseaworthy, and Shell’s internal policy was colloquially dubbed “Touch Fuck All.” Charming.
- The 2004 reserves scandal, where Shell admitted it had wildly exaggerated its hydrocarbon reserves. Shareholders were shocked. The SEC fined Shell $120 million, which the company could pay using just one of its greenwashing budgets.
- Nigeria, where Shell’s legacy is so soaked in blood, corruption, and environmental devastation that it makes the Exxon Valdez spill look like a spilt milkshake.
- Hakluyt, Shell’s in-house intelligence firm. If MI6 and Blackwater had a baby who hated Greenpeace, it’d be Hakluyt. This covert unit reportedly spied on activists, journalists, and anyone else who dared whisper the truth.
- Let’s not forget Shell’s ties to the apartheid regime, its cameo in the Al-Yamamah BAE oil-for-arms scandal, and its incestuous intelligence links through Hakluyt.
- And then there’s SPECTRE and SMERSH… oh wait, those are fictional. Shell isn’t. It’s worse.
Investors like BlackRock and Vanguard still happily line their pockets from Shell’s sludge-soaked profits. Because what’s a little ecological genocide when there are dividends to collect?
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