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Profile of John Donovan extracted from Amazon where his Shell focussed books have been sold for many years despite threats from Shell lawyers.
In 1979, John Donovan was the co-founder of a sales promotion company, Don Marketing, which created promotional games for blue chip clients such as BP.
In what can only be described as the most perfectly obvious development in the history of obvious developments, major U.S. oil interests have apparently decided that nothing says “tasteful business practice” like quietly leaning on the White House about Venezuela while the world watches.
Lobbying disclosures reveal that Chevron, Shell’s U.S. arm, PBF Energy, and Phillips 66 have all been energetically encouraging the U.S. government to reshape its Venezuela “strategy” — you know, amidst the recent regime change and mild international eyebrow-raising — specifically so they can cash in on that totally stable and functioning oil economy.
Once upon a time — and not very long ago — certain corporate and government voices insisted that earthquakes in places without natural fault lines simply couldn’t happen. The Netherlands was solid. Groningen was safe. The ground beneath families, schools, and lives was reliable. Except it turns out none of that was true — because some earthquakes can be manufactured, engineered, or to put it bluntly, provoked.
And the culprit was not tectonics.
It was extraction.
Extraction at scale.
Extraction for profit.
Here’s the latest on Shell plc’s plan to move its listing to New York — with an investigative, critical lens.By John Donovan (with AI collaboration)
21 October 2025
When a corporate behemoth begins to flirt with another stock exchange, the romance is rarely innocent. Shell plc — once Royal Dutch Shell plc, before dropping the “Dutch” as neatly as a discarded partner — is now openly courting Wall Street.
The CEO, Wael Sawan, has been muttering about “value gaps” and “unlocking potential,” code for what London traders hear as: we’re tired of being undervalued in a city that drinks warm beer instead of crude profits.
In a move that shocked precisely no one familiar with the Dutch gas saga, the Dutch Public Prosecution Service (OM) announced that NAM — the joint venture between Shell and ExxonMobil — will not be prosecuted for creating “life-threatening danger” in the Groningen gas field, despite years of earthquakes, crumbling houses, and shattered nerves.
The OM admitted that NAM had “consciously accepted the risk” that drilling would cause earthquakes and endanger residents — but claimed that wasn’t enough to secure a criminal conviction. In plain English: Yes, they knew people could be hurt. No, that’s not a crime. Next question.
NAM, of course, is the joint venture of Shell and ExxonMobil that milked Groningen for decades. The Dutch caretaker cabinet has pushed a new Groningen Law through to Parliament that promises faster payouts for quake-damaged homes — and a lighter legal load for the polluters who helped cause the mess. As NL Times reports: “The Caretaker Dutch cabinet has submitted the Groningen Law, which finalizes compensation for damages caused by gas extraction, to the Tweede Kamer, despite strong criticism from the Council of State.”
The bill would guarantee compensation up to €60,000 even without proof that gas extraction caused the damage — tidy for homeowners in a hurry, also tidy for corporate defendants who prefer fewer courtroom surprises.
Shell — the greedy, ruthless, polluting oil giant and perennial sin stock — is back with its annual feel-good campaign: The Giving Pump. You fill up at a purple pump; money goes to local charities; everyone smiles for Instagram. Shell’s own press release beams: “The Giving Pump goes to show how small choices—like where you fuel up—can add up to meaningful change,” says Barbara Stoyko, SVP for Mobility & Convenience Americas. “The Giving Pump works so well because of our generous retailers. They are the ones selecting the charities benefitted by our purple pumps because they know the causes that matter most to the customers in their communities.” And St. Jude’s ALSAC chimes in: “We are grateful for our friends at Shell… Every small act of kindness… helps St. Jude advance scientific research and treatment…” Lovely words, quoted verbatim from Shell’s 9 Sept 2025 release. Read the release.
Groningen’s long-suffering renters, resident kids, and unmarried partners have just been upgraded from second-class victims to full members of the Earthquake Club. The Mining Damage Institute Groningen (IMG) now treats non-homeowners the same as homeowners when awarding compensation for mental anguish caused by the man-made quakes from gas extraction. Or, as IMG itself put it: “The rationale behind this expansion is that non-homeowners can experience the same degree of suffering and grief as homeowners.”
After dabbling in green PR and selling off assets, Shell’s production tanks while Exxon and Chevron pump away. BlackRock yawns.
Oh, Shell. The self-proclaimed champion of “Powering Progress.” The oil giant that flirted with an “energy transition” just long enough to slap wind turbines on its annual report before sprinting right back to its first love: fossil fuels. And yet—somehow—it’s producing less of them than at any point in the last two decades.
Let’s set the stage. In the great oil-and-gas Olympics of Q2, Exxon and Chevron took home gold medals in pure, unapologetic extraction. Exxon pumped 4.6 million barrels of oil equivalent per day, fuelled by Guyana’s deepwater gushers and a little something called the Pioneer Natural Resources acquisition. Chevron cranked out 3.4 million barrels per day, with Kazakhstan, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Permian all coughing up crude like it’s still 1973.
When Shell CEO Wael Sawan responded to speculation about a mega-merger with BP, he said the bar for acquisitions was “very high.” Clearly, it’s not nearly as high as Shell’s tolerance for greenhouse gas emissions, human rights controversies, or sheer corporate arrogance.
Now, as rumours swirl about Shell swallowing up its once-proud British cousin, BP, we are once again reminded that in Big Oil, consolidation is just a polite word for “expanding your emissions footprint while doubling your marketing budget.”
In the latest episode of Oilopoly: Climate Be Damned, Shell—the planet-warming powerhouse formerly known as Royal Dutch, now just royally brazen—is facing a pesky little revolt. No, not from the millions affected by its carbon-spewing empire or the earthquake survivors of Groningen, but from its own shareholders, clutching their pearls at the audacity of an £8.6 million payday for CEO Wael Sawan.
Yes, Sawan—the man who makes eight figures while fending off climate lawsuits with one hand and greenwashing with the other—received a nearly £1 million raise last year. Apparently, polluting the planet, greenlighting LNG expansion, and flirting with a BP takeover is now a performance bonus category.
What do you get when a bumbling oil giant haemorrhages value, loses strategic coherence, and waves around a “Help Wanted” sign for a new chairman? Apparently, a neon-lit invitation for the fossil fuel mafia to pounce—Shell first in line, calculator in hand, rubbing its oily palms.
Yes, dear readers, the whispers around London aren’t your average City gossip. BP—once a titan of British industry, now more of a cautionary tale wrapped in PR greenwash—is reportedly catching the eye of its smug, more bloated cousin: Shell. And why not? BP’s market cap has shrunk to a pint-sized £56 billion, less than half that of Shell, whose idea of “climate leadership” involves expanding oil drilling while calling it a “transition.”
While most of us wince at a cracked window or a tremor underfoot, Shell—and its charmingly destructive joint venture with ExxonMobil, the Nederlandse Aardolie Maatschappij (NAM)—hears the sweet sound of shareholder dividends. Welcome to Groningen, where homes crumble, the earth groans, and Shell shrugs while polishing its halo of ESG nonsense.
In a rare act of temporary restraint (not to be confused with accountability), NAM has announced it won’t resume gas extraction in Warffum until the court rules on an appeal by the province of Groningen and the municipality of Het Hogeland. That’s right: Shell’s earthquake machine is pausing—not because they’ve realised that turning a region into a seismic mess might be morally questionable, but because they’re being legally forced to wait a few more days before continuing their extraction rampage.
Shell—bankrolled by the usual suspects like BlackRock—is reportedly considering scooping up BP, or what’s left of its battered, green-tinted carcass.It’s official. BP’s much-vaunted “Beyond Petroleum” rebrand has now aged about as well as crude in a plastic bottle. After decades of climate posturing, oil-soaked disasters, and a failed fling with windmills, BP has come crawling back to its true love: fossil fuels. Maybe it’s time to call the company what it really is—“Back to Petroleum”.
And what better partner in this hydrocarbon love story than Shell—the other half of the British oil aristocracy, and arguably the more ruthless cousin. Not content with polluting the planet, Shell has long enjoyed ties to geopolitical espionage (hello, Hakluyt) and a shameful history of operating in apartheid South Africa. BP wasn’t far behind, of course. When it comes to moral bankruptcy, these two have always shared a boardroom.
This article was generated with the support of AI and reviewed by a human editor.
Well, well, well. Would you look at that. ExxonMobil — yes, that Exxon — is now strutting around like Greta Thunberg in an oil-stained tuxedo, about to overtake Shell and BP in so-called “low-carbon spending.” You know, the same Exxon that used to sneer at clean energy as a “beauty contest”? Suddenly it’s front row in the pageant.
According to investment guidance from six Western oil majors, Exxon now plans to splash out $30 billion on “low emissions opportunities” by 2030. That’s up from a humble $3 billion plan in 2021. Because apparently, all it takes is a PR makeover, some hydrogen buzzwords, and a boatload of government subsidies to turn one of the planet’s biggest polluters into an environmental pioneer.
This article was generated with the support of AI and reviewed by an editor for factual accuracy and satirical tone.
The fossil fuel fanfiction nobody asked for is back: Shell might finally devour BP — in what could become the biggest unholy alliance since, well… Shell and apartheid South Africa.
That’s right: after years of flirting and fumbling, the dirtiest merger fantasy in Big Oil is once again swirling through boardrooms and Bloomberg alerts.
Why now? Because activist hedge fund Elliott Management just bought a nearly 5% stake in BP and immediately demanded a boardroom bloodletting. Cue another round of speculation that Shell, Chevron, ADNOC, or some other oil-drunk conglomerate might swoop in and “rescue” BP from its decade-long identity crisis.
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
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John Donovan, the website owner
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