John Donovan email to Shell 1 Oct 2018

From: John Donovan
Subject: Next Email to Parliamentarians
Date: 1 October 2018 at 21:00:35 BST
To: gary.thomson@shell.com
Cc: “ben.vanbeurden@shell.com” <ben.vanbeurden@shell.com>, William Campbell

Dear Mr Thomson

DRAFT

EMAIL TO ALL MP’s AND PROMINENT MEMBERS OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS: ROYAL DUTCH SHELL LAWYERS HAVE HAD ADVANCE SIGHT OF WHAT YOU ARE HOPEFULLY ABOUT TO READ.

SHELL NORTH SEA PLATFORM WORKER DEATHS DESERVING A PUBLIC INQUIRY

Just how bad does has a company have to be before the Church of England withdraws investment on ethical grounds?

You may have seen the email I recently sent to over around 1,000 parliamentarians, including senior clergy and the former Scottish Energy Minister Baroness Liddell, who has a Shell connection. The email was about the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby and the Church of England’s significant investment in Royal Dutch Shell Plc.

Many thanks for all the responses received.

Today I would like to bring to your attention just one of the many scandals rattling around in Shell’s corporate cupboard.

I refer to the “Touch F*** All” regime on Shell North Sea platforms that cost the lives of offshore workers. A cover-up has persisted for nearly two decades.

In 1999 a team of experts led by an independent consultant carried out a safety audit on Shell’s North Sea Platform, Brent Bravo. The team discovered an extraordinary state of affairs. The platform operated under the control of a bullying unhinged Asset Manager.

The audit team were “stunned” by what they found. Falsification of records relating to safety critical condition; falsification of ESDV tests; unapproved temporary repairs; unacceptable bullying of staff and independent inspectors. All conducted within a *”Touch F*** All” “brutal” regime in which production was given a higher priority than any concern about risk.

The Shell executive ultimately responsible, Malcolm Brinded, chose to ignore the stunning findings by the audit team and the recommendations made by its leader Mr. Bill Campbell. Instead, Brinded supported the mentally unhinged “foaming at the mouth” Asset Manager who was able to return to his tyrannical TFA Asset Manager post despite his instability. Compared with him, Captain Bligh was a sweetie.

The “inevitable” fatalities in 2003, accurately foretold in the review, resulted from the ruthless, unprincipled decision by Mr. Brinded to continue putting production before safety. Such was his greed and ambition.

Relevant dire prediction in the audit notes:

…if we continue operating Bravo in its current condition a major incident involving injury or fatality, and with the potential of Impairing the TR is inevitable. It may take a week or a year, It doesn’t matter, it will happen.

This link is to the relevant jaw-dropping typewritten strictly confidential audit notes that vanished from a Shell secure vault in Aberdeen. Unbeknown to Shell, Mr. Campbell retained a copy for his own protection. Please have a glance through the astonishing content.

In November last year the brother of Keith Moncrieff, one of two workers who in 2003 tragically died in an accident on the Shell Brent Bravo North Sea oil platform, sent a heart-rending letter to Royal Dutch Shell Plc Chairman Charles Holliday.

He pleaded for help in bringing “these evil men to justice” – a reference to the Shell executives and officials he now knows were responsible for what the Scottish courts determined were “avoidable deaths“.  As far as I am aware, no reply was forthcoming. Not even the courtesy of an acknowledgment.

Based on information I have seen, it is plain that Malcolm Brinded, the current President of the Energy Institute, is one of “these evil men” Keith Moncreff was referring to in his letter.

As a consequence, Shell and the managers and executives responsible for the deaths have escaped proper justice. Shell got off lightly. The fine was but a fleabite to one of the worlds biggest businesses.

Undeterred, Shell has continued to flout offshore safety. For example, operating oil platform lifeboats that fall off platforms and are unseaworthy. You could not make it up.

Malcolm Brinded, the most senior Shell executive involved, is standing trial in the OPL 246 oil deal corruption case. Two of his fellow defendants in that case have already been convicted and jailed.

Under the circumstances, will you support my call for an independent public inquiry into the Brent Bravo deaths?

Kind regards

John Donovan (ADDRESS IS REDACTED FROM PUBLICATION).

PS. Further emails will follow on a regular basis, each focussing on a different Shell scandal e.g. police corruption in Ireland, Shell propped up apartheid in South Africa, culpability in the murder of Nigerian activists, the Groningen Gas Field earthquakes in the Netherlands, and the persecution of a whistleblower, Shell production geologist Dr John Huong who blew the whistle internally on Shell’s oil reserves securities fraud. Shell’s claimed oil and gas reserves were downgraded FIVE times.