Posts from ‘September, 2022’

British Spies, British Lies (James Hall vs Walied Shater)

I have never before seen a court document containing so many allegations of repeated lies by a top-level Shell official, supported by copious similar fact evidence of his alleged deceit.

By John Donovan

I reported in August 1917 that Mr Crockett Oaks III, Shell security manager for the Americas, received a ‘big bucks’ court case settlement from Shell.

The litigation arose from an alleged pattern of discrimination in favour of ‘White Brits’ by Shell and Shell Corporate Security VP James WD Hall, a British national.

Mr Hall is a security professional who worked in an undisclosed position purportedly in the British Foreign Office (MI6?) before his long career at Shell. 

Mr Hall has faced a succession of accusers on the same race/national origin grounds starting with Crockett Oaks III. 

The second case was brought by Mr Mike Oliveri, another gentleman with a military/security affairs background. Mr Oliveri is a decorated war veteran – a Colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve.

Mr Hall’s current accuser is Mr Walied Shater a former US Secret Service agent.  read more

Herald-Star

Environmental groups preparing for production at Shell’s cracker plant

MIKE JONES: Staff writer: SEP 30, 2022

MONACA — Environmental groups are mobilizing to monitor air and water quality around Royal Dutch Shell’s soon-to-open petrochemical cracker plant in Beaver County.

Several groups held a joint video conference Tuesday night that attracted more than 200 people who listened how various organizations have already begun testing air and water samples to set a baseline before the plant along the Ohio River near Monaca officially opens later this year.

While most people knew little about Marcellus Shale when the natural gas drilling boom began in Western Pennsylvania and the Tri-State Area in the late 2000s, Environmental Health Project Executive Director Alison Steele said groups like hers are working to educate the public on what to expect from the cracker plant. read more

Reuters

Shell to buy African solar firm Daystar

STORY: Royal Dutch Shell will buy African solar provide Daystar Power, the two companies said on Wednesday (September 28).

That’s as the oil giant pursues a mandate of cutting its greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030.

Shell is one of the most influential oil producers in Africa but the Daystar purchase is its first power acquisition on the continent.

Thomas Brostrom, Shell’s vice president for renewable generation, said in a statement that Shell was helping to address a “critical energy gap for many who rely on diesel generators for backup power”. read more

Reuters

Shell, Exxon launch joint sale of UK, Dutch North Sea assets -sources

Ron Bousso: Tue, September 27, 2022 at 4:16 PM

LONDON, Sept 27 (Reuters) – Shell and Exxon Mobil have launched a joint sale process of a large package of offshore natural gas assets in the southern UK and Dutch North Sea, three industry and banking sources said.

The two companies have hired investment bank Jefferies to run the sale, which could raise over $2 billion, the sources said.

Launched earlier this month, the sale comes after Shell and Exxon independently ran initial sales processes for their British and Dutch assets.

Shell declined to comment. Jefferies declined to comment. Exxon did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

In July, Shell and Exxon launched the sale of the 50-50 NAM joint venture in the Netherlands, operator of the Groningen gas field and one of Europe’s largest and oldest natural gas production companies.

The two companies have also separately put up for sale their stakes in their British southern North Sea gas hub, which include the Clipper Leman Alpha hubs as well as the Bacton terminal in eastern England, the sources said. read more

Dutch limit Groningen gas production despite energy crisis

By Reuters  •  Updated: 26/09/2022 – 16:25

AMSTERDAM -Gas production at the Groningen field in the Netherlands will be lowered to the minimal amount needed to keep wells operational in the coming year, as extraction is expected to end by 2024 at the latest, the Dutch government said on Monday.

Production at Groningen, once one of Europe’s major suppliers of natural gas, will be capped at 2.8 billion cubic metres (bcm) in the year starting Oct. 1, the government said, down from 4.5 bcm in the current year.

The Groningen field, operated by a joint venture of Shell and Exxon Mobil, still holds massive reserves of natural gas.

But extraction has been almost completely wound down in the past 10 years as tremors blamed on drilling damaged buildings and prompted protests by residents and campaigners.

An unusually strong earthquake in 2018 saw the goverment promise a rapid end to all production, which is now expected to take place in the fall of 2023 or by 2024 at the latest. read more

Snippets from broadband.co.uk reviews:

“I can’t give 0 so I give 1 star in all categories. Shocking, dreadful, awful service and they don’t seem to care!! Really dreadful broadband service too.”

“DO NOT TRANSFER TO THIS COMPANY!!
The most appalling broad band ever. Moved because jt was cheaper but couldn’t watch anything in catch up so then upgraded and still cant watch anything without it buffering. Please do not sign up it is absolutely awful. I am counting the months till i can go back to talk talk!” read more

27 Sept 2022

The content below is sourced from current verifiable customer reviews of Shell Energy published on Trustpilot.

DO NOT USE

DO NOT USE! I can’t begin to go intro the nightmare of this company. Save your self a lot of money hassle and headache and never use shell energy for anything including broadband.

Date of experience: 26 September 2022

Still not got broadband should have…

Still not got broadband should have started the 5 September and still not got it is the 26 September at 20 -10 it a complete joke

Date of experience: 26 September 2022 read more

yahoo!

Oil giant Shell is leading the way on this $4 trillion climate change solution some say won’t work

Marianna Cerini: Mon, September 26, 2022 at 6:00 PM

Fossil fuel companies are leading the way when it comes to a climate change solution that, despite its backing from multiple governments, has faced criticism as an ineffective way to reach net zero.

Carbon capture and storage (CCS) allows industries that burn fossil fuels to trap carbon emissions and transport them via pipelines, trucks, or ships for geological storage. The carbon dioxide is injected underground into rock formations, usually at depths of one kilometer or more. read more

The Telegraph

For Western energy giants, escaping Russia has become the longest goodbye

Not long ago oil and gas companies were scrambling to get into Russia, rather than out

By Rachel Millard: 25 September 2022 • 10:00am

Shell has had ties to Russia since 1912 after buying the Rothschild family’s interests there. More recently, its partnership with Russia’s state gas giant Gazprom has helped it access vast gas reserves in Russia’s far east.

It, too, hung on even after having to cede control of the $22bn [£19bn] Sakhalin-2 gas facility to Russia in 2006 following months of Kremlin pressure.

Shell’s boss, Ben van Beurden, met Putin in April 2014, shortly after Russia’s annexation of Crimea, to tell him they wanted to expand the project. Equinor, meanwhile, entered Russia in the 1990s and ten years ago struck a major exploration deal with Rosneft as the two Arctic powers forged closer ties.

By the start of the war, foreign companies covered about 11pc of Russia’s oil and gas production, according to James Henderson, at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies. BP, TotalEnergies, Wintershall Dea, Shell and India’s Oil and Natural Gas Corporation were the largest. read more

Shell pulls out of two Irish offshore wind projects

LONDON – Shell has pulled out of two offshore wind projects in the west of Ireland operated by Simply Blue Group a year after the British company acquired stakes in the developments.

Shell and Simply Blue said in a joint statement on Saturday that Shell’s withdrawal from the Western Star and Emerald projects was a “portfolio decision”, and Shell added that offshore wind remains a key growth area for its plans to slash greenhouse gas emissions and build up its renewable power business. read more

The energy crisis in Europe and the buried treasure of the Netherlands of 1000 billion

By Hans von der Brelie  •  Updated: 23/09/2022

Despite skyrocketing energy prices and a shortage of natural gas supplies in the European Union, the Dutch government has taken the decision to go ahead with shutting down the natural gas wells in the Groningen region. The field is one of the largest in the world, with a value of up to 1,000 billion euros. But for now, it is a treasure that will remain untapped for the foreseeable future. read more

DutchNews.nl

Regulator receives 136 damage claims after two earthquakes strike Groningen

SEPT 26, 2022

More than 100 claims for structural damage have been filed since two earthquakes, the largest measuring 2.7 on the Richter scale, hit Groningen province on Saturday.

The larger of the two quakes struck the village of Uithuizermeerden, on the north coast, at around midday, followed by a smaller one measured at 1.7 in Uithuizen.

The Institute for Mining Damage in Groningen (IMG) said it had received 136 reports of damage over the weekend, including three saying there was an acute risk to safety. Inspections at two of the three sites established that there was no immediate danger,  while a third is ongoing. read more

The announcement comes as the Ohio Valley’s flagship petrochemical project, Shell’s multibillion dollar ethane cracker plant in Potter Township, Beaver County, begins operations after a decade of planning and construction.

Flaring at Shell’s fracked plastic plant in Beaver County, PA. Photo from anonymous source.

Mike Bloomberg commits $85 million to stop petrochemical plants in Ohio Valley, Gulf Coast

LAURA LEGERE: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Sept 23, 2022

Former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg is putting his wealth and clout into an effort to halt the expansion of petrochemical manufacturing in the Ohio Valley and two Gulf Coast states with an $85 million campaign.

The billionaire businessman and philanthropist announced Wednesday that the goal of the new Beyond Petrochemicals campaign is to “turbocharge” efforts by local community groups to block new plastics and petrochemical plants and curb pollution from existing plants in three target regions: the Ohio Valley, Louisiana and Texas. read more

Shell’s new boss Wael Sawan gets ready for some ups and downs

By Jon Yeomans: The Sunday Times. September 18 2022, 12.01 am

Congratulations to Wael Sawan, the new boss of Shell, who will be taking over from Ben van Beurden next year. Sawan, a company lifer, will have to lead the oil giant through a treacherous period.

For starters, it is making an obscene amount of money while people worry about keeping the heating on. It also has to work out whether it really wants to be a leader in renewable energy.

But what do we know of Sawan? An impressive CV and a squeaky-clean page on LinkedIn. Sawan’s interests are listed as Harvard Business School, a couple of energy companies, and a furniture maker in Dubai.

Still, with BP boss Bernard Looney likening his company to a “cash machine”, Shell is wise to pick a dull CEO.

Delving a little deeper, though, it seems Sawan is a thoughtful chap. In a 2019 interview with Argentinian newspaper La Nacion, he said:'”Good people come and go. The institutions are those that remain. And if you believe in institutions you can create value.” read more

argusmedia.com

Shell restarts Australian Prelude LNG loadings

Published date: 19 September 2022

Shell has resumed LNG loadings at its 3.6mn t/yr Prelude floating LNG (FLNG) facility in the Browse basin offshore Western Australia following a shutdown of more than six weeks because of industrial action.

The resumption comes more than three weeks since the strike, which began on 10 June, stopped on 25 August.

The shipments follow the cancellation of protected industrial action after an in-principle enterprise agreement was reached with the Australian Workers’ Union and Electrical Trades Union in relation to the Prelude facility on 23 August, Shell said on 19 September. read more

Shell’s Prelude FLNG off Australia resumes LNG production, shipments

Sameer Manekar: Reuters: PUBLISHED SEP 18, 2022 06:19PM EDT

Sept 19 (Reuters) – Shell Plc SHEL.L said on Monday it has resumed producing and shipping liquefied natural gas (LNG) from its Prelude floating LNG (FLNG) facility, nearly a month after the oil and gas major and workers’ unions reached a wage deal.

In late August, Shell and unions representing workers at the floating facility off northwest Australia reached the deal, ending a long-running strike that had shut down the 3.6 million-tonne-a-year facility in July and halted LNG supplies. read more