Shell is running its $23 billion Prelude floating LNG plant with critical positions filled by crew who are not fully qualified, and more than 200 safety alarms out of action, ahead of industrial action due to start on Friday.
Gas exports recommenced from the world’s largest floating vessel just two months ago after it was shut down for four months following a complete power failure in December that the offshore safety regulator said could have led to a “catastrophic failure”.read more
Shell is unlikely to return its troubled Prelude floating LNG vessel off the WA coast to production until late March, losing valuable revenue as LNG demand from gas-starved Europe soars.
Shell chief executive Ben van Beurden said the $24 billion vessel that suffered a complete power failure after a small fire on December 2 would be out of action for most of the March quarter.read more
I have copied the email to Shell Legal Director Mr Donny Ching and Shell CEO Mr Ben van Beurden because the subject is a matter of great importance. Namely the lives and well-being of Shell employees and contractors working on the Prelude experiment.read more
Jan 7th, 2022
by John Donovan.
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By John Donovan
Printed below in italics is the content of an email sent earlier today to the Australian National Offshore Petroleum and Environmental Management Authority (NOPSEMA) by Bill Campbell, a retired senior Shell HSE expert and long-term Shell shareholder. Bill led Health, Safety and Environmental Audits for Shell worldwide. His credentials to comment on such specialist issues are impeccable.
Comment by Bill Campbell the retired HSE Group Auditor at Shell EP International
Actions by the Regulator should be welcomed.
Not surprisingly, it’s obvious and should be obvious to the keenest shellites that Prelude has serious design and operational problems raising workforce risk levels to unacceptable levels. You simply cannot continue to operate if you are unable to demonstrate through weekly testing that safety-critical equipment, fire pumps and emergency generators et al are available automatically and immediately when called on. This is a legal requirement and a commitment given by Shell in the installations Safety Case.read more
Australia’s offshore safety regulator has ordered Shell to shut down its giant Prelude floating LNG vessel off Western Australia’s North West coast while damning the company’s ability to operate the facility after it descended into chaos in early December following a series of power failures.
The direction from regulator NOPSEMA means Prelude, the biggest floating vessel ever built, will be shut down until Shell can convince them there will be no repeat of the recent dangerous episode.read more
In early December a small fire on Shell’s 488-m Prelude gas facility off WA’s coast kicked off a cascade of failures that left about 250 workers, 475 km from Broome, without communications, lights, running water or access to helicopters.
With almost every system on Australia’s most complex offshore facility out of action workers scrambled to restart power that everything depended on, with at least two stretchered to the Prelude’s hospital with heat exhaustion.read more
A fire late Thursday night on Shell’s Prelude floating LNG vessel off the Kimberley coast caused production at the $24 billion giant to be shut down and left the crew using backup power.
A small fire was detected at about 11pm in an electrical equipment area on the world’s largest vessel that can accommodate more than 200 crew.
A Shell spokesman said the fire triggered automatic fire systems and was extinguished before it spread further and all workers were safe and accounted for.read more
Shell’s accountants predict the Dutch giant will never pay Australia for gas extracted at the Gorgon and Prelude LNG projects that it can sell for up to about $4 billion a year. Peter Milne from independent energy and climate news site Boiling Cold has the story.
Dutch giant Shell forecasts it will never pay Australia for oil and gas extracted for the Gorgon and Prelude LNG projects that it can sell for up to almost $4 billion a year.read more
Comment from retired Shell International Global Safety Consultant, Bill Campbell:
It’s all rather depressing, most worrying aspect as implied in the article is the potential gas supply, or lack of it, from the homogeneous and shared reservoir with another operator bleeding off volumes.
The boilingcold.com.au journalist Peter Milne has given the most detailed analysis yet of the Prelude story, elements of both tragedy and farce.
COMMENT FROM “AN OLD SHELL E&P ENGINEERING SEA DOG”
As before I feel very sorry for the Aussies who are under extreme pressure to get this unit up and running. I do not quite understand the journalist comment of “gas is running out”. It is a shared reservoir therefore there will be an agreement for the total volumes in place and a regular review taking place to determine the remaining producible volumes and the agreed volume share for each operator.
The links below are to a series of articles, many triggered by a well-placed whistleblower directly involved in the pioneering Royal Dutch Shell Prelude project. Includes articles by Mr Bill Campbell above, the retired distinguished HSE Group Auditor of Shell International and another retired Shell guru with a track record of spotting potential pitfalls in major Shell projects.
The fears voiced by Bill Campbell about a loss of containment (see article link 3) have proven well-founded.
Ask the Australian National Offshore Petroleum and Environmental Management Authority.
Shell’s Prelude floating LNG facility off the WA coast was to be the first of many that would open up stranded gas reserves around the world thanks to the technical and project management prowess of Anglo-Dutch oil and gas giant Shell.It has not turned out that way.When the 488m-long giant arrived in Australia almost three years ago, Shell expected to receive cashflow from the Prelude in 2018.
While the Prelude did export LNG at about half its capacity for the second half of 2019, it is now idle.
Moored far off the Kimberley coast it is plagued with technical problems, dwindling gas reserves and safety processes condemned by the regulator despite Shell and its partners spending about $US19.3 billion ($A30.0 billion) to the end of 2019.
Neither Shell and its partners nor Australia have gained anything near what they expected from the giant experiment.read more
The Prelude first received gas from its subsea wells in December 2018 and by the end of June 2019 had produced 2.32 million tonnes of greenhouse gases, according to emissions data released by the Clean Energy Regulator today.
Conservation Council of WA director Piers Verstegen said the emissions data was absolutely shocking and suggested that Shell was making no effort to reduce Prelude’s emissions.read more
Listen and read proof in audio and transcript form of Shell CEO Ben van Beurden’s cover-up tactics in the OPL 245 Nigerian corruption scandal. The instruction given by him in the covertly recorded call to CFO Simon Henry was at odds with Shell’s claimed core business principles. Cover-up and obstruction, instead of transparency and integrity, says Shell critic John Donovan
JOHN DONOVAN TV DOCUMENTARY INTERVIEW
SHELL EXECUTIVES AT THE CENTER OF A SCHEME TO STEAL $1.3 BILLION FROM NIGERIA’S PEOPLE
SHELL ADMITS DEALING WITH NIGERIAN MONEY LAUNDERER – BBC NEWS
SHELL, ENI AND NIGERIAN OFFICIALS IN OPL 245 CORRUPTION SCANDAL
INVESTIGATION OF OPL 245 NIGERIAN OIL CORRUPTION SCANDAL
DUTCH EARTHQUAKES CAUSED BY SHELL/EXXON
SHELL KILLS FOR OIL IN NIGERIA
ESTHER KIOBEL: EVIL OIL GIANT SHELL COLLUDED IN THE EXECUTION OF MY INNOCENT HUSBAND
ESTHER KIOBEL SUES SHELL FOR COMPLICITY IN HUSBANDS MURDER
SHELL LIED ABOUT CLEANING UP OIL IN NIGER DELTA
SHELL SPIES INFILTRATED NIGERIAN GOVERNMENT
LEGO DROPS SHELL OVER GREENPEACE OIL SPILL VIDEO
SHELL ARCTIC DRILLING ACCIDENTS
SHELL KNEW ABOUT CLIMATE CHANGE DECADES AGO
ABANDONED BY SHELL: KEITH MACDONALD & FAMILY, VICTIMS OF RADIOACTIVE CONTAMINATION AT WORK
ROYAL DUTCH SHELL FOUNDER SIR HENRI DETERDING, NAZI FINANCIER
JOHN DONOVAN PROMOTIONAL GAMES FOR SHELL AND OTHER CLIENTS
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.
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