Royal Dutch Shell Update

international | miscellaneous | news report Saturday August 26, 2006 02:15 by Mark - Jack White's Shell Watch

Another Day -- Another 'Incident'

Shell should have been basking in the light of its most recently well advertised and PR driven ‘event’ today in the USA. The beleaguered Petro-chemical giant is currently riding the wave of public concern over it controversial deal with the US federal government, which has seen a ‘clerical error’ being muted as the reason Shell legally entitled to a 10billion tax-free bonanza over 25 years.

Shell should have been basking in the light of its most recently well advertised and PR driven ‘event’ today in the USA. The beleaguered Petro-chemical giant is currently riding the wave of public concern over it controversial deal with the US federal government, which has seen a ‘clerical error’ being muted as the reason Shell legally entitled to a 10billion tax-free bonanza over 25 years.

So it was to much fanfare that the Shell’s PR have been placing stories in the US press over the past 48 hours about its assistance to the Louisiana fishing industry. The area and much of the fishing industry was ravaged by several Gulf Coast hurricanes of 2005 causing $1 billion worth of infrastructure damage.

Not really known for their assistance to fishes, but knowing plenty about industry and corporate image, and not wanting to miss the opportunity to be seen as a responsible entity, Shell have been bigging up the $500,000 they donated towards repair costs.

And numerous big wigs were wheeled to utter the worthy words. Or more realistically, the PR prepared a statement and typed these names and positions in to the press release and mailed it of. For the sake of balance here they are:

"In May, we participated in a forum to address the importance of OCS revenue sharing to the sustainability of Louisiana," said Annell Bay, Vice President - Exploration, Americas Region for Shell Exploration and Production. "It was apparent that the coastal fishing industry was still in dire need of assistance, so we asked how we could help."

$500,000 is 10 mins of Shell total profits a year after tax. An easier comparison is say, for example, you have 200 euros left after you paid your bills, tax, mortage, food etc. It was yours to do what you will. And say of that 200 euros you gave 28 CENTS.....Would you then have the balls to pay some to write press releases about it. Such is the cynicism of Shell. The tactic was employed this week in Rossport

"All of us on the Gulf are neighbors. The fishing industry provides food and jobs; oil companies provide energy and jobs," said Frank Glaviano, Vice President - Production, Americas Region for Shell Exploration and Production. "Partnering with neighbors to help them rebuild makes good sense."

“Partnering with neighbors to help them rebuild makes good sense.” Well it seems that it doesn’t make sense in Nigeria, the Philippines, in South Africa, west Ireland or any of the many other communities and environments that carry the cost of Shell increasing wealth extraction.

Also Shell have not been so forthcoming in wheeling out long titled and over paid folks to talk about the latest refinery ‘incident’. Not a peep out of Annel or Frank about the fact that Shell have been forced into making preparation to shut a major part of its 99,000 barrels a day in California. The refinery in Wilmington, Los Angeles, was reducing feed to the 36,000 bpd unit on Friday morning.

Large scale unplanned repairs are to be carried out and Shell notified California public safety and environmental agencies of flaring from the refinery on Friday morning due to an equipment shutdown. The repairs are to focus around the refinery’s fluidic catalytic cracking unit.

As of yet full details are as of yet unavailable but will keep posted