Testy Annual Meeting Focuses on Shell's Scandal

[seemslikeadream]

By GREGORY CROUCH

Published: June 29, 2004


HE HAGUE, June 28 - At its first annual meeting since it became engulfed in an oil reserve scandal, the Royal Dutch/Shell Group on Monday tried to contain the fury of shareholders, but the company may have inadvertently made things worse after an executive raised doubts about when he was first informed of the reserve discrepancy.

Shareholders - demanding to know how the company could have overbooked 4.5 billion barrels of oil and gas reserves and also when company officials first knew about it - appeared surprised when Aad Jacobs, supervisory board chairman of the Royal Dutch Petroleum Company, said he was told of "an issue with reserves" in November.

Shell's overstatement of its reserve estimates did not become public knowledge until early January.

Mr. Jacobs said he was having lunch last November with Walter van de Vijver, then head of exploration and production, when a problem with reserves was mentioned.

Mr. Jacobs said he advised Mr. van de Vijver to "go talk to your colleagues and the chairman," referring to Sir Philip B. Watts, then chairman of Royal Dutch/Shell. Both Sir Philip and Mr. van de Vijver resigned this year in the wake of the reserves scandal.

During the shareholders' meeting here Monday, Mr. Jacobs said he first learned in early January that Shell was making the first of what were eventually four revisions of its proven reserves.

more
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/29/business/worldbusiness/29shell.html

Shell survives twin-pronged attack but rebels embarrass management

MARTIN FLANAGAN
CITY EDITOR


BRITISH -Dutch oil giant Royal Dutch/Shell survived a shareholder rebellion yesterday, but not before being embarrassed by strong anti-votes on two key issues at annual general meetings in London and The Hague.

The meetings came two months late because of the turmoil caused by the shock news from the firm in January that it had overbooked its oil and gas reserves by more than 20 per cent.

Almost 40 per cent of the group’s Dutch shareholders voted against a key resolution to agree that Royal Dutch managing directors and its supervisory board "be discharged of responsibility in respect of their management for the year 2003".

Meanwhile, shareholders in London also showed their disapproval of Shell Transport & Trading’s disastrous year of reserves downgrades and high-level executive sackings. Nearly 10 per cent of Shell’s shareholders voted against a resolution to approve the group’s executive remuneration package.

The latter have seen former chairman Sir Philip Watts, exploration and production head Walter van de Vijver and chief financial officer Judy Boynton all lose their jobs.
more
http://business.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=742022004

Investors lambast Shell over ousted chairman's £1m pay-off
By Michael Harrison, Business Editor
29 June 2004


Shell received a mauling yesterday from shareholders over the "scandal" of the £1m pay-off for its disgraced former chairman, its "abject" environmental record and its cumbersome dual board structure.
http://news.independent.co.uk/business/news/story.jsp?story=536330

[belab13]

1. With regards to Exxon and BP revising their estimated reserves

I don't think its a matter of if , but when...


but that is just my personal opinion.