Thread regarding Shell Oil layoffs

To answer the original question, we had the Zaedyus discovery in French Guiana circa 2012/2013. This caused a flurry of appraisal drilling that yielded a bunch of dry holes.

Fast forward a year or two later, leadership wanted nothing to do with deep water strat traps and conflated French Guiana with Guyana, of course not listening to the geologists who repeated many times that they are completely different basins and petroleum systems! No dependencies at all other than similar-sounding country name.

Liza itself was one of the highest ranking prospects in our DW portfolio with a nice Class III AVO response, fit to structure, etc. Technical staff knew it had a good shot, the real decision makers ignored it all. It was the main reason I ended up leaving the company, ironically for EM (but for unrelated reasons)

@1gn yep. Shell historically has looked at everything in a silo. When Shell had a bunch of refineries, Trading would make a ki-ling off of them, but the assets would be in the red. So management thought the sites were bad and it was only due to Trading moving products around to make the most money. Shell does not look at the big picture.

@1gm we can’t sell Norco because we need it for trading but come the fu-k on Shell. We purport to be some global powerhouse but have some of the stupidest people making decisions. Look into Vitol. Trading powerhouse and the first thing they did was buy 4 refineries to have physical assets to trade around. That’s smart. But we let trading turn into the wizard of oz and took us until 2025 to look behind the curtain. Oh you can’t make money without assets after all? Trading in Shell are fu--ing snakes.

@1gj yep. Shell buys Goodyear chemicals in the early 1990s, then sells that within 10y and gets out of most other chemicals and then decides to get back in with Monaca. Then the way it was bid out was not smart. That led to all the cost overruns. Geismar makes money in spite of itself. Honestly, Shell does not know how to run downstream assets.

@1gh oh and we already had kraton’s plant in Belpre, OH just over the border. Doubly stupid with our background and knowledge. Shell does not understand petrochemical manufacturing since the 80s. Golden shackles are on me but I’m still going to passive aggressively post anonymously. LT read this more than the SPS.

@ah the shell board should at least couple extravagantly poor decisions like Monaca to pension payments. It wouldn’t amount to anything more than symbolic but it would at least be something. BvB not getting a single more dollar from Shell in a pension payment would at least be SOMETHING in the right direction for totally fu--ing Shell. It’s not fu--ing hindsight. The ethane bo-m + Kraton history + ignoring why no other polymers producers built in that region = failure and f u.ck you BVB. He let his ego fu-k all of us because Voser hurt his feelings about trying to sell chemicals around 2011. Fu-k that POS.

@1d1 but computational team serve everyone upstream, gas , downstream every vertical so they are safe noting to worry there

@19n I know PTX is gone but the function of PTX is still there under downstream. But I am not sure about the future of this function as Shell is trying to sell downstream assets.

@18h

i heard PTX no longer exists and hasn’t for months!!???

@17z is there rumor about computational science team at stcb? or is it just hate? I heard they are expanding their team and ability within PTX.

@17v what about computational team at stcb ? they are doing fine?

@16k because the company is selling “assets” related to that line of business

@OP why Anna Mascolo left Shell?

@se you're not talking about offshore Gulf of Merica projects. ... Ok, Maybe Stones.

@132 from my experience, the lack of technical expertise on most of the major projects results in all the cost overruns or issues with the design not being fully identified until during construction or as start up begins.

@se
"Don't ruffle feathers" is an apt expression. Because the project leadership lacks confidence and is unable to challenge contractors, they simply approve variation orders that contain false or misleading information submitted by the contractors. They are so afraid to challenge the contractors that they do not even read or fully understand the technical content of the variation orders before approving them. It is no exaggeration to say that engineering costs now account for 30–40% of the total project cost due these falsified variation orders.

@w2 the dry holes were in French Guiana. The Exploration leadership at the time thought the fiscals were bad in Guyana, that it rhymed with French Guiana, and that we should get out to save some expex, even though the technical recommendation was to stay in. Oops.

@w2 we couldn’t be partners with state owned CNOOC? I suppose I thought they had way more money than what we’d require for such a partnership.

I was not around during the Guyana decision making, but I heard we drilled 4 dry holes and were looking to sell down our working interest. Eventually CNOOC expressed interest. Our treasury department had rules that wouldn’t allow us to be partners with them (I guess not deep enough pockets for a Macondo style event), so whoever was at the helm decided to offload all our working interest.

@se don’t recognize this commentary in P&T Houston.

@cd
Shell projects will never be completed on time or within budget as long as non-technical staff continue to become project directors, project managers, and engineering managers. They have little understanding of project workflows, no technical expertise, and no real project execution experience. To compensate for their lack of confidence, they end up relying on sycophants.

Because they don't understand the technical or execution side of projects, they are unable to get a project back on track once it starts going off course. Their only strategy is "don't ruffle feathers," which seems to be the guiding principle in Shell P&T. If a project collapses under cost overruns and billions of dollars of shareholder value are wasted, so be it. Avoiding conflict and preserving internal networks to climb the corporate ladder take priority.

Senior leadership tolerates the waste of billions on canceled projects because many of them followed the same path—they were project directors and managers with similar backgrounds earlier in their careers.

@h8 talk to computational team at stcb they have all solutions

Because we love giving freebies to Exxon and we hate spending money

@OP Because geologists said there is no oil that we can produce. Or the risk wasn’t worth the investment.

@b6 when was the last major project Shell built that was on time, on budget and profitable? Prelude and PennChem both were north of $15B total and both have had operational issues. Shell seems to go in and out of polymers every 10y. Back in early 1990s, Shell bought Goodyear chemical to only sell the business 10y after. The last 2 major project failures is why P&T is getting axed. They don’t really add any value.

@ah lol how did BVB ever get that past the board? We divested Kraton polymers in 2003 to turn around not even 5 years later and say, “ you know what shell chemical should do? Get into polymers.” That decision took another 13 years before we built it. Is it even profitable yet? I don’t think it’s been operational for a whole year yet. Maybe? That’s beyond embarrassing and I don’t understand why our LT keeps getting slack to make sh-t decisions. $14 billion for a polymer plant that won’t be profitable or paid off for years.

@ah Shell being Shell: walking away from good opportunities, doubling down on bad decisions, and then calling it “strategic discipline.” #ThatsAGoodQuestion #ThisIsShell

Because Shell decided to instead waste the billions on a polymers plant in Pennsylvania.