Caroline Dennett’s Post

I emailed the Shell Execs and 1400 staff and contractors this morning.

Caroline, this must have taken some courage, especially amongst colleagues and friends in the industry. You are speaking truth to power and calling out all the sophisticated arguments, defense positions and lies behind the ‘Do No Harm’ campaign. Your action has spurred me on to do more to protect my children and future generations. Thank you!

Dear Caroline, good for you. I remember our collaboration on safety leadership, back in 2015. I am with you.

Thank you for speaking up! You are my carbon hero today!

Caroline Dennett, as an oil and gas professional, how can oil companies "end all new extraction projects" and stop producing oil and gas? You have a UK accent, so you must be aware of the nat gas shortage in Europe? How will the EU function without power? Have you heard of Ukraine, or OPEC+, or Russia? Do you know what energy dependence is? You surely know that we will continue to explore, drill, complete, and produce oil wells for the next 50 years. Why? Because the transition to renewables will take 50 years and $150 Trillion dollars to complete. Upon completion, we will still have an oil and gas business, albeit much smaller. Have you heard of Petrochemicals? Or plastic? There is no way to supply electricity demand without fossil fuels. It is impossible. Google "Electricity Demand in India". Now that Russian petroleum products are lost, coal fired power plants will start coming back online. Horrible for the environment, however, we need the power to support life. We are not producing enough oil and gas to meet current demand. "End all new extraction projects"? Sure, why don't you type another ridiculous post to get more views. You're not an oil and gas professional, you are a digital marketing expert!

Well, Shell IS an oil company. Anyone opposed to fossil fuels probably shouldn't be working with them in the first place. We're going to need fossil fuels in the short term, at least, if we seriously care about providing energy to homes and businesses. Alternative energy sources can't shoulder the load. Nuclear is the answer, but people don't like that one. Everybody has their head in the past and can't get off of Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, both results of gross human error. I don't see the value in scolding Shell or any other oil company. Maybe you should have abandoned Shell after 4 years. The message on climate change has been grossly mishandled. The reason it doesn't resonate with people is because the message doesn't change. And that message is, "If we don't drastically act now, it will be too late!" It's been at least 7 years of that gospel being preached over and over again. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/we-dont-act-now-large-scale-interventions-might-too-late-abraham/ Results require 100% global participation and yet the U.S., Canada, and most of Europe have been the only ones doing anything at all about it. Major contributors like China, India, and Russia, have no intention of doing anything ever.

Shell will ultimately go the way of Kodak, or Motorola, if they don't read the room and change their core business. The world is changing fast with regard to fossil fuels and this is being hastened by a shift in consumer awareness/demand and political "persuasion" by governments. So, ultimately, Shell might be pushing to pull more oil out of the ground to sell to an ever declining customer base. And that equation won't balance. There may be some poorer countries that will persevere longer with fossil fuels and these will represent the new Shell, and their ilk, customer base. Eventually it will become uneconomical for them unless they diversify. My take, they need to consider themselves as an energy company, not an oil company. This opens up so many more options for them to enact a strategic withdrawal from oil and ensure their own future. Maybe they are doing this? We'll done to you for acting on your principles and let's hope She'll pay attention to such statements.

Sorry, but this is deluded nonsense. Whether or not to use oil and gas for transportation is one debate. But we will still need hydrocarbons to feed our chemical industries, which, horror of horrors, are need to in turn produce the materials to make all these wonderful new devices that are going to produce green energy. Oh! - and also for all the materials we use in the medical, hospital and pharmaceutical worlds. Frankly, we should be producing as much gas as we can sensibly and economically use. We've seen recently what happens when we don't! Take Russia's invasion of Ukraine as a wake-up call.

Well done for standing by your principles. As a recent Shell employee of 17yrs in a similar role, I agree and disagree. I agree a clear strategy on reserves replacement is needed. I suspect wilful blindness presently on this contradiction with Net Zero. I am more nuanced that “Shell should be using all its capital (..) to lead this transition” - yes to lead, but I don’t think all capital allocation should be to, for example, e-mobility or renewables. Shell produces less than 5% of the world’s oil, if it wants to lead other majors in a transition it unfortunately can only go so far while also shifting from high to low% ROCE. Few will recall that Shell had some of the largest and most modern solar panel production in 2002; look how that turned out when China entered production. You can argue this is old school thinking, but to do otherwise is to take a dish and drop it to see what happens. In the meantime Shell is arguably leading its group of peers, from its Net Zero commitment to its massive stakes in e-mobility, steady and significant growth of Wind and Solar, and groundbreaking Hydrogen initiatives. Unfortunately this is a wicked problem - it calls for urgency, yes, but holistic responses, not silver bullets. #Shell

"We must end all new extraction projects immediately...." This will kill people, especially poor people, and won't help anything. The "transition" is not imminent. The tech is not there to replace fossil fuels, and it's not close. Not close at all. Theatrical virtue doesn't plant the seeds, fertilize, irrigate, harvest, process, or get the food to market. It doesn't create the fabric and clothe people. It doesn't build houses or workplaces or infrastructure. I agree that Shell, and every other company, including Clout, should stop greenwashing and bring their messaging and their behavior in line. Both should be grounded in reality, not marketing fluffery and empty noise.