Royal Dutch Shell plc | ||
Carel van Bylandtlaan 30 | ||
Mr. H. Roger Schwall
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2596 HR The Hague | |
Assistant Director
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The Netherlands | |
Division of Corporation Finance
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Tel +31 70 377 3120 | |
Mail Stop 7010
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Email Roy.Waight@shell.com | |
Securities and Exchange Commission
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Internet http://www.shell.com | |
100 F Street, NE |
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Washington, D.C. 20549-1090 |
RE:
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Royal Dutch Shell plc Form 20-F for Fiscal Year Ended December 31, 2007 Filed March 17, 2008 File No. 1-32575 SEC February 12, 2009 |
1. | We note your response to comment 4 of our letter dated December 2, 2008. Please tell us the nature and amounts of royalties, taxes, and other payments you have made to the governments of Iran, Syria and Sudan, or to entities controlled by those governments, during the past fiscal year. Your response should include information regarding both cash payments and payments in kind. Please also tell us the total cash flow generated by your operations in each of those countries during the past fiscal year, including amounts recognized by you as revenue and amounts generated for the Iranian, Syrian and Sudanese governments or entities controlled by those governments. Describe in reasonable detail the terms of any contracts, agreements or |
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2. | We note your response to our prior comments 1, 2, and 3 and your undertaking to provide revised disclosure in future filings. For each such prior comment, please provide us with an example of the disclosure you propose to include in future filings. |
3. | We note your response to our prior comment five of our letter dated December 2, 2008. Please provide us with an example of the disclosure you intend to include in response to this comment. |
4. | We have reviewed your response to our prior comment number six. We remind you that not only FAS 69 prohibits oil sand disclosure from oil and gas reserve disclosure but Rule 4-10(a) of Regulation S-K prohibits it as well. Therefore we do not consider the fact that the disclosure is outside the supplemental oil and gas information to be a meaningful argument. When companies have both types of reserves we have specifically stated there are to be separate disclosures. Therefore, we continue to believe that this disclosure is inconsistent with our reserve definitions, as well as FAS 69. We refer you to your own disclosure at the end of page 23 of this filing which emphasizes our point. Please revise your document accordingly. |
5. | We have considered your response to prior comment number 7 and do not agree with your conclusion regarding the combined presentation of reserves of consolidated subsidiaries with those of equity accounted investments. As you note in your response, we have historically objected to such combined presentations. Further, as indicated in our prior comment, given the differences in the nature of your control over your consolidated subsidiaries, as compared to |
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6. | We have reviewed your response to our prior comment eight. Production is almost always a significant part of a companys year to year reserve changes and therefore it should be included in any discussion of those changes. Therefore, please provide us with your proposed language which includes the amount of production and its effect on changes to your proved oil and gas reserves. |
7. | We have reviewed your response to our prior comment eleven. It is our understanding that Aera operates in fields that are very mature, well developed and have production histories in the decades. Therefore, please further explain to us, in as much detail as necessary, the high percentage of proved undeveloped reserves that you claim for your share of this entity. |
8. | We have reviewed your response to our prior comment 12. We understand that you include inert gases as proved reserves when they are sold as part of the contract or where they are processed as part of an integrated LNG or GTL project. However, in any significant portion of your gas reserves have a high percentage of either inert gases or impurities that may impact the price you receive for that gas or significantly reduces the volume of hydrocarbon gas that you sell as compared to the reserves you claimed for that gas you should disclose this information. If the price received for the inert gas is materially different than the price received for the hydrocarbon gas that you claimed as reserves you should disclose the differences in both price |
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9. | We have reviewed your response to our prior comment 13. Please further explain the expected production increases given the current world economy which has led to a significant decrease in energy demand to the point that OPEC is cutting production. We note that two of these three projects are in OPEC countries. Please provide further information on sales contracts you have finalized and any other information regarding marketing these products which may support the attribution of proved reserves for these projects. |
cc.
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Timothy Levenberg, Special Counsel | |
US Securities and Exchange Commission | ||
Jim Murphy, Petroleum Engineer | ||
US Securities and Exchange Commission | ||
Laura Nicholson | ||
US Securities and Exchange Commission | ||
Brad Skinner | ||
US Securities and Exchange Commission |
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