Part One in a new series examining Shell-related spying, surveillance and intimidation allegations across multiple countries.
There are Shell controversies that revolve around oil spills, reserves, bribery allegations or boardroom disasters. Then there are the darker episodes: the ones involving whistleblowers, injunctions, private pressure, alleged surveillance, late-night legal ambushes, suspected burglaries and the chilling suggestion that a multinational oil giant knew far too much about those who challenged it.
The case of Dr John Huong Yiu Tuong, a former Shell Malaysia geologist and long-serving employee of nearly 30 years, belongs firmly in that second category.
Dr Huong was not an environmental activist chained to a refinery gate. He was a Shell insider. A production geologist. A man who had spent most of his working life inside the company. According to the Donovan archive, his falling-out with Shell began after he raised concerns internally about two highly sensitive matters: the alleged fabrication or misstatement of hydrocarbon reserves and helicopter safety in Shell’s Malaysian operations. The Dr John Huong index states that he had placed on record, in a Shell internal document, a “conscience drive concern” about safety issues and the “fabrication of reserves volume” for the Kinabalu oil field, where he had been production geologist. (Royal Dutch Shell Plc .com)
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