Yahoo! News: Shell to recruit extra engineers to restore good name: report: “Shell is struggling to win back investors' trust after admitting last year it had overstated its proven reserves by 23 percent, and that senior executives were aware of problems long before they were made public.” (ShellNews.net) 18 Jan 05

LONDON (AFP) - Troubled energy giant Royal Dutch/Shell, still reeling from the revelation that it massively overstated its proven reserves, is to recruit more than 1,000 new engineers in a bid to recover some credibility, a report said.   

The new jobs would come in Shell's core exploration and production business in an attempt to help the Anglo-Dutch company catch up with its rivals in reserve replacement, the Financial Times said.

Shell is struggling to win back investors' trust after admitting last year it had overstated its proven reserves by 23 percent, and that senior executives were aware of problems long before they were made public.

The world's third-biggest oil group subsequently announced that it was merging its Dutch and British holding companies in an attempt to restore investor confidence.

According to the Financial Times, the move to recruit new engineers, revealed in an internal company newsletter, supported the view of some in the company that technical shortcomings contributed to the scandal as well as management failures.

However, analysts were cited by the paper as saying it would be a challenge to recruit so many experienced engineers in an industry where they were in short supply.

"They simply are not around in the market, so (Shell) will have to get them from other companies -- and who's going to leave Exxon for Shell?" said one person identified only as having "long experience" with the company.

Shell is also understood to be preparing a statement on reserves replacement for its annual earnings meeting, to be held on February 3, the business newspaper added.

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