Shell's Voser to retire

The Board of Royal Dutch Shell today announced that Peter Voser, as Chief Executive Officer, has elected to retire from the Company in the first half of 2014.

Peter Voser was appointed CEO with effect from July 2009 and has been an Executive Director since 2004. Voser joined the Royal Dutch/Shell Group of Companies in 1982 and has held a number of finance and business roles in Switzerland, Argentina, Chile and the UK until March 2002.  He then joined Asea Brown Boveri (ABB) Ltd as Chief Financial Officer, returning to Shell four years ago.

Voser, a Swiss citizen, was born in Baden, Switzerland. He is married and has three children. Voser graduated in business administration from the University of Applied Sciences, Zurich, Switzerland, in 1982.Shell’s Chairman Jorma Ollila said “Peter’s leadership of Shell over the last 4 years has been impressive, reorganizing the company, delivering growth, and developing a clear forward strategy with a strong portfolio of new options. I have enjoyed working with Peter, in a period of great change and progress for Shell, and I wish him well for the future.”

“The Nomination and Succession Committee of the Board will now lead a structured and comprehensive review of internal and external candidates to enable an orderly transition to a new CEO” Ollila added.

The announcement came as Shell revealed its first quarter 2013 results.

Voser said:  “Our industry continues to see significant energy price volatility as a result of economic and political developments. Oil prices have fallen recently but Shell is implementing a long-term, competitive and innovative strategy against this volatile backdrop.”

“Shell is investing for profitable growth, whilst maintaining strong capital discipline. We are developing some 30 new projects and maturing a series of further opportunities for investment. So far this year, we’ve seen the growth impact of recent start ups and we took four final investment decisions in petrochemicals, deepwater, and LNG.”

“We continue to take a dynamic approach to portfolio” continued Voser. “Asset sales - $0.6 billion in the first quarter and over $21 billion in the last three years - improve our capital efficiency and can bring in strategic partners. We use selective acquisitions to refresh our opportunity set.”

Shell also outlined the following upstream developments in its portfolio:

In Canada, the first debottlenecking project for the Athabasca Oil Sands Project (Shell interest 60%) was completed. The project is expected to add some 10 thousand barrels per day (“b/d”) of capacity.

In Nigeria, Shell took the final investment decision for the development of the deep-water project Erha North Phase 2 (Shell interest 44%), part of oil mining lease 133, located over 100 kilometres off the Nigerian coast. The project is expected to produce some 60 thousand barrels of oil equivalent per day (“boe/d”) of mainly oil at peak production and improve utilisation of the existing Erha floating production, storage and offloading (“FPSO”) vessel.

In Oman, the Amal Steam enhanced oil recovery project (Shell interest 34%) was brought on stream. The project is expected to ramp up over a number of years and produce some 20 thousand b/d of oil at peak production.

Shell entered into an agreement to acquire part of Repsol S.A.’s LNG portfolio outside of North America, including supply positions in Peru and Trinidad & Tobago, for a cash consideration of $4.4 billion. Under the terms of the agreement, Shell will assume finance lease obligations of the businesses acquired, predominantly reflecting leases for LNG ship charters, provisionally estimated at $1.8 billion. The acquisition is expected to add some 7.2 million tonnes per annum (“mtpa”) of LNG volumes through long-term offtake agreements, including 4.2 mtpa of equity LNG plant capacity. The transaction, which has an effective date of October 1, 2012, is expected to close in the second half of 2013 or early 2014, subject to regulatory approvals and other conditions precedent.

In the United Kingdom, Shell completed the acquisition of an additional 5.9% interest in the offshore Schiehallion field, increasing Shell’s interest to 55%. Shell also completed the acquisition of additional interests in the Beryl area fields and SAGE infrastructure, lifting Shell's production in the Beryl area fields from 9 thousand boe/d to 20 thousand boe/d. Further investment in Schiehallion and Beryl is expected to extend the production life of the fields.

In the United States, Shell and Kinder Morgan affiliates announced their intent to form a company to develop a natural gas liquefaction plant in two phases at the existing Elba Island LNG terminal to export LNG. The total project is expected to have a liquefaction capacity of approximately 2.5 mtpa. Shell will own 49% of the entity and subscribe to 100% of the liquefaction capacity. The agreement is subject to corporate and regulatory approvals.

In North America, Shell took the final investment decision for two 0.25 mtpa natural gas liquefaction units (Shell interest 100%) in Louisiana, United States and Ontario, Canada. These units will form the basis of two new LNG transport corridors in the Gulf Coast and Great Lakes regions, fuelling marine vessels and heavy-duty trucking fleets.

Upstream divestment proceeds totalled some $0.4 billion for the first quarter 2013 and included proceeds from the divestment of a 5% interest in the Prelude floating LNG project to CPC Corporation as announced in 2012, reducing Shell’s interest in the project to 67.5%.

During the first quarter 2013, Shell participated in the Kentish Knock South-1 gas discovery (Shell interest 50%) offshore Western Australia.

As part of its global exploration programme Shell added new acreage positions during the first quarter 2013, including liquids-rich acreage positions in Canada, offshore positions in Norway and the United Kingdom North Sea, along with successful bidding results in the Gulf of Mexico, United States.

Shell also signed a production sharing contract (“PSC”) for tight gas in the Yuzivska area in the Ukraine and, in China, Shell received government approval for the tight gas PSC for the Fushun-Yongchuan block in the Sichuan basin.