Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Europe’s largest oil company, said Ann Pickard is set to take the helm of its Australian business in 2010 as the unit prepares to “go into major spend mode” with liquefied natural gas projects.

Pickard, who oversees Shell’s exploration and production in Africa, is
expected to move to Australia toward the end of the first quarter, Jon
Chadwick, interim executive vice president for the country, said in an
interview in Perth yesterday.

Shell is among LNG companies in Australia seeking to tap Asian demand
for cleaner-burning fuels. The nation should become the world’s
second-largest exporter of LNG by 2020 behind Qatar, Chadwick
estimated. Australia now ranks fifth, according to Resources Minister
Martin Ferguson, who describes the nation as an “energy superpower.”

“Customers covet Australian LNG,” said Chadwick. Shell is in
discussions with potential Asia-Pacific buyers and “we’re positive
about the medium- to long-term outlook for LNG sales.”

At least one out of every 10 dollars of Shell’s global capital
investment is allocated to Australia, Chadwick said, declining to
provide an estimate for future spending. Shell’s capital investment in
oil and gas exploration and production was about $17.3 billion in the
first nine months of the year, according to the company’s third-quarter
report.

The Hague-based Shell is a partner in the Gorgon LNG venture off
northwestern Australia, a development estimated by operator Chevron
Corp. to cost A$43 billion ($40 billion).

Floating LNG

Shell has an interest in the North West Shelf project led by Woodside
Petroleum Ltd., Australia’s second-largest oil and gas producer. Shell
also seeks to pioneer the use of floating LNG technology to develop the
Prelude and Concerto fields in the Browse Basin off the Kimberley
coast, on top of other gas plans.

Shell may become the first to launch a floating LNG project aimed at
developing gas deposits too small and far from the coast to be
profitably exploited through onshore plants. A final investment
decision on the Prelude project is scheduled for 2011, with first LNG
expected in 2016, Shell said in an environmental impact statement
released last month.

“We hope it is the first of many,” Chadwick said. “We see other
applications of floating LNG not just in Australia and the
Asia-Pacific, but around the globe.”

Shell said last month that a quick recovery in energy demand and prices
was unlikely and that it would cut 5,000 jobs. Even so, Chadwick said
“Australia is a growth area for us.” The headcount in Perth has more
than quadrupled to about 260 people in the past four years, he said.
“Operating Prelude will have implications we need to staff up for.”

Shell employs about 2,500 people in Australia, according to its Web site.

Pickard, who has been based in Lagos, Nigeria for the past four years
as regional executive vice president for Africa, may have the most
dangerous executive position in the oil industry, Fortune magazine said
in November 2008. Attacks by armed groups have cut more than 25 percent
of Nigeria’s oil output over the past three years, according to the
United Nations.

Shell doesn’t have a specific start date for the new Australian head, Chadwick said.

Source: Bloomberg

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