LONDON: Royal Dutch Shell’s 54-year old chief executive Peter Voser is to retire next year in an early departure he said was driven by a desire for a change of lifestyle.
His departure from a role he is seen to have excelled in came as a shock to investors, analysts and people inside Europe’s biggest oil company.
Two senior members of staff told Reuters they had no inkling that he would go. The softly spoken and widely respected Swiss national has helped drive Shell’s recovery from sector laggard to a leading position in the burgeoning industry of liquefied natural gas in his nine years at the top of the company.
He took over as finance chief in 2004 amid the board-level upheaval that followed its dramatic downgrade of reserves estimates, becoming CEO in 2009. His departure, scheduled for the first half of next year and announced along with first-quarter results, comes as the company and its industry face huge challenges.
Shell is the western world’s number two company by production behind ExxonMobil. But, like its peers, it is struggling to replace reserves and boost production, and faces a squeeze on earnings as costs rise while the price of oil threatens to fall decisively below the psychologically important $100 a barrel level.
Shell said it would look outside and inside the company for Voser’s replacement. However, as with most big oil companies, new chief executives traditionally come up through the ranks.
Finance director Simon Henry refused to be drawn on his prospects for succeeding Voser. Inside Shell, Henry is regarded as a potential front-runner along with Marvin Odum, the company’s head of upstream operations in the Americas.
Henry has a mathematics and accounting background even though, like Odum, he joined the company as an engineer, and is respected by shareholders who know him from his days as head of investor relations. Odum, who is about Voser’s age, would be Shell’s first American CEO.
Andrew Brown, who became head of international upstream last year, could be a candidate too, as could director of projects and technology Matthias Bichsel. One source said Brown’s relatively recent appointment may make him an outside bet, while Bichsel, born in 1954, might be considered too old for the job.
Voser said his decision to go was a personal one. “After such an exciting executive career I feel it is time for a change in my lifestyle and I am looking forward to having more time available for my family and private life in the years to come,” he said in a statement. Reuters
