Shell boss Peter Voser has been in the job less than a month, but is likely to be defending his company's worst quarterly profits for many years. People want to hear exactly how his reorganization plan will change Shell for the better and help it close the profitability gap with rivals.
July 27th, 2009:
FOCUS: 2Q Is Time For U.K. Oil Bosses To Prove Their Mettle
This website and sisters royaldutchshellgroup.com, shellnazihistory.com, royaldutchshell.website,
johndonovan.website, and shellnews.net,
are owned by John Donovan. There is also a Wikipedia segment.
Shell rejects reports of 500 to 600 global management cull
Oil major plans further jobs cull
Oil giant Royal Dutch Shell is planning a fresh wave of job cuts under new chief executive Peter Voser’s group-wide overhaul, it has emerged.
Shell’s first tranche of cuts is set to draw to a close this week and it is expected to be followed soon by an announcement over a new set of job losses.
The firm rejected reports that between 500 and 600 of its global management are to go in the next phase of the restructuring.
A spokeswoman for the firm declined to comment on the numbers and it is believed Shell has yet to set targets for the upcoming cuts.
On a Swiss roll…
Heres the story. You are a Swiss accountant with a proven record of ruthlessness and synthetic business acumen. You are comfortable with numbers thats what you do but you know little about the minutiae of the oil business. How can you be you are not an oil man you are a dollars man. By guile, good fortune and the Peter Principle you find yourself at the helm of one of the worlds biggest oil and gas companies. You know that you will struggle with the difficult things like creating an organisation that finds, develops, transports, refines and markets hydrocarbons. You know nothing at all about the oil and gas chain from exploration to consumption. Youve never really worked in it other than seeing spreadsheets which show you how much it costs. But you are now in charge. So what you do is retreat to the familiar world of numbers. That world where there is certainty where something that costs $100m is only supportable if an adequate ROACE is assured. And where, even though future earnings are always, by definition, unpredictable you find a way of getting bogus certainty where there is none. By appointing more accountants and listening to them.
Shell insiders toxic reaction to Vosification job cuts
By John Donovan
The following information was posted on to our Shell Blog this morning by guest1, an extremely well-informed senior Shell insider whose real identity is known to us.
Voser cutting 600 top jobs. Nothing new, we could read that quite a while ago on the Donovan site. But what does this really mean? The head honchos are now expected to all combine two jobs. This is a nice recipe to get them overworked and overtired while the official explanation is better coordination. But they will be so exhausted that they cannot challenge projects that hit their desks for approval and so must rely on completed staff work by the underlings. The last few years this system has been tried and failed.
Royal Dutch Shell ruthless restructuring continues – more job cuts
By John Donovan
On 30 January we broke the news of Shell’s decision to make “tough choices” in reaction to the collapse in oil prices. Shell confirmed to Reuters that the Shell internal emails from CEO Jeroen van der Veer and Executive Director Malcolm Brinded we published were authentic. Quotes from the emails were featured in the Reuters article: Shell gets tough on costs as oil prices bite
Notability, the warning by Brinded of “touch choices” did not extend to him giving up his fat cat retention bonus.
Fresh wave of job cuts at Shell
CITY A.M.
Monday, 27th July 2009
ENERGY
OIL giant Royal Dutch Shell is set to announce a set of job cuts this week, as new chief executive Peter Voser continues his wave of intense restructuring at the company. But reports that the number of job losses would be as high as 600 were yesterday dismissed. Voser is expected to give details of his restructuring plans at the companys interim results on Thursday. Earlier this year, Voser kicked off his leadership with a bang, when he axed almost half of the executive directors on the groups board. This led to the most senior woman executive, Linda Cook, leaving.
10,000 of Shells global workforce of 102,000 likely to go?
The Times
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