Royal Dutch Shell’s board is a who’s who of global business, befitting of a company worth $213.5 billion.
Shell’s chairman Jorma Ollila used to run Nokia. Fellow director Josef Ackermann was in charge of Deutsche Bank while another Shell director, Charles Holliday, heads the board of Bank of America. Also on Shell’s board are Vodafone Group chair Gerard Kleisterlee and Heineken director Hans Wijers.
This week they and the rest of Shell’s board will visit WA to see firsthand some of the growth projects that underpin the future for the world’s second-biggest listed oil and gas company. It is the full board’s first visit to Australia.
Security is tight – as always when the board of a multinational giant is in town, as was the case when Chevron’s board visited WA in 2010 – and the directors are likely to travel spread across several corporate jets to minimise the travel risk. The group were in Canberra yesterday, meeting Acting Prime Minister Wayne Swan and Federal Resources Minister Martin Ferguson. It is thought they then set off to visit key Shell upstream assets, including its coal seam venture in Queensland, and the $43 billion Gorgon development on Barrow Island. Shell owns 25 per cent of Gorgon.
While in Perth the board is likely to meet Premier Colin Barnett.
