Two experienced Shell workers aboard the Prelude floating LNG facility have lost their bid for reduced working arrangements as they moved towards semi-retirement.
At first glance, the latest OnNotice report sounds straightforward: two workers aged over 55 asked for flexible working arrangements, Shell refused, and the Fair Work Commission backed the company.
The actual decision is more complicated.
The Commission did not determine that Shell’s operational objections were necessarily reasonable, nor did it establish that reduced-hours working at Prelude is inherently unworkable. Instead, Commissioner Hunt found that the two workers had failed at an earlier jurisdictional hurdle: their requests had not been validly made under section 65 of Australia’s Fair Work Act 2009 because the required connection between being aged 55 or over and the requested changes had not been established. (Come As You Are Songkran)
That distinction matters.
The two workers
The applicants were Sean Faherty and Stuart Dale, both employed by Shell Australia FLNG Pty Ltd and both working aboard Prelude since 2014.
Faherty is a Panel Technician. Dale is a Production Technician. Both are over 55.
They work an unusually demanding offshore cycle:
three weeks on;
four weeks off;
three weeks on;
five weeks off.
Their proposal was effectively a job-share arrangement. Each would work only one of the two three-week offshore swings in each 15-week cycle, reducing working time and salary by around 50 per cent. The Commission recorded that they currently earn approximately A$300,000 per year and contemplated a corresponding reduction in salary. (Come As You Are Songkran)
This was therefore not a proposal to receive full pay for half the work.
It was a phased-retirement arrangement.
Shell’s objection was staffing and competency
Shell’s principal concern was operational coverage.
Faherty’s panel role required particular competencies, and Shell said his reduced attendance would leave insufficient qualified coverage in the Utilities Area.
According to the decision, Shell management told Faherty that his request might become workable once another employee had been trained to the necessary panel competency, potentially by September or October 2026. Dale received similar indications concerning additional competency coverage. (Come As You Are Songkran)
The workers proposed alternatives, including the use of another already qualified employee.
Shell maintained that moving that employee would simply create another staffing problem elsewhere on the shift.
In ordinary circumstances, that dispute might have required the Commission to decide whether Shell had genuinely tried to accommodate the requests and whether its refusal was based on reasonable business grounds.
It never reached that question.
Why the case failed
Section 65 of the Fair Work Act allows certain employees to request changed working arrangements where specified circumstances apply.
One of those circumstances is that the employee is 55 or older.
But reaching 55 does not create an unrestricted statutory entitlement to any form of flexible working.
The requested change must be made because of the relevant statutory circumstance.
Commissioner Hunt was not satisfied that either applicant had established that necessary connection. (Come As You Are Songkran)
Faherty said he wanted to move towards semi-retirement, reduce his time at work and spend more time visiting family.
The Commission considered those desires understandable but found no objective and rational connection between those reasons and the fact that he was aged 55 or over.
The Commissioner noted that those preferences could equally arise for a younger employee.
Dale similarly wanted to transition towards retirement and referred to having more time at home, travel and access to physiotherapy following a back injury.
Again, the Commission was not persuaded that the required statutory nexus with age had been established. (Come As You Are Songkran)
The result was decisive.
Because the requests were not valid requests for the purposes of section 65, there was no statutory dispute capable of being arbitrated under section 65B.
The applications were therefore dismissed under section 587(1)(a). (Come As You Are Songkran)
What the decision did not decide
This is the important part.
The Commission did not decide that employees over 55 at Prelude cannot work reduced rosters.
It did not find that the Faherty/Dale job-share arrangement was intrinsically unsafe.
It did not determine that Shell’s staffing arguments would necessarily have satisfied the statutory test for reasonable business grounds.
And it did not establish a general rule that semi-retirement cannot qualify for flexible working protection.
The applications failed because of the way the statutory basis for these particular requests was established.
Our earlier report on the case made that distinction, and the primary decision confirms it. (Royal Dutch Shell Plc .com)
One intriguing feature: Shell itself appeared to envisage future flexibility
There is another aspect that deserves attention.
Shell’s own evidence, as recorded by the Commission, suggests management did not regard the concept of reduced working as impossible.
Faherty was told that, once another employee had achieved the required panel competency, his flexible arrangement might be reconsidered.
That is difficult to reconcile with any simplistic interpretation that Prelude’s operating model necessarily requires every experienced employee to remain permanently on the full roster.
The real obstacle identified by Shell was competency coverage.
That is fundamentally a workforce-planning issue.
An ageing specialist workforce
This is where the case becomes more important than the two individual applications.
Offshore oil and gas operations depend heavily on people with accumulated technical and operational knowledge.
Prelude is particularly demanding. Earlier Fair Work Commission proceedings concerning the facility describe production specialists and lead technicians carrying out complex operational, troubleshooting, mentoring and safety-related functions while working the same three-weeks-on/four-weeks-off/three-weeks-on/five-weeks-off roster. (CaseChat)
Experienced workers eventually reach an age at which they may no longer want to spend six weeks of every 15 offshore.
From a workforce-management perspective, the question becomes:
Does an employer retain those employees on reduced hours and capture their knowledge during succession?
Or does it maintain an all-or-nothing model until they leave completely?
Faherty expressly proposed continuing to pass on his experience to newer operators while working his reduced roster. (Come As You Are Songkran)
That makes the rejected proposal particularly interesting.
Shell’s answer was essentially that it first needed another person trained to cover the role.
The obvious follow-on question is why that training and succession process had not been completed earlier.
The wider Prelude industrial-relations history
The decision also sits within a broader record of industrial relations at Prelude.
The facility has been the subject of repeated proceedings before the Fair Work Commission involving Shell, contractors and offshore unions.
In 2022, for example, the Australian Maritime Officers’ Union sought bargaining orders against Shell Australia FLNG. The Commission’s record described the highly specialised structure of production work aboard Prelude and the importance of maintaining qualified personnel across key operational areas. (CaseChat)
Prelude was also the scene of prolonged industrial action during enterprise bargaining, with unions later describing the dispute as one of the most significant offshore industrial campaigns in Australian waters. (Anyflip)
The Faherty and Dale litigation is different.
It concerns individual flexible-working rights rather than enterprise bargaining.
But it adds another piece to the same underlying picture: staffing, competency, working patterns and employee retention remain sensitive issues aboard one of Shell’s most technically complex assets.
An interesting contrast with Shell’s own public language
Shell’s 2026 corporate reporting says that flexible work is intended to help employees balance work and personal life and perform at their best. (FinancialFilings)
There is nothing inherently inconsistent in that statement and Shell’s position in this case. An offshore LNG facility plainly cannot offer the same flexibility as an office.
Safety-critical staffing requirements are real.
But the case demonstrates the limits of broad corporate language when it meets the practical realities of a remote industrial installation.
For Faherty and Dale, the flexibility they wanted was not hybrid working or altered office hours.
It meant spending three weeks offshore instead of six during each 15-week cycle.
Shell said its current competency structure could not accommodate that.
The legal lesson may be important for other older workers
There is also a practical legal consequence extending beyond Shell.
The decision indicates that merely writing:
“I am 55 or older”
may not be enough to bring a flexible-working request within section 65.
An applicant must establish a genuine connection between the age-related circumstance and the particular working change requested.
Commissioner Hunt found that connection missing here. (Come As You Are Songkran)
That may make this decision relevant to other Australian employees contemplating phased retirement.
It is therefore important not to describe the ruling simply as Shell defeating two workers seeking flexibility.
It is potentially a precedent about how the statutory “because of” requirement operates.
The unresolved question for Shell
Shell won these proceedings.
But it did not make the underlying workforce problem disappear.
Indeed, its own evidence suggests the requested arrangement could potentially become workable once another operator is trained.
Prelude is a long-life asset.
Its experienced workforce is ageing.
Specialist competencies cannot be created overnight.
And employees approaching retirement will continue having to decide whether they want to maintain demanding offshore rotations.
The Fair Work Commission has resolved the legal applications brought by Faherty and Dale.
It has not resolved Shell’s succession-planning problem.
That may ultimately prove the more important issue.
What is established
The Fair Work Commission dismissed the applications of Sean Faherty and Stuart Dale on 1 September 2026 because it found their flexible-working requests had not been validly made under section 65 of the Fair Work Act. (Come As You Are Songkran)
Both applicants were over 55, had worked at Prelude since 2014 and sought approximately 50 per cent reductions in their offshore rosters and remuneration. (Come As You Are Songkran)
Shell opposed the arrangements on operational and competency-coverage grounds but indicated that additional staff training could potentially make flexible arrangements possible later. (Come As You Are Songkran)
What is not established
The decision does not establish that reduced-hours work at Prelude is inherently unsafe or impossible.
It does not establish that Shell’s refusal would necessarily have been upheld had the Commission reached the reasonable-business-grounds issue.
And it does not establish that employees aged 55 or over generally cannot rely on section 65 when seeking phased retirement.
Sources
OnNotice — Shell Prelude workers lose 55-plus flexible work bids
Earlier RoyalDutchShellPlc.com report — Prelude LNG Workers Lose Bid for Semi-Retirement Flexibility
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