Royal Dutch Shell retools senior management

Only time will tell if the oil heavyweight's recent structure and management rejig will prove successful

Catharina Milostan | 01-06-09 | E-mail Article

Royal Dutch Shell has restructured its business units and senior manager roles to simplify its structure and realign its businesses. While some of these changes make sense, it's still too early to see if Shell can execute its new strategy effectively enough for us to adjust our assumptions or fair value estimate. Shell needs to prove to us that greater operating efficiencies or investment returns will be achieved under the new management structure. The group's business unit changes coincide with the July 1, 2009, transition of the CEO spot as Peter Voser takes over after Jeroen van der Veer retires.

Major changes on the upstream side entail combining three upstream businesses--Exploration & Production, Gas & Power, and Oil Sands--and then splitting the operations geographically into two units. Upstream Americas unit will include North and South American businesses and will be headed by Marvin Odum. Malcolm Brinded will become executive director of Upstream International after serving as head of the old E&P unit. This could explain earlier news of Linda Cook stepping down as head of Shell's old Gas & Power unit. Both Odum and Brinded are long-time Shell managers on the E&P side. Combining upstream functions into regional focus makes sense as some businesses are tied together; i.e., gas produced could be used for the gas & power operations.

Shell's downstream segment will be headed by Mark Williams and will add trading and alternative energy to existing refining, marketing, and chemical operations. Curiously, a new business unit--Projects & Technology--will combine all of Shell's major project delivery, technical services, and technology capability for both upstream and downstream projects. We'll need to see how effectively new head Matthias Bichsel will be able to coordinate diverse global projects to deliver on-time, on-budget projects. This is typically a difficult job given a wide range of logistical and often political concerns tied to major projects on several continents.

Catharina Milostan is an equity analyst with Morningstar.com.  You can contact the author via this feedback form.
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