Beach Energy names Seven CEO Ryan Stokes as new board director
The appointment will heighten the workload on Ryan Stokes and comes as Beach Energy endures a troubled few months as a key project in WA suffers delays.
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Beach Energy has appointed Seven Group boss Ryan Stokes as a director, helping his father and billionaire Kerry Stokes tighten his grip on the oil and gas company.
The appointment will intensify the workload of Ryan Stokes, who is also chairman of construction materials company Boral and chair of the National Gallery of Australia.
Kerry Stokes’ Seven owns just over 30 per cent of Beach Energy.
Ryan Stokes previously held the same role at Beach until 2021 before stepping down to become an alternative director, and the resumption of the role comes as the gas company endures a difficult period.
Beach said in May its Waitsia Stage 2 project in Western Australia – a key pillar of Beach Energy’s growth strategy from which the company had targeted first gas by the end of 2023 – would be delayed by labour shortages. The company said it was unclear on when it will be able to deliver gas to customers.
The company had earlier in the year said the project had been hampered by the collapse of Clough.
The Waitsia project is being developed as a joint venture between Beach and Japan’s Mitsui & Co. Beach has begun a review of the project.
The delay in gas production was a blow to hopes that Beach is poised to see the much anticipated turnaround in its fortunes after it struggled to boost output.
In 2022, Beach slashed the estimated gas reserves at its LNG export basin near Perth by 11 per cent after the Waitsia Stage 2 drilling campaign.
The company – 30 per cent owned by billionaire Kerry Stokes – said the reduction in total proven and provable reserves by 10.6 million barrels of oil equivalent was due to “increased structural complexity in the Waitsia field and poor reservoir quality in the High Cliff reservoir at Waitsia”.
Seeking to repair its standing, Beach has ramped up efforts to bolster production in a bid to capitalise on a looming supply shortage across Australia’s east coast.
The gas supply for Australia’s east coast is precariously placed, the country’s competition regulator said last month, and guaranteed deliveries are entirely dependent on favourable weather and no production issues.
Pressure on Australia’s east coast gas market is only expected to be exacerbated as supplies from traditional sources slow.
ExxonMobil – one of Australia’s largest producers of domestic gas – this year said its Gippsland Basin joint venture, which historically supplies more than 70 per cent of southeast Australia’s domestic gas demand, was rapidly dwindling.
This is despite Australia being one of the world’s largest exporters of Liquified Natural Gas, much of which is contracted out for multiple years.
To meet the shortfall, smaller players have pitched expansions. But Cooper Energy’s offshore Otway Basin project and Senex’s $1bn Atlas project in Queensland have been curtailed after the Albanese government imposed a mandatory $12 cap on new supplies.
Small developers are exempt and there are concessions for companies that meet domestic supply – but the policy has stirred private sector anxiety about risking significant investment.
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Originally published as Beach Energy names Seven CEO Ryan Stokes as new board director
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