Three-way race emerges for the Santos top job as energy execs vie to succeed Kevin Gallagher
Three energy executives have emerged in a short list to replace long-time Santos boss Kevin Gallagher when he exits the oil and gas major.
Three frontrunners have emerged in the battle to replace Santos chief executive Kevin Gallagher amid expectations the long-serving oil and gas boss may step down once a $6m golden handcuff deal expires at the end of 2025.
Beach Energy boss Brett Woods, former Senex Energy leader Ian Davies and Santos chief financial officer Sherry Duhe have been identified as the three executives jostling for the top job at Santos, sources told The Australian.
Mr Gallagher has been running Santos for more than nine years and while he continues to receive strong board backing it is widely expected a process to appoint his successor will take place this year.
Mr Woods was seen as the top executive serving under Mr Gallagher during his time at Santos before jumping ship to join the Kerry Stokes-backed Beach Energy in January 2024.
Mr Davies was the long-time boss at the Gina Rinehart-backed Queensland producer Senex Energy, before resigning in August 2024.
More recently, he also held early discussions with the Coalition about the gas market amid a focus on Peter Dutton’s plans for a domestic gas reservation in a push to lower prices.
Ms Duhe jumped ship from Woodside chief financial officer to Newcrest and then became CFO at Santos in September 2024, stirring speculation the oil and gas company was positioning a potential successor in place once Mr Gallagher leaves.
The timing of a new chief executive for Australia’s second largest energy company may partly hinge on Mr Gallagher’s $6m “once-off growth projects incentive” to deliver the energy giant’s major projects. The golden handcuff deal ties the incumbent to Santos until the end of this year and was originally designed to keep him out of the race for the top job at Woodside, the main rival to Santos, which went to Meg O’Neill.
Those projects include the Moomba carbon capture and storage plant, which started up last year, and the Barossa gas development in the Northern Territory, slated for production in mid- 2025. Internationally, Santos’s Pikka project in Alaska is due to come online in mid-2026.
The timing of a CEO appointment will also be informed by the tenure of Santos’s low-key chairman Keith Spence, who has been in the role for over seven years.
Securing a successor to Mr Gallagher may trigger a change of chairman over the medium term, sources said.
The Coalition’s proposal to deliver gas from Queensland into Victoria for less than $10 a gigajoule remains the subject of intense speculation within the industry. Opposition Treasury spokesman Angus Taylor promised gas prices will fall below $10GJ under the Coalition but on Wednesday declined to clarify whether this was a wholesale or household price.
“We can get it down to below $10,” he said.
“Household or wholesale?” he was asked.
Mr Taylor – citing average prices of $14GJ – said this would be a “$4 reduction for everybody”.
“And so right now, over 14 (dollars), down to below 10 (dollars) and the way we do this is incredibly important. If you put extra supply into the network, you drive down prices.”
The role of gas shapes as a critical election issue, with Mr Dutton pledging to curtail between 50 and 100 petajoules from being exported to lower domestic prices for manufacturing and households.
The plan wedges Australia’s LNG industry – primarily Australia Pacific LNG, in which Origin Energy owns a near third stake, and Shell’s Queensland Curtis LNG.
Santos, which operates the third LNG export facility on the east coast, will escape a clampdown as all of its gas is contracted. The Coalition has promised to force domestic reservation limits only on uncontracted gas.
The Coalition road-tested elements of its gas plan with industry players including big industrial users along with producers and received a mixed reception over assumptions for its energy blueprint.
Mr Dutton has committed to halving approval times for gas projects, fast-tracking the decision on the $30bn North West Shelf off Western Australia and immediately auditing development-ready projects with a focus on the southern states, including Victoria where the state Labor government has imposed anti-gas policies.
The Opposition leader has said his gas plan would lower wholesale gas prices across the economy and provide energy certainty as the Coalition “secures our nation’s energy security for decades to come” through the construction of seven zero-emissions nuclear power plants.
Mr Gallagher has said current policy meant it was hard to develop new sources of supply – unlike in the US where Donald Trump has made affordable energy the cornerstone of his agenda. Mr Trump has vowed to usher in an ethos of “drill, baby, drill”, which has stoked alarm among supporters of renewables.
While the US has embraced fossil fuel production, Australia’s east coast is increasingly likely to have to rely on imported LNG to stave-off a shortfall.
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