Woodside close to CEO decision, Santos boss Kevin Gallagher in frame
Santos boss Kevin Gallagher has stoked speculation he is being considered as the next Woodside Petroleum chief executive.
Santos boss Kevin Gallagher has stoked speculation he is being considered as the next Woodside Petroleum chief executive, saying the West Australian company’s board has a big decision to make finding Peter Coleman’s successor.
The LNG giant conducted interviews in the last week of March amid expectations it will look to name a replacement for Mr Coleman near the time of its annual meeting on April 15, sources told The Australian.
Mr Gallagher, Shell’s Zoe Yujnovich, BHP’s Geraldine Slattery and Woodside’s executive VP development and marketing Meg O’Neill are all thought to be in the frame for the top job.
Asked about his interest in one of the biggest jobs in Australia’s oil and gas industry, Mr Gallagher said: “I think that’s a question for Woodside. Whether they’ve got me in their sights or not, that’s not for me to comment on. They‘ve got a big decision to make for themselves and I think that’s a question best directed at the Woodside board,” he told The Australian.
“I‘m not going to comment on speculation because whatever I say would be misinterpreted, so I’ll leave that for other people to speculate. I don’t think they would be commenting publicly on who they would have interviewed.”
Woodside Petroleum declined to comment.
Mr Gallagher — a contender for the Woodside job when Mr Coleman was appointed in 2011 — used to run the producer’s North West Shelf LNG plant and has rebuilt Santos since taking over five years ago in the midst of an oil crash.
Woodside chairman Richard Goyder is understood to be nearing a final decision on Mr Coleman’s replacement.
While Mr Coleman is not due to leave until the second half of 2021, there is an appetite to have his successor in place soon as the company weighs whether to sanction its $16bn Scarborough project, an offshore gas development aimed at boosting its share of the LNG market.
Woodside made a decision a year ago to defer development of the Scarborough gas project due to the oil rout, with a final investment decision also set for the second half of 2021.
The new boss may be able to tap into an improving outlook for LNG after demand in March jumped by the most in a year as stockpiles were replenished and economies reopened.
Imports rose 5.8 per cent in March from 12 months earlier marking the biggest increase in a year, according to Bloomberg.
Chinese imports increased by 30 per cent in March, underlining the importance of its economy to the sector.
Woodside in February was forced to postpone talks to sell LNG to China, the world’s biggest gas buyer, blaming trade tensions between Canberra and Beijing that have forced Australia’s largest LNG producer to find alternative markets.
The fallout with Australia’s biggest trading partner has widened to the nation’s $36bn LNG sector amid the ratcheting up of trade tensions. Potential Chinese buyers pulled out of a deal in November to acquire a stake in the energy producer’s Scarborough project.
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