AFR Articles, page-201

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AFR Article.. looks like the wheels have been set in motion..

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Woodside Petroleum CEO expects a few more years at the helm

By Angela Macdonald-Smith

Feb 17, 2019 — 12.18pm

Woodside Petroleum chief executive Peter Coleman has scotched talk in the market that he may soon head for the door, suggesting he will stay for at least another three or four years to see the oil and gas producer through the start-up of at least one of its major growth projects.
Mr Coleman, who joined Woodside in May 2011, said he had given a commitment to chairman Richard Goyder and the board "that I'm here to see it through" and deliver on the expansion path he has set out, which includes the large Scarborough, Pluto-2 and Browse LNG projects in Western Australia, as well as an oil project in Senegal.

"You can expect I will be here for a few years: I've made that personal commitment, I have made that commitment to my team and the board," he said in an interview following Woodside's full-year results last week.

Woodside CEO Peter Coleman envisages being in the role for a few more years yet. Supplied
Credit Suisse analyst Saul Kavonic told clients recently that he expected boards of Australia's oil and gas companies to focus more earnestly this year on succession planning, assessing that most chief executives in the local energy sector were "towards the latter half of their tenures, rather than the beginning". He noted Mr Coleman's tenure was approaching the Woodside average of about nine years.

But Mr Coleman said in the resources sector, where projects can take years to get off the ground, at least seven or eight years were needed to "effect change" at a company.

"Anything less than that and you are probably living off the previous person's activities," he said.

"Equally, it takes many, many years to develop a status within the industry, particularly for a company like Woodside – we don't naturally get status on a global basis and we have to earn that.

"That comes with the CEO position, having longevity there."

'That will have me out around 12 years'

Under Mr Coleman's leadership, Woodside has revitalised the development prospects for the Scarborough gas field off Western Australia, lining it up to come into production in 2023. The $US11 billion ($15.4 billion) project will see gas from the field feed a second LNG train to be built at the Pluto site in Western Australia, a project developed by his predecessor Don Voelte.

He has also pushed forward with a reworked plan for a $US20 billion development of the Browse gas fields off the far north-west coast, after abandoning the much more expensive option of a green-field James Price Point LNG project as envisaged by Mr Voelte. Production from the first Browse fields would start up in 2026.

Woodside is also targeting a go-ahead this year for the circa $US3 billion SNE project in Senegal, where oil should start to flow in 2022.

Mr Coleman said the "new team" of senior managers that he has put in place will have plenty of opportunity but that he intended to be around through the start-up of at least one of the growth projects.

"And then I'll see how I feel," he said.

"That will have me out around 12 years. That's kind of where at least personally I start to say, 'Am I still at the top of my game?', 'Am I adding value?', 'Am I stopping others from progressing their own careers?' and so forth."

The refreshed senior executive team at Woodside includes chief financial officer Sherry Duhe and chief operations officer Meg O'Neill, both with experience gained at United States major ExxonMobil, where Mr Coleman also worked.

Ms Duhe, who was appointed CFO in December 2017, said she expected Mr Coleman to "be here for several years longer at least".

"It's not a hard line in sand," Mr Coleman added.

"It will be something that I will work through with the board, but certainly I am not going next year or so forth, there's no discussion of that internally or at the board about it."