MEDIASeven West chief to chair Nexus EnergyBY: MATT CHAMBERS...

MEDIA
Seven West chief to chair Nexus Energy
BY: MATT CHAMBERS From: The Australian September 27, 2012 12:00AM
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SEVEN West Media chief and former Woodside Petroleum boss Don Voelte will return to the energy sector next month when he takes over as non-executive chairman of Nexus Energy.

The move to bring Mr Voelte on board marks an end to a 12-year board membership of Nexus chairman Michael Fowler, including a turbulent past year when Mr Fowler had a very public stoush with former Nexus chief Richard Cottee and came under fire for taking a $2.2m termination payment when he stepped down after a stint as executive chairman.

The Nebraska-born Mr Voelte left Woodside in May last year and headed back to the US before the career oilman made a surprising return in June this year to take over from David Leckie as chief executive at Seven West.

Nexus Energy chief Lucio Della Martina, who joined Nexus in April, ran the Pluto liquefied natural gas construction project at Woodside under Mr Voelte.


Yesterday, Seven West would not comment on Mr Voelte's extra board commitments or what becoming chairman meant about his tenure at the media company.

A spokesman pointed to comments from Mr Voelte, reported in The Australian last month, that he was at the helm of Seven West Media only until a suitable replacement was found. The board changes, which include the resignation of three of Nexus's five other non-executive directors, comes after the company said this month it had launched a review of corporate governance and organisation performance.

Neither Mr Voelte nor Mr Fowler were available for comment yesterday.

In a media release, Mr Fowler said he was delighted Mr Voelte had joined the board. "He has a wealth of industry experience, having transformed Woodside Petroleum during his seven-year tenure as chief executive."

Nexus is focused on getting value out of its 17 per cent stake in the Crux oil and gas field in Western Australia's offshore Browse Basin, which is 80 per cent owned by Shell.

Mr Voelte is close to Shell Australia chairman Ann Pickard, who worked for him at Mobil and has described him as one of three or four people who have made big differences in her career.

Nexus has said it wants Crux developed as a stand-alone floating LNG project, while Shell sees the field as backfill for the $12 billion Prelude FLNG project.

Yesterday Nexus shares were unchanged at 12.5c.