MOSCOW (MRC) -- Shell will announce a major restructure by the end of the year as the company prepares to accelerate its shift toward its net-zero emissions goal by 2050, reported Chemweek with reference to CEO Ben van Beurden's statement to employees.
The restructuring will include workforce reductions as part of broader cost-cutting measures, although no figures have been decided yet, the CEO reportedly said during an internal webcast, according to Reuters. “Ben spoke about positioning the company in the energy transition,” said one source. “The company will announce the new shape of the organization by the end of the year.” The new structure will not take effect before 2021.
“Over the coming months we will go through a comprehensive review of the company. Where appropriate we will redesign our organization to adapt to a different future and emerge stronger,” Shell said in a statement, Reuters reports.
In a new video posted up on Shell’s official website today under the title ‘The opportunity of a green recovery,’ van Beurden says that as countries emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic and restart their economies, it is a key moment to “make the right choices for a better world. And that is why society must remain focused on the longer-term challenge of climate change. Because it hasn’t gone away. It still needs urgent action. Shell has a big part to play.”
Highlighting the company’s ambition to be a net-zero emissions energy business by 2050, van Beurden says, “Our current business plans will not get us to where we need to be, and we will have to change those plans over time.” Society now has a “unique opportunity” to accelerate toward a cleaner energy future and has been looking hard “at what we do and where we invest,” he says.
Last month a mini-backlash among Shell investors following the company’s decision to slash its dividend by two-thirds saw reported calls from major investors to identify potential successors to van Beurden and for a clearer path into the future. In March Shell slashed its capital expenditure plans for 2020 by 20% to around $20 billion and announced other operational cost savings of up to $4 billion to be implemented over the remainder of the year in its response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the historic plunge in oil prices.
Last month, UK oil major BP said it would cut its operating costs in 2021 by USD2.5 billion and cut around 10,000 jobs, mostly before the end of this year as part of its response to COVID-19 and its strategy to become a lower-carbon company.
As MRC reported previously, Royal Dutch Shell Plc plans to idle a sulfur recovery unit (SRU) at the joint-venture Deer Park, Texas, refinery in 2021, said Shell spokesman Curtis Smith in July 2020. Currently, the refinery is operating at about 75% of its 318,000 barrel-per-day capacity because of reduced demand due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Ethylene and propylene are feedstocks for producing polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP).
According to MRC's DataScope report, PE imports to Russia dropped in January-June 2020 by 7% year on year to 328,000 tonnes. High density polyethylene (HDPE) accounted for the main decrease in imports. At the same time, PP imports into Russia rose in the first six months of 2020 by 21% year on year to 105,300 tonnes. Propylene homopolymer (homopolymer PP) accounted for the main increase in imports.
Royal Dutch Shell plc is an Anglo-Dutch multinational oil and gas company headquartered in The Hague, Netherlands and with its registered office in London, United Kingdom. It is the biggest company in the world in terms of revenue and one of the six oil and gas "supermajors". Shell is vertically integrated and is active in every area of the oil and gas industry, including exploration and production, refining, distribution and marketing, petrochemicals, power generation and trading.
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