Ann Pickard the new chairwoman of Shell Australia said that Shell had no plans to buy Woodside Petroleum. Shell already owns a 34 % stake in the company and has failed with a takeover bid for the Perth based oil and gas company in 2001.
The announcement by Ann Pickard has laid to rest speculation that the Dutch group had even considered a joint bid with BHP Billiton to acquire Woodside Petroleum.
Her stance is opposed to that of her predecessor Russel Caplan who strongly supported mergers between rival proponents of the multibillion dollar coal seam gas sector in Queensland. She said that she would rather cooperate in Queensland on activities such as river crossings and dredging work than consolidate companies aiming to develop the LNG export sector in the state.
Ann Pickard, who is also the executive vice president of Shell's Upstream Australia, made the announcement in a business briefing in Perth today. She also said that Shell would be making a final investment decision about proceeding with the Prelude field in the next few months.
Shell currently has stakes in Chevron’s $43 billion Gorgon LNG project, the Woodside operated Browse, Sunrise and North West Shelf Venture gas development projects. It is also developing a project in the state with PetroChina.