Shell boss Ben van Beurden steps down after nine years at the helm

Shell confirmed yesterday that their chief executive Ben Van Beurden is to leave after nine years at the helm.

Shell boss Ben van Beurden will be handed a lucrative exit package when he departs later this year – on top of the £80million he has been paid so far as chief executive.

The oil giant confirmed yesterday that Van Beurden will leave after nine years at the helm.

The 64-year-old will be replaced by Shell’s gas and renewables boss Wael Sawan as it aims for a greener future.

Van Beurden’s exit has been under discussion for months. It follows the appointment of chairman Sir Andrew Mackenzie in May last year.

He has been paid £78.6million up to 2021 and is in line for a maximum £13.8million for this year, on top of which he will receive an exit package worth millions of pounds, the Mail understands.

Pay arrangements for new boss Sawan, a 48-year-old Shell veteran, will be disclosed in next year’s annual report. Profits have been booming after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine pushed up oil and gas prices – and amounted to a record £9.5billion in the second quarter alone.

But the company, like rivals, is preparing for a future in which the world tries to wean itself off fossil fuels in the fight against climate change.

Under Van Beurden, Shell has committed to halve emissions by 2030 and become a carbon net zero business by 2050. 

But last year the company lost a legal case brought by climate activists when a Dutch court ordered it to cut emissions faster.

It is also seen by many in the industry as playing catch-up to rival BP, which has vowed to make a raft of investments in more sustainable energy sources by 2025. 

The appointment of Sawan as chief executive appears to reflect an intensifying focus on the transition.

‘For a group whose renewable strategy has been somewhat vague, though grand sounding, this is a clear marker that Shell intends to change this,’ said Sophie Lund-Yates, lead equity analyst at investment platform Hargreaves Lansdown.

‘Change won’t happen overnight but it’s reasonable to think that at least tweaks to the existing renewable strategy could be on the cards.’

Dutchman Van Beurden, who joined Shell in 1983, will stay on as an adviser until next June. 

He has steered the company through two oil price slumps, most recently after the pandemic in 2020, when he cut the dividend for the first time since the Second World War. 

He said: ‘It has been a privilege and an honour to have served Shell for nearly four decades and to lead the company for the past nine years.’

Oil giant goes green with new boss 

Shell’s new chief exec Wael Sawan (pictured) will move to the UK to oversee a global business currently valued at £169bn

The next boss of the FTSE 100’s biggest company is a Beirut-born Lebanese-Canadian who has already spent 25 years at Shell.

Based in The Hague, Wael Sawan will move to the UK to oversee a global business currently valued at £169billion. 

Sawan, a married father of three sons, grew up in Dubai and earned a master’s degree in chemical engineering in Montreal and an MBA at Harvard.

He has held senior roles at Shell’s operations across the world before being appointed last year to run its gas and renewables arm.