Shell Exploration & Production Co. is quite happy dealing with its own assets and plans, so it does not want to jump into the corporate M&A game, according to the company's new president and CEO. Speaking to about 250 A&D specialists at the fourth annual Acquisition & Divestiture Dinner in Houston, Walter van de Vijver questioned the sometimes-frantic A&D pace of the upstream industry. "Are these M&A deals helping to maximize recovery of the assets? Are these assets coming into the hands of the right people, those who can make a difference and who can apply the right technology?" Van de Vijver, a Dutch engineer who joined Shell in 1979, leads Shell's U.S. E&P, and downstream gas and power business units. In the past year, a frankly inward-looking Shell organization started to focus on what it needed to do to become a cost leader, he said. Shell's financial results had been among the worst of the megamajors in recent years. That, coupled with Wall Street's perception that oil and gas do not deliver good returns, prompted action. Shell has since sold its Cedar Creek Anticline properties in the Rockies, and about half of its Gulf of Mexico Shelf assets to Apache Corp. And, it is in the midst of selling Altura Energy, its $3-billion-plus Permian Basin joint venture with BP Amoco, and its CO2 business. "We looked at our portfolio and saw that we were not perhaps the natural owner of certain assets. We really had to look at our investment efficiency-were these assets bringing home the goodies we were looking for?" Irrespective of the company's emotional bonds to an asset, if sales are in order, they will be pursued, he said. "We have to become more brave and bold and get swap activity going, and not just sell. All of us have to decide how best to manage the resources in the U.S." -Leslie Haines

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