Shell has a new boss at the helm of its UK North Sea business after Glen Cayley, who was the oil and gas giant’s upstream director for the region, left to join the new Oil and Gas Authority (OGA).
Paul Goodfellow took over as Shell’s upstream vice-president for the UK and Ireland last month in a low-profile change.
One of his first tasks was to oversee last week’s announcement of 250 job cuts and changes to offshore shift patterns.
Mr Goodfellow was previously unconventionals vice-president, US and Canada, for Shell’s upstream business in the Americas.
Before that, he was onshore development vice-president in the Americas upstream operations, with responsibility for field development planning, technical and technology functions.
The married father-of-three joined Shell in the Netherlands in 1991 after mining engineering and rock mechanic studies at Camborne School of Mines in Cornwall and then mining industry jobs in South Africa and Finland.
He worked for Shell in a variety of wells-related roles until, in 2000, he was assigned to the company’s exploration and production division as operations manager for deepwater drilling and completions.
In August 2003, he took up the role of wells manager for the Americas and he was named venture manager for North America onshore about five years later.
Since 2007, he has also served on the board of directors for Shell’s Bully deepwater drillship joint-venture.
Mr Goodfellow has also been involved – as a board member – with the US Center for Sustainable Shale Development, a coalition of industry and environmental and philanthropic groups offering a voluntary certification process to make hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, less damaging to the environment and less risky to human health.
His predecessor at the helm of Shell’s UK upstream business is thought to have gone to the OGA on a short-term secondment to provide additional support to chief executive Andy Samuel.
Mr Cayley’s move, which was agreed between the Department of Energy and Climate Change and Shell, is aimed at helping the new regulator in its mission to stimulate exploration activity in the North Sea.
He will also advise on the implementation of a £20million programme of new seismic and geophysical surveys announced in last month’s Budget.
Mr Cayley, who studied geology at postgraduate level at Aberdeen University graduate, had led Shell’s North Sea operation since September 2010.
He joined Shell in 2006 as vice-president of global exploration after more than 25 years with ExxonMobil.
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