Shell Executive Vice President: Integrated Gas West & CCUS De la Rey Venter is leaving the supermajor to take the reins at EIG-backed LNG specialist MidOcean Energy.
Venter has been at Shell since 2002. He will now be CEO of MidOcean and a managing director of EIG. EIG controls MidOcean, with the aim of creating a diversified and integrated LNG portfolio. The aim is for a group of operating LNG projects with strong existing cash flow.
© Supplied by ShellEIG chairman and CEO R Blair Thomas said LNG was a “key enabler” of the energy transition and is increasingly a geopolitically strategic energy source”. EIG has invested in nine LNG projects around the world, in both liquefaction and regasification.
“Adding someone of De la Rey’s caliber to lead MidOcean further demonstrates our commitment to LNG and the energy transition. We welcome De la Rey aboard and are excited about the future that he will help develop for MidOcean.”
Substance
Venter said the vision for MidOcean was a “compelling proposition for a world that will need LNG for a long time to come”.
The new CEO said he was looking forward to building a “business of substance, based on EIG’s extensive track record in global LNG, and for this business to have real impact in this highly relevant sector of the global energy industry”.
Venter moved to EVP of integrated gas west and CCUS from EVP of integrated gas ventures. He was global head of LNG from August 2009 to December 2012.
EIG registered MidOcean in Delaware in April this year. The private equity group has been active in the LNG space in recent times. It bought into a regas terminal in Chile and an export project in Australia in the last year. It also sold down its 49% stake in Elba Island LNG to Blackstone in May this year.