BP has become the second oil and gas major in a day to announce it would have a new chief for its Australian operations, following fast on the heels of a similar announcement by ExxonMobil.
Andy Holmes has been appointed president of BP Australasia, effective July 1, the company said in a statement Monday. He succeeds Paul Waterman, who has been appointed head of BP's global lubricants business and will be based in the UK.
Earlier in the day, ExxonMobil Australia said it had appointed Richard J. Owen as its new group chairman, effective June 15.
Holmes joined BP in 1985 and has since held a variety of roles in refining, marketing and other areas. Most recently, he led BP's global fuels business, Air BP and Global LPG, prior to which he led the company's refining and marketing operations in Europe.
"BP Australasia's upstream and downstream businesses are important contributors to BP's current and future business plans," Holmes said.
BP has been in Australia since 1920 and New New Zealand since 1946. It has both upstream and downstream assets in the region.
The company operates two oil refineries in Australia, an 88,000 b/d plant at Bulwer Island in Brisbane and a 138,000 b/d facility at Kwinana in Perth. In New Zealand, BP is the largest shareholder, with 23.66%, in New Zealand Refining Company's 135,000 b/d Marsden Point refinery.
ExxonMobil's incoming head Owen, who will be based in the Victorian state capital Melbourne, joined Esso in Australia as an engineer in 1983. In his 30-year career with ExxonMobil, he has held senior technical and executive positions around the world, including assignments in Melbourne, Houston, Alaska, Hanover and Jakarta.
At the same time Owen takes up his post, ExxonMobil Australia's current chairman, John R. Dashwood, will become vice president, Americas at ExxonMobil Gas & Power Marketing Company. Dashwood will relocate to Houston.
ExxonMobil is the operator and 50% owner, alongside BHP Billiton, of the Bass Strait oil and gas fields in the Gippsland Basin off Victoria, in addition to holding upstream assets off Western Australia, including a 25% stake in the Gorgon LNG project. The company also operates the 80,000 b/d Altona oil refinery in Victoria.
BP and ExxonMobil are not the only multinationals saying goodbye to their heads of Australian operations in 2013. In April, Shell Australia said its country chair Ann Pickard would move to a newly created position of executive vice president, Arctic, in the company's US business. Pickard is to be succeeded by Andrew Smith, effective June 1.
Smith is currently Shell Australia's vice president of downstream operations and has previously held roles as the global head of products trading and general manager of the company's Bukom refinery in Singapore.
In addition to assuming the role of Australian country chair, Smith will also become vice president of the company's upstream business in Australia and New Zealand in Shell's international business.
Shell is a major upstream investor in New Zealand and Australia, where it is particularly focused on LNG. The company has stakes in the already producing North West Shelf operation, and development projects under way at Prelude, Gorgon, Wheatstone, Arrow Energy, Browse and Sunrise.
Shell in 2012 converted its refinery at Clyde in Sydney into a fuel import terminal and in April this year announced that its 120,000 b/d Geelong refinery in the southeastern state of Victoria was up for sale.
