By Chris Blackhurst
29 January 2004
SIR PHILIP Watts went down a storm last Friday. There, I’ve written it – so you’d better believe it. And if that sentence reads like the no-nonsense, minimal-smalltalk, tell-you-straight – so much so you can feel like you’re dealing with a battering ram – Watts, then … tough.
But he did get a good reception, did the chairman of Shell. He put on quite a show, apparently, speaking to and taking questions from 900 of his most senior employees worldwide. After telling them they were all ‘ambassadors for Shell”, he went on to explain the group’s recent shock decision to cut proven oil and gas reserves by 20% or 3.9bn barrels – a move that wiped £3bn off the company’s value. ‘Ask any question you like,” he said. So they did. They asked whether he was going to resign. No, he said, he had no intention to do so.