“When I finished my studies, I really wanted to work in an industry that mattered, that was important and that operated on a global scale.” The new boss of Shell Netherlands, Frans Everts (58), explained years ago already out what attracted him to working for the oil and gas company.
Now him the highest in rank becomes part of the Dutch section, part of his job will no doubt be to convince the outside world that those first two points are still valid. Because environmental organizations, some politicians and opinion makers think differently about this. On the contrary, they see a “dealer of an addiction that destroys the living environment” who had better disappear from the scene as soon as possible.
Shell celebrity Jeroen van der Veer recently expressed his concerns about this growing negative sentiment, which is said to be particularly strong in the Netherlands. If that continues long enough, it will become an existential problem, he warned.
Groningen-born Everts will take over from Marjan van Loon (57) on April 1, Shell announced on Monday. Van Loon will leave the company after more than 34 years of employment to “enjoy things other than work”, she wrote to business associates. Her “Volkswagen van” was already ready for a “long journey”. Everts will soon be given (partly) the task of convincing the critical part of Dutch society that Shell does indeed have a right to exist.
When announcing his appointment, he immediately took action. Everts states that Shell plays a “leading role” in the energy transition in the Netherlands. Under its predecessor, Shell had to endure severe social criticism because of the earthquakes in Groningen, as a result of gas extraction. But the company also invested billions in greening the energy supply, says Everts.
Shell was the first major company to support the Climate Agreement. It built a large biofuel plant and is currently building Europe’s largest green hydrogen plant. Together with Eneco, a mega wind farm is being constructed off the coast.
He wants to build on that foundation. But Everts emphasizes that this will be done in “a commercially attractive way for Shell”. That probably means it won’t be as fast as critics demand. Shell also has shareholders who want returns. And that sometimes conflicts with accelerating the transition. Less margin is often made on renewable energy sources, says Shell. Shell’s top boss, Wael Sawan, said exactly the same thing a week and a half ago, when he reported a record profit of nearly $40 billion. The transition had to be “balanced”.
Everts’ ideas seem to be closely related to Sawan’s. He also said last week that ‘energy security’ must be safeguarded for the foreseeable future, no matter how great the need for sustainability is. The current energy crisis had made that much clear. However, renewable energy sources cannot replace fossil energy one-for-one for the time being, Sawan said – while the customer is actually using more and more energy. And so Shell should certainly not turn its back on oil and gas too quickly.
Everts himself predicted more than ten years ago that energy demand would continue to rise (considerably) until at least 2050, and that this would have consequences for the speed of the transition. “The only thing we know for sure is that hydrocarbons will remain the main source of energy for the foreseeable future, and possibly beyond. Despite what some may wish, and even though renewable energy sources will grow.”
Real Shell man
Everts is a real Shell man. He climbed up steadily. In his early years he traded oil for the Pernis refinery. More than ten years later, he is given final responsibility for filling stations in the Netherlands.
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There he will at some point come into conflict with the Dutch Competition Authority (NMa). Gasoline prices are also sky-high at that time and the NMa suspects that there are illegal price agreements between oil companies. The NMa ultimately finds no evidence for this, but the regulator does come to the conclusion that there is a – not prohibited – mechanism by which prices are ‘artificially’ kept high and that competition is thwarted. Everts responds by saying that the regulator has been put under political pressure. “The price of petrol is a very sensitive subject, they had to come up with something.” He argues that the price of petrol is mainly high because of taxes.
A few years later, Everts becomes head of Shell Energy in North America, the division that sells electricity to consumers and businesses. In the US, Shell also drills for shale gas, as well fracking named. According to critics, this is a polluting and destructive extraction methodbut that is denied by Everts. “If done right and with high standards, shale gas can be marketed in a very responsible way,” he said in 2011.
In 2016, Everts was briefly involved in the ‘integration’ of British Gas, the British gas giant that Shell is acquiring for a record sum as part of its strategy to transform from an oil company into a gas company. Shell sees gas as an important source of energy during the climate transition. After that, Everts will be responsible for (worldwide) communication with external parties.
In the latter position he regularly has to deal with the outside world, for example when Shell is discredited because of a dubious deal concerning a coveted oil field in Nigeria. Anti-corruption organization Global Witness claims in 2018 that the Nigerian government is missing out on $ 6 billion as a result of a “corrupt deal” from the past, in which Shell and the Italian Eni acquired the exploitation rights. That club gets from Everts to hear that that claim is based on ‘flawed methodologies, which do not meet adequate qualitative standards’. Eventually an acquittal follows, but also criticism of the legal process, including from the international think tank OECD.
Everts is also active on Twitter. In addition to football videos, he also shares messages from other people who seem to stand up for oil companies when they are criticized for their record profits, for example, because they also pay a lot of taxes.
At the same time, he welcomes the European ban on the sale of cars and vans with a petrol or diesel engine. In the appointment message, he also shows a benevolent attitude to the outside world: “We have the knowledge and expertise to invest in solutions. But we can’t do it alone. Together with partners, we want to make cleaner energy accessible to the whole of the Netherlands.”