Ben van Beurden, chief executive officer of Shell on Thursday, admitted that his organization made some mistakes in its operation in Nigeria and is working on addressing the problems.
The Shell CEO who said this during a presentation on the theme ‘Is Big Tech the New Oil? And how can tech avoid oil’s errors?’ on the last day of the Web Summit, acknowledged that trust in the company has faded over the years.
According to him every organization has a responsibility to stay true to the basics which include trust and commitment to “do no harm” both to the people and the environment.
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“My company got a very important alarm bell back in 2004, then we effectively had to conclude that some of our executives had lied about the reserves that we had on our books,” Beurden said. “It turned out to be less than we had said publicly. That was a painful affair because we had to recognize that we didn’t even get the basics right when it comes to trust. What’s also basic is, do not harm. And for oil and gas, doing no harm to people means is keep them safe and also doing no harm to the environment. There we have to admit, if you look at our track record in Nigeria, that we did not always get that right as well.”
In addressing the mistakes, Beurden highlighted three action points that need to be taken. The first is to apologize, second is to learn and third is to repair the damage that was caused. That is usually easier said than done.
Shell, he disclosed, is still trying to embed the lessons it learnt since 2004 when it was forced to sack its executives for overstating its revenues in the annual report.
Its efforts in Nigeria in particular have been undermined most times by sabotage.
“We still make mistakes today and we still have to learn all the time,” Beurden said. This for him goes to show that adhering to the basics is not easy despite being low bars that can be easily addressed.
Beurden also acknowledged that notwithstanding best intentions, Shell’s products could rub off the wrong way in some societies.
“It is not everything that is wonderful about our products. The answer is to engage with society and to behave responsibly. But that is still not enough, society’s expectations are rising. So we have to do more and we will do more. By 2040 we will bring clean and efficient energy to hundreds of millions of homes in countries that do not have access to energy and we will do it as a business. It is about actually doing the right thing.”
FRANK ELEANYA, Lisbon
