6th June 2005: Anglo-Dutch oil giant Shell believes its current restructuring will put in a good position for possible mergers and acquisitions in future, the group's finance chief Peter Voser said today.
"The restructuring will give us the possibility of using shares and acquisition currency. That puts us on an equal footing with our rivals," said Voser. "That could be useful in any consolidation in the industry," he added.
Voser said that Shell's complex structure with two parent companies - both British and Dutch - had put it at a disadvantage in the past big wave of consolidation in oil and gas industries at the end of the 1990s.
Nevertheless, the finance chief insisted that Shell had no concrete acquisition plans at present. "With prices as high as they are today, any big acquisition must not be thought about twice, but five times," Voser said in comments reproduced in German.
The stock market valuation of oil companies was currently high at present because their profits had risen as a result of high oil prices.
