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By Stephanie Kelly and Shadia Nasralla
- Shell CEO Wael Sawan says oil demand will remain essential for decades
- Shareholder climate resolution gets 13% support, according to initial results
LONDON, May 19 (Reuters) – Shell (SHEL.L) shareholders knocked back a climate activist resolution at Tuesday’s annual general meeting, in a resounding show of support for CEO Wael Sawan and Chairman Andrew Mackenzie.
The climate resolution, which received only around 13% support, would have required Shell to disclose how its strategy would perform under scenarios of declining demand for oil and gas.
The resolution, which needed 75% support to pass, was tabled by activist shareholder group Follow This and 21 institutional investors representing $1.2 trillion in assets.
Sawan, whose re-appointment as a director received 98.9% support in preliminary results, said Follow This’s questions are comprehensively covered by Shell’s existing disclosures which enable shareholders to model the financial resilience of the company in any price scenario of their choosing.
Sawan also said that were the Follow This resolution to pass, it would be against good governance because it would hold Shell to certain scenarios that are subject to change. In a speech, he said the Middle East conflict has shown meeting oil demand will be essential for decades to come.
Mackenzie was also re-appointed as a director with 94.4% support, preliminary results showed.
Shell’s decision to allow shareholders to vote on the resolution stood in contrast to its rival BP (BP.L), whose board decided not to include the Follow This resolution on its AGM agenda last month. That prompted some of BP shareholders and influential proxy adviser groups to support votes against the board’s wishes. BP Chair Albert Manifold’s appointment at the meeting received lower-than-typical support.
Reporting by Stephanie Kelly and Shadia Nasralla; Editing by Mark Potter, David Goodman and Susan Fenton
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