Don Voelte

Mr Don R. Voelte Jr.  is the Chairman of the Board and the Chief Executive Officer of Woodside Petroleum Ltd. He is also a director of the University of Western Australia Business School and West Australian Newspaper Holdings Limited.

On Global Warming and Emissions Trading
Voelte and Woodside Petroleum, one of the world's largest producers of Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) has been voluble critics of the Australian government's proposed emissions trading scheme, the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. 'We shouldn't be in the emissions trading scheme at all, we should be seen as a fuel that is part of the solution, not part of the problem," he told the Australian Finanial Review in February 2009. "We don't understand why the government is wanting to act early. We don't want to be a leader, lets be a fast follower and wait to see what happens in Copenhagen," he said.

Background
In 2004 he was on the advisory board of the RAND Corporation’s Centre for Middle East Public Policy, and prior to moving to Australia was a director of Third Wave Ventures, University of Nebraska Foundation, and in the past he was a director of Vastar Resources, Inc.

In the past he has been:
 * Chief Executive Officer - Chroma Energy Inc - Houston, Texas
 * Head of Exploration - Mobil Corporation
 * Executive Vice President and Company Vice President - Atlantic Richfield Company
 * President - New Exploration

Announcing his appointment at the Woodside Petroleum annual general meeting, Charlkes Goode stated that Voelts had started work with Mobil in 1975 and worked for them for 22 year including as "President, New Exploration and Producing Ventures, with responsibility for world-wide exploration and building and implementing Mobil’s corporate upstream global growth strategy, reporting to the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. Don left Mobil in 1997 to join Atlantic Richfield Company, or [[ARCO as you may know it, as the head of Corporate Planning responsible for redeveloping global growth and risk management strategy. In 1998, as Executive Vice President, Exploration and Production, he was responsible for a world-wide exploration and production portfolio, remaining in that position until BP’s acquisition of ARCO in 2000."

Related SourceWatch Articles

 * Global warming

Biographical notes

 * "Don Voelte", University of Western Australia website, accessed February 20098.

General Articles

 * "Woodside opts for adventurer", The Australian, 18 February 2004.