Kevin Gallagher joins MinRes board

UPDATED: Perth company Mineral Resources has announced a surprise addition to its board of directors with the recruitment of Santos boss Kevin Gallagher.

Adelaide-based Mr Gallagher will join the board as an independent non-executive director with effect from 1 March.

He has been managing director at Santos since 2016.

He was previously chief executive of Perth-based engineering company Clough and prior to that worked at Woodside Petroleum, including as CEO of the North West Shelf Venture.

In a statement issued on Tuesday - one day after MinRes announced the appointment - Mr Gallagher said he remained fully committed to leading Santos until the end of 2025.

"I have very few external commitments outside my Santos role and I am confident there will be no conflict on my time through taking up this non-executive role," he said.

Mr Gallagher added he was excited to take up the new role.

"I’m particularly looking forward to learning a lot from the work that Chris (Ellison) has done over the years to build a dynamic, innovative, low-cost, customer service-focussed business that is also playing a role in the energy transition through its involvement in critical minerals such as lithium," he said.

"This is very aligned to the approach I have taken at Santos where we are focused on a disciplined low-cost operating model and ongoing transformation as we build and grow the business through the energy transition."

Mr Gallagher provides a rare example of a chief executive at a major ASX-listed company joining the board of another big ASX company.

One prominent executive who made a similar move was Michael Chaney – during his 13-year tenure as managing director at Wesfarmers, he spent nine years (from 1996 to 2005) as a non-executive director at BHP.

Mr Gallagher will combine his new role at MinRes with a very full workload at Santos.

It was only five weeks ago that Santos completed its takeover of Oil Search.

As a result of that deal, Santos rivals Woodside Petroleum as the largest oil & gas company on the ASX, with both having a market value of about $24 billion.

It also comes nine months after Santos’ board granted a package of equity incentives to Mr Gallagher, to encourage him to stay with the company until 2025 while it completes several big expansion projects, including the Dorado and Barossa gas developments.

While Santos is based in Adelaide, it has very significant operations in WA and is a major supplier of gas to the domestic market.

Its board also has a strong WA flavour, with its chairman Keith Spence and director Vanessa Guthrie both based in Perth.

MinRes chairman Peter Wade said he was delighted to welcome Mr Gallagher to the “MRL family”.

“His extensive corporate background and knowledge of the Australian energy market will be of great value to MRL,” Mr Wade said.

MinRes is primarily focused on iron ore and lithium but has a small energy division with assets in the Perth Basin.

The company also announced today the formation of a sustainability committee to advise the board on its sustainability strategy.

The committee will be chaired by Susie Corlett and include Xi Xi and James McClements.

“MRL is committed to continually improving its sustainability performance to provide the metals and minerals which the world needs to transition to a low-carbon future,” Mr Wade said.