HE the Minister of Energy and Industry, Dr Mohamed bin Saleh al-Sada has visited Shell offices in the Netherlands to discuss current and future projects with top company officials. The minister was hosted by Jorma Ollila, chairman of Royal Dutch Shell, and Andy Brown, director (Upstream International), who was the former chairman of Shell in Qatar.Al-Sada was accompanied by a delegation from the oil and gas industry in Qatar, comprising high officials and representatives from Qatar Petroleum, Qatar Petroleum International, Qatargas and Nakilat. The minister was briefed on the progress of the existing QP-Shell operations in the country, notably Pearl Gas-to-Liquids (GTL), Qatargas 4, exploration in Block D and the QP-Shell petrochemical project in Ras Laffan.Al-Sada also reviewed Qatar Shell’s extensive corporate social responsibility programme, focusing primarily on supporting the four pillars of the Qatar National Vision 2030. This covered the company’s active programmes within the community, including sports, culture, road safety, research activities at Qatar Shell Research and Technology Centre (QSRTC), Shell Eco-marathon and the recently launched Project Management Centre of Excellence (Tafawooq). As part of its continued support for human capital development, the company presented its Qatarisation achievements and the drive to attract the top Qatari talents in the market offering them exciting career opportunities. Qatar Shell has “attracted, developed, and retained” some 250 local talents and is the only international company in Qatar to be presented with the Qatarisation award for three consecutive years. The minister met with a number of Qatari professionals posted in Shell overseas assignments in the Netherlands as part of their career development and discussed their experiences and professional growth.Al-Sada said: “I am very pleased to see our world-class projects moving from construction into safe and reliable operation and delivering value to Qatar and Shell. The vision of HH the Emir has transformed Qatar, in less than a decade, into the LNG and GTL capital of the world and I am pleased to see Shell as part of this journey. I am also pleased with Shell’s drive to integrate into the Qatari society through its social responsibility programme, especially their ability to develop local Qatari talents to top-class level of professionalism.”Wael Sawan, executive vice president of Shell in Qatar and managing director of Pearl GTL plant, said: “We are honoured to receive the minister and his distinguished delegation at Shell. Shell is proud to have been invited by Qatar Petroleum to invest heavily and deploy its technology at an unprecedented scale to deliver projects that support Qatar’s goal to generate maximum value from its enormous gas resources. I am looking forward to cementing our relationship with Qatar through our corporate social responsibility programme, which is designed to enhance the country’s pursuit to achieve development on the human, social, economic and environmental fronts.”Minister Al-Sada was also given a guided tour at Shell’s state-of-the-art technology centre in Amsterdam where he was briefed about some of Shell’s cutting edge technology. Shell has a global research and development expenditure of $1bn, which is the highest among global energy majors. He was also briefed on the synergies between the Amsterdam-based research and the research activities carried out at Shell’s research centre at Qatar Science and Technology Park in Doha.