Buying and hiring locally

Buying from local suppliers is a particularly effective way to help development in the places where we operate. It directly contributes to the local economy, creates jobs and builds skills. We actively promote the use of local suppliers and contractors. In 2007, we had programmes in place in nearly 90% of the low- and medium-income countries where we operate to achieve this. We train local companies to help them meet our standards – including our environmental and social ones – so they can compete successfully for contracts. It is estimated that we spent approximately $17 billion on goods and services from locally-owned companies in these countries in 2007.

Hiring local staff is another important contribution. Governments, recognising this, sometimes set requirements for local hiring. But even where they do not, we are making a conscious effort to build skills and employ local people. Less than 7% of our staff are expatriates. We have been able to “localise” the majority of the workforce at many operations through early planning and training – even in places that initially lacked the technical and commercial skills, and the sheer number of workers needed. At the Hazira LNG terminal in India (Shell share 74%), for example, which started operation in 2005, there were Indian nationals in all the approximately 100 positions in the facility by the end of 2007, including the general manager.