Mr Gallagher commenced as Santos’ Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer on 1 February 2016, bringing more than 25 years’ international experience in the oil and gas industry. Since his arrival, he has led significant transformation and growth at Santos, delivering a competitive advantage in the energy transition: Santos is now Australia’s second-largest independent natural gas and liquids producer after implementing a focused strategy to build and grow around five core long-life, producing natural gas assets in Australia, Papua New Guinea and Timor-Leste. The strategy included successful acquisitions of Quadrant Energy and ConocoPhillips’ Australia-West business, and a merger with Oil Search.

Mr Gallagher has positioned Santos to leverage the critical role natural gas will play in delivering energy security through the energy transition to net-zero emissions. He has implemented a clear decarbonisation strategy building around the company’s existing infrastructure by developing natural gas projects for backfill and growing new revenue streams and reducing emissions through carbon capture and storage, and low carbon fuels projects such as hydrogen. He has overseen Santos make the world’s first booking of carbon storage reserves and taken a final investment decision on one of the world’s biggest CCS projects in South Australia’s Cooper Basin.

Having built a strong, low-cost base business supplying natural gas to meet ongoing customer demand and laid out a clear action plan to develop lower carbon energy and low carbon fuels with an ambitious target of net-zero Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 2040, Mr Gallagher is committed to ensuring Santos remains resilient, value accretive and at the leading edge of the energy transition.