Repsol elects new independent director

The Repsol Board of Directors, which met yesterday (January 28) in Houston (USA), has agreed the appointment of J. Robinson West as independent director of the company.

Following his appointment, the Board has also agreed to appoint him as a member of the Delegate Committee. According to Repsol, J. Robinson West is an internationally recognized expert with extensive experience in the oil and gas sector. He is currently a Senior Adviser to the Energy & National Security Program at the Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS) in Washington DC. He founded the international consultancy group PFC Energy, and he has held several positions of responsibility in the White House staff in several administrations.

The Repsol Board of Directors also approved the appointment of market and finance expert Mario Fernández Pelaz, an independent director of the Board, as a member of the Audit and Control Committee.

The Board of Directors has also agreed to suspend the execution of the share capital reduction approved at the General Shareholders´ Meeting of the Company on March 28, 2014, considering that the acquisition of Talisman Energy Inc. and the consumption of liquidity that it entails is a supervening circumstance that could not therefore be taken into account at the time the resolution was approved by the Shareholders´ Meeting and which make it advisable to rescind it, Repsol said in the press release. The company also added that this must be confirmed at the next Annual Shareholders´ Meeting. Repsol notes that the intention of the Board is to submit for the Shareholders´ Meeting consideration the annulment of the capital reduction resolution with the provision that, if shareholders chose to uphold it, the Company would proceed immediately to its implementation.

J. Robinson West

A graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Juris Doctor by the Temple University Law School of Philadelphia, West is a renowned international energy expert, specifically in oil and gas. He founded PFC Energy in 1984 and was its Chairman until 2013.

Before founding PFC Energy, West held various positions of responsibility at the White House in different administrations. During the Reagan administration he developed and implemented the five-year plan for the use and exploitation of the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) oilfields and organized the leasing schedule, the largest non-financial auction in the world at that time. He served in the Ford administration as deputy assistant secretary of defense for international economic affairs and received the Secretary of Defense Medal for Outstanding Civilian Service. He is currently Senior Adviser to the Energy & National Security Program at the Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS), a non-profit organization based in Washington that advises governments and public companies on analysis and solutions to the challenges facing the world of energy. He is also a Member of the National Petroleum Council and Emeritus Vice-President of the Institute of Peace of the United States, amongst other organizations.

Mario Fernández Pelaz

Law Graduate by the University of Deusto in 1965, he has been Professor of Business Law at the University of Deusto and of several Master’s courses of the Deusto Business School. Mario Fernández Pelaz is a well-known businessman and finance professional. He was Executive Chairman of Kutxabank until last year, after achieving the best scores amongst Spanish banks in stress tests. He has also been Vice-Chairman of CECA (Spanish Confederation of Savings Banks). He has held a number of positions of public responsibility throughout his long professional career, as regional Employment Minister and Vice President of the Basque Government. The author of several publications about commercial and financial issues, Fernandez has been a member of the Board of Directors of Repsol since 2011.

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