Speaking to journalists at a London briefing after Shellreleased its fourth-quarter results, Voser said the next two years would see 15major upstream projects come on stream, including developments at Kazakhstan's Kashagan, Australia's North Rankin and Iraq's Majnoon.

The Shell boss said that the explorer would devote $18billion of its $33 billion annual capital outlay on three upstream highpriority areas - integrated gas (gas-to-liquids (GTL) and liquefied natural gas(LNG)), liquids-rich 'tight gas' shale and deep-water plays.

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