David Byrne leaves Shell

I was shocked to hear that my old friend David Byrne had been made redundant from Shell. I knew him as Shell's styrene business manager when I used to report on the European styrene market, but the job which has been cut is that of Manager, Operations Excellence, based in Houston.

Canadian national David becomes for me the human face of Shell's 5,000 job cuts, of which 40 are reported to be in Shell Chemicals.

We met up on the sidelines of last week's ICIS Aromatics Conference in Amsterdam, where he was catching up with old friends, enthusing about South African wildlife and generally putting himself about in the manner appropriate to a man out on the job market.