Michael Williams was born and educated in Australia, graduating in Chemical Engineering with Honours from the University of Queensland. He joined Shell in 1968 at the Geelong Refinery in Australia. He was first involved in gas & LNG when he spent a period in Brunei in 1973 during the start-up of the LNG plant. He has subsequently worked on Shell LNG projects in Brunei, Malaysia, Australia, Venezuela and Sakhalin and in the Shell Central Offices in The Hague and London. His experience in LNG projects and natural gas spans the range of activities from conceptual planning, detail planning, to project start-up and operation. Most recently, he was Managing Director, Gas & Power for the Shell Companies in North East Asia where his responsibilities included the development of strategy and the development of LNG import terminals in China and in Taiwan to allow the introduction of LNG for power generation and distribution as town gas. Since retiring from Shell in 2001, he has provided consulting advice to Governments and companies in Australia, United Kingdom, USA, Russia and China.