Speaking from London, the new petroleum division head said he was implementing a streamlining of BHP Billiton's oil and gas business, moving away from geographically based units to worldwide management, and trying to improve efficiencies.

"Our goal is to have 100% of our wells producing at 100% their maximum rate, 100% of the time," Yeager told a market briefing.

BHPB’s Petroleum division contributed 20% to the company's earnings before interest and tax in the last financial year.

But the division has relied on near-record oil prices in recent years to offset flat production. Growth from new projects is not expected to start kicking in until 2008.

According to the most recent BHP Billiton annual report, oil prices have almost doubled from an average of $33.69/barrel in 2003/4 to $64.41/barrel in the year to June 2006.

The company produced 116 million equivalent barrels of oil in last financial year to June. Yeager said BHPB expected September quarter production to remain level with the previous quarter, which delivered 30.63 million barrels.

In the wake of recent cost overruns and delays, BHP Billiton Petroleum is aiming to regain its “credibility”, according to Yeager.

He said since he took on the role six months ago, several changes have occurred in the petroleum division.

These included a move from geographical organisation to functional organisation, spliting petroleum into exploration, development, production and marketing sections.

The company needs to fund about $A6.6 billion worth of new projects over the next few years, and has several others coming through the pipeline.

Yeager outlined exploration activity in the Gulf Of Mexico, Australia, Trinidad, Algeria, Colombia and offhsore southwest Africa, and said confidential bids in several other countries were being evaluated.

In the Gulf of Mexico, the 50,000 barrels per day Neptune oil project is still expected to post first production in the last quarter of calendar year 2007, while the ultradeep Shenzi development, which expected to eventually ramp up to 100,000 barrels of oil a day, is due to deliver first production in mid 2009.

Houston-based Yeager was poached from ExxonMobil. He has a strong background working on oil and gas projects in North America and Europe.