* Outgoing CEO Voser to work in Switzerland on full pay
* Deal accounting flatters spending for new boss's firstyear
* New CEO faces Q4 results Jan 30, investor day March 13
* Shell has $55 bln to spend in next 2 years under plan
By Andrew Callus
LONDON, Jan 2 (Reuters) - Royal Dutch Shell's newboss Ben van Beurden will be able to point to a clear downwardtrend in spending this year, thanks in part to the way the oilcompany is accounting for an acquisition completed this week.
In a deal announced on Thursday just 24 hours after theformer head of refining and marketing took over officially aschief executive, Shell completed the acquisition of liquefiednatural gas (LNG) assets from Spain's Repsol.
Shell will burden its 2013 accounts with most of the cost,helping van Buerden commit to significantly lower spending fromthis year - something Shell's shareholders are very keen to seehappen given that any budget strains can only dim the outlookfor dividends.
Shell and its peers in the industry are facing increasinginvestor pressure to keep a lid on spending as costs rise andprospects for oil prices wane.
Shell said it would pay a net $3.8 billion to buy Repsol'sLNG portfolio outside North America and take on $1.6 billion ofassociated debt.
The debt, which does not count as investment spending,becomes part of the balance sheet in 2014, and some $400 millionof the actual payment will count as spending this year. The bulkof the transaction cost - some $3.4 billion - is being loadedonto the 2013 spending budget.
Shell had originally planned to complete the deal in 2013,and in its Oct. 30 third-quarter results conference withanalysts, finance director Simon Henry forecast net investmentspending for the whole year - including the Repsol transaction -of some $45 billion.
That was up from guidance of $40 billion given in the secondquarter as a result of the timings of some other acquisitionsand divestments.
Shell has pledged a four-year net investment spend of $130billion for 2012 to 2015, based on a $100 oil price scenario.
Including $30 billion spent in 2012, if 2013 spending nowcomes in on track, the company will have eaten through $75billion in the first two years - leaving only $55 billion tospend in 2014 and 2015.
Henry flagged in October that 2013 would be "a clear peakyear" for net investments, with divestments stepping up"significantly" in 2014 and 2015.
Since van Beurden began working alongside outgoing bossPeter Voser at the beginning of the fourth quarter, the companyhas cancelled plans to build a gas-to-liquids (GTL) plant in theUnited States.
Industry sources have said its Arrow coal bed methane LNGexport project in Queensland is another likely casualty of atighter spending regime.
And bankers are speculating that Shell's 23.1 percent stakein Australian group Woodside Petroleum - worth over $6billion at current prices - will be among the divestments thatHenry flagged.
A Shell spokeswoman said the accounting had been splitbecause a part of the transaction was done in the 2013 calendaryear, and it "involved a number of legal entities in variouslocations and hence requires several steps to complete."
ORGANIC FOCUS
Projects like Arrow and the GTL plant are considered as"organic" spending - unlike the Repsol acquisition and anydivestment of Woodside.
And looking behind the headline figures, analysts say it isorganic spending that investors are most concerned about, sincethese are the areas where cost inflation, project delays andother factors can blow strategy off course.
Shell has no four-year target for organic spending, butHenry estimated 2013 organic spending at $36 billion. He saidthis part of the total was "not going to go down rapidly becausethat would be the best way to destroy value in our portfolio."
Van Beurden will face investors on Jan. 30 as the companyreports fourth-quarter results, and on March 13 at a planned investor day.
In a separate announcement on Thursday, Shell revealed thatVoser, who surprised investors last year with news of his earlyretirement, will be repatriated to his native Switzerland, wherehe will work for the local subsidiary on his full group chiefexecutive pay and with a full pro-rata bonus.
Voser's retirement was announced on May 2, when Shell saidhe would step down "in the first half".
Van Beurden's appointment came on July 9 - at which point itwas announced that the Dutchman would take over on Jan. 1 andthat Voser would leave the company at the end of March.
