* Deal approved by 99.5 percent of BG shareholders
* Merger set to complete on Feb. 15
By Ron Bousso
LONDON, Jan 28 (Reuters) - BG Group shareholdersoverwhelmingly approved Royal Dutch Shell's $52 billiontakeover on Thursday, clearing the way for the two firms tocreate the world's biggest trader of liquefied natural gas(LNG).
BG will now merge with Shell on Feb. 15, nearly two decadesafter the company was born from British Gas and just a fewmonths after it reached record oil and gas output thanks to newprojects in Australia and Brazil.
At a meeting in London, 99.53 percent of BG shareholdersvoted in favour of the merger, a day after 83 percent of Shell'sshareholders approved the deal first announced on April 8 lastyear.
Shell shareholders are putting their faith in CEO Ben vanBeurden's decision to focus the Anglo-Dutch company's operationsin liquefied natural gas (LNG) and deep water oil productionover the coming decades as the industry undergoes one of itsworse downturns in decades.
Low oil prices will remain a challenge for the combinedcompany in the short term, however, as crude has fallen 75percent over the past 18 months to around $30 a barrel.
While the oil price is expected to stage a gradual recovery,Shell has said the combined group needs crude to be above $60 abarrel to break even.
"I very strongly believe in what Shell is trying to do longterm ... The idea that they try to specialise in their strengthsbeing deepwater and LNG is absolutely the right thing to do," BGChairman Andrew Gould told reporters.
NUMBER TWO
BG Chief Executive Officer Helge Lund, who joined BG weeksbefore the merger was announced, is set to step down. Shellexecutive Huibert Vigeveno, who headed the integration planningin recent months, will become transitional CEO.
Lund, who previously led Norway's Statoil through a periodof spectacular growth, has yet to indicate his plans.
BG shares were up 3.4 percent while Shell B shares weretrading 5.4 percent higher after the vote, compared with thesector index that 4.2 percent higher.
The acquisition will boost Shell's oil and gas production by20 percent and bring it closer to challenging the world's topinternational oil company ExxonMobil.
Combined, Shell and BG will overtake Chevron as theworld's second-biggest publicly-traded oil and gas companymeasured by market value.
The combined company is also set to topple Exxon as thelargest publicly-traded oil and gas producer by 2020, accordingto analysts at Simmons and Company.
Once the two companies merge, Shell will start a complexintegration process that will include thousands of job cuts,tens of billions of dollars in asset sales and the harmonisingof the companies' trading and production operations as theyoverlap in many parts of the world.
Shell has promised to find $3.5 billion from cost savingsand overlaps by 2018, from various areas including itscorporate, administrative and IT operations.
BG was created in 1997 when British Gas split into twoseparate companies. In 2000, another change saw the creationof BG Group, focused on international oil and gas production. (Editing by David Clarke)
