Directorate Change

    The Supervisory Board and the Board of Management of N.V. Koninklijke
Nederlandsche Petroleum Maatschappij (Royal Dutch Petroleum Company) announce
that at the General Meeting of Shareholders of the Company to be held on 23rd
April 2003, it will be proposed that Mr R J Routs be appointed a Managing
Director of the Company with effect from 1st July 2003.

It is the intention that after his appointment as a Managing Director of the
Company, Mr Routs be appointed a member of the Presidium of the Board of
Directors of Shell Petroleum N.V., and a Managing Director of The Shell
Petroleum Company Limited with effect from 1st July 2003, thereby becoming a
Group Managing Director of the Royal Dutch/Shell Group of Companies.

Rob Routs, who is of Dutch nationality, was born in Brisbane, Australia, in
1946. He graduated in Chemical Engineering from the Technical University of
Eindhoven in 1969. In 1971 he obtained a Ph.D. in technical sciences from the
same university and later that year he joined Shell at the Amsterdam
Laboratory.

In 1978 he went to Canada, where he held a variety of refinery management
positions and was appointed Vice President Manufacturing and Distribution of
Shell Canada in 1993. In 1996 he became President of Shell Canada Products
Limited.

He returned to the Netherlands in 1999, where he became President of Shell
Global Solutions International and a member of the Oil Products Executive
Committee with global responsibility for Research and Technical Services.

In 2000 Rob Routs was appointed President and CEO of Equilon Enterprises LCC in
the US and after the acquisition of Texaco's interest in Equilon in 2002, he
became President and CEO of Shell Oil Products US. In addition, he became
President of Shell Oil Company and Country Chairman for the US with effect from
1 September 2002.





END