By Sonali Paul
MELBOURNE, April 30 (Reuters) - Investors in Oil Search Ltd OSH.AX voted on Friday against the company's pay report and rejected a resolution for it to spell out plans to phase out oil and gas operations to help curb climate change.
The remuneration report was rejected by 54% of the votes cast at the annual meeting, even after the company cut board and management fees and salaries by 20% over six months after oil prices crashed last year.
"We understand from your response that some concerns remain and the company will take this on board for future consideration," Chairman Rick Lee said at the annual meeting.
Investors also voted 31% against grants of shares and rights to new managing director Keiran Wulff.
On the climate resolution, proposed by activist group Market Forces, 90% of shares were against.
Lee said the company's liquefied natural gas (LNG) projects in Papua New Guinea and its Pikka oil project in Alaska are aligned with the Paris Agreement to limit global warming to well below 2 degrees C above pre-industrial levels.
Market Forces executive director Julian Vincent questioned how they could be aligned with the Paris goals when the company's forecast for LNG demand in 2035 was 5% above the International Energy Agency's outlook for LNG demand in a scenario that would result a 2.7 degrees C rise in temperature.
"At the moment our assessment is that the demand for LNG and for oil will be material for quite some decades," Lee said.
"Fortunately, our assets are low cost, low greenhouse gas intensity and are located strategically very close to major centres of demand that have announced zero carbon commitments by 2050," he said, adding that Oil Search's LNG supply would help in that transition.
Oil Search, like its Australian rivals Woodside Petroleum WPL.AX and Santos Ltd STO.AX , has agreed to a non-binding vote on its climate reporting at its 2022 annual meeting.