Section: CRUSU News

Sasol and Topsoe have appointed Jan Toschka as CEO of the joint venture established by the two companies to develop, build, own and operate sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) ventures and to market the products. Previously Toschka was president of Global Aviation for Shell, responsible for Shell’s global network of operations, joint ventures and sales of fuels, lubricants and sustainable solutions to the aviation industry. During his tenure at Shell, he has led teams across sales, mergers and acquisitions, trading, and retail businesses globally, spanning various industries including Marine and Retail. Toschka will assume his new role as CEO on 1 March 2024 and the joint venture will be launched during the same month. The new company will be headquartered in The Netherlands.

CITGO Petroleum Corporation has named Dennis Willig as the company’s new Vice President of Refining, where he will oversee operations at the company’s three refineries located in Lake Charles, Louisiana.; Lemont, Illinois; and Corpus Christi, Texas. Willig most recently served as Vice President and General Manager of the Corpus Christi Refinery, and prior to that was the Vice President and General Manager of the Lemont Refinery, where he spent the majority of his 28-year career with CITGO. Replacing Willig as the new Vice President and General Manager Corpus Christi Refinery is Ryan Vining , who spent the last 24 years at the CITGO Lake Charles Refinery, most recently as General Manager Operations, Maintenance and Reliability. Both appointments are effective from February 1st, 2024.

Arianne Phosphate says that Mark Edinger will be joining the company as an advisor. Edinger is a 15-year veteran of Nutrien Ltd. and its predecessor (Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan) having most recently served as Director of Phosphate Commercial and Product Management Teams, with responsibility for the global marketing of Nutrien’s phosphate product lines.

Occidental Petroleum has appointed Sunil Mathew as its new chief financial officer for the next three years. He succeeds Robert Peterson , who served as Senior Vice President and CFO. As EVP, Peterson will now oversee the company’s chemical segment. Mathew joined Occidental in 2004 and has been Vice President of Strategic Planning and Analysis since 2014, in which role he was instrumental in the company’s large-scale divestiture effort of around $10 billion following the Anadarko acquisition. He has also worked for Schlumberger in the Middle East and Asia. Peterson, who has been CFO since 2020, will become executive vice president of essential chemistry at Occidental Chemical Corporation (Oxy-Chem), a wholly-owned subsidiary.

Metso Outotec’s annual general meeting (AGM) in early May approved the board of directors’ proposal to change the company name to Metso Corporation. “After the successful integration of Metso and Outotec, we will focus on growing a strong unified Metso company and brand,” says President and CEO of Metso, Pekka Vauramo. “We have combined two valuable companies into one strong Metso. Our focus is clear: we continue enabling sustainable modern life and transforming the industry with a clear strategy and strong culture, supported by a name that is short yet established and well recognized among all our stakeholders. Services are an extremely important part of our business, requiring a strong name.”

PhosAgro’s shareholders elected a new board of directors during the company’s annual general meeting (AGM), held on 24 March. The new board includes: Viktor Ivanov, Yuriy Krugovykh, Siroj Loikov, Natalia Pashkevich, Mikhail Rybnikov, Alexander Seleznev, Vladimir Trukhachev, Viktor Cherepov, Alexander Sharabaiko and Andrey Sharonov. The AGM also approved the company’s annual report for 2022, which reflected total production of 11.1 million t/a of agrochemical products (up nearly 5% year-on-year); and a one-third increase in investments to develop the company. PhosAgro CEO Mikhail Rybnikov said: “The consistent implementation of our long-term development programme enabled us to increase production last year, and we remained the leader in terms of the total supply of all types of fertilizers to the domestic market and expanded our support in the social sphere considerably. We intend to maintain this momentum of steady development. In 2023, we expect further growth in the production of agrochemical products, to 11.3 million tonnes. Our workforce laid the groundwork for this in January-February, as we increased production of phosphoric acid and sulphuric acid by 22% and 17% year-onyear, respectively, over this period.”

Suncor has selected Rich Kruger to be the company’s next president and CEO, effective from April 3rd, according to the company. Kruger will also join the Suncor board of directors. The announcement follows a search process conducted by a special committee of the board. Rich Kruger previously worked for ExxonMobil for 39 years, and was the chairman and CEO of Imperial Oil Ltd from 2013 through 2019 before retiring from the company, where he focused on safety, reliability and operational excellence. Kris Smith, who has been interim CEO since July 2022, will work with Kruger to ensure a smooth transition before assuming the role of Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President of Corporate Development, at the conclusion of Suncor’s annual general meeting on May 9, 2023. Alister Cowan, the current CFO, plans to retire but has offered to remain with the company through the end of the year to support the transition to Mr. Smith and to provide advisory services. Smith replaced previous CEO Mark Little, who resigned in July 2022 following investor pressure after a series of safety incidents and fatalities.

Ben van Beurden ended his tenure as Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Shell and was replaced by Wael Sawan on January 1st, 2023. Van Beurden will continue working as adviser to the Board until June 30, 2023, after which he will leave the group.

Topsoe has made a number of changes to its board. Kim Saaby Hedegaard has been appointed as the company’s new Executive Vice President, Power-to-X. Hedegaard has served as interim Head of Power-to-X since May 2022. Before that, he held the position as Chief Operations Officer (COO). He joined Topsoe in 1999 and has since held various leadership positions within engineering, technology, and sales. Since 2017, he was responsible for Catalyst Production and Technology globally. He holds a MSc in chemical engineering from the Technical University of Denmark. He is replaced as COO by Andreas Bruun Jørgensen.

H.J. Baker’s chief operating officer (COO) Luis Masroua has become president of the company.