China’s state-owned oil and gas giants set for reshuffle of top brass
Announcement expected after the three-day Labour Day holiday, with analysts predicting no major changes in direction for oil majors
The mainland's state-owned oil and gas giants will soon see a reshuffling of their top brass, coming in the middle of President Xi Jinping's anti-corruption drive, but analysts do not expect any major changes in the direction of the oil majors.
China National Offshore Oil Corp chairman Wang Yilin is rejoining China National Petroleum Corp as chairman, and his position will be taken up by company president Yang Hua, sources said. China National Offshore is the parent of Hong Kong-listed firm CNOOC, and China National Petroleum is the parent of Hong Kong-listed PetroChina.
This will coincide with the widely reported retirement of Fu Chengyu, chairman of China Petrochemical Corp and its listed flagship China Petroleum & Chemical (Sinopec), who will be succeeded by Chinese Academy of Engineering deputy chief Wang Yupu this month. Wang previously worked in China National Petroleum's Daqing oilfield for 27 years.
The announcement of the reshuffle is expected after the three-day Labour Day holiday that ends tomorrow. Yang declined to comment while a PetroChina spokesman said he had no information about the changes.
The new chiefs of the state-owned trio will also take the helm of their listed flagships, with their appointments subject to shareholders' approval at annual shareholders meetings later this month. "Wang is a capable manager with ample experience in upstream oil and gas exploration and production, especially in the Tarim Basin in northwest China," a senior PetroChina executive said.
The impending reshuffle of the oil giants' top echelon comes after reports that Beijing is studying the feasibility of two big mergers in the oil sector to bolster the state-owned firms' international competitiveness. One was reported to involve China National Petroleum and China Petrochemical, and the other China National Offshore and Sinochem, another state-owned oil and chemical firm.
PetroChina and Sinopec subsequently issued statements saying they had not been informed of any such merger plans.
The reshuffle also comes with the anti-corruption drive at full throttle, with Sinopec's former vice-chairman Wang Tianpu being the latest top-level oil executive to be put under investigation.
A series of senior figures from the state-owned oil industry have been detained in the crackdown, including former China National Petroleum chairman Jiang Jiemin . The energy industry was a power base for former security chief Zhou Yongkang , who was arrested in December on charges including leaking state secrets.
"Changing the top person of a major state-owned company in a strategic industry generally will not result in a change in its business strategy since they are only appointed to execute plans set by the state, although each leader has a different personal style, strengths and weaknesses," said Lin Boqiang, the director of Xiamen University's Centre for China Energy Economics Research.
An oil and gas sector analyst at a European brokerage noted that unlike Fu and Yang, who were fluent in English and had ample experience working with international oil firms and on overseas acquisitions, Wang Yilin was not "the visionary, charismatic, change-agent type".
