PARIS - French oil giant Total on Wednesday appointed two insiders to lead the company, moving swiftly to replace Christophe de Margerie, its chairman and chief executive, who died Monday in an airplane accident.
After an emergency meeting in Paris, the board said it had unanimously chosen Patrick Pouyanné, 51, head of the company's refining and chemicals business, as chief executive, and Thierry Desmarest, 68, de Margerie's predecessor, for the role of chairman. At the end of next year, Pouyanné will assume both positions, and Desmarest, a Total executive since 1981, will retire.
The two executives are well known among Total's nearly 100,000 employees and throughout the industry. They take the helm as falling oil prices are putting pressure on earnings, and as its strategy for growth - Total is heavily reliant on projects in Angola, Kazakhstan, Nigeria and Russia - has come under scrutiny.
Advertisement
Article continues below this ad
Total's board appeared to be trying to reassure investors and other interested parties, like labor unions and the French government, by pairing Desmarest, an experienced hand, with Pouyanné, a veteran who can still be considered a rising star.
"It is an excellent outcome for Total in light of the tragedy," said J. Robinson West, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. "Don't underestimate the importance of Thierry Desmarest; he is a very strong figure who built the modern Total."
The new leadership lineup is "solid and reassuring," François Pelegrina of the CFDT trade union, told Agence France-Presse. Pouyanné is "a man who likes making decisions, with whom we can talk when there's an important issue, who listens and doesn't close his door," he said.
De Margerie died as he was returning to Paris from a conference, when his Dassault Falcon jet crashed into a snowplow at Vnukovo airport outside Moscow. Russian authorities said that the snowplow driver was drunk at the time and that negligence by airport management contributed to the accident. The driver denied having been intoxicated, and his lawyer has accused investigators of trying to make a scapegoat of a low-level employee.
