Senior Executives Flee Russian Oil Giant Rosneft

Also leaving are Otabek Karimov, vp for commerce and logistics, and

Eric Liron,

vp for oil-and-gas companies, among the individuals mentioned. Avril Conroy, who was head of retail operations, has already left the corporate.

All hail from exterior Russia, underscoring how Rosneft relied on abroad experience to develop into one of many world’s largest oil producers—and the way the struggle threatens to reverse that growth. Foreign executives introduced know-how about Western manufacturing strategies and enterprise practices. They helped to endear Rosneft to abroad buyers, who owned its shares and lent it cash. And they strengthened hyperlinks with large U.S. and European power corporations that partnered with Rosneft on initiatives in Russia and abroad.

The firm misplaced out when personal producers carved up Russia’s prime oil property within the Nineteen Nineties however fought again and now performs a pivotal position within the Russian financial system and world power market. A government-owned firm holds greater than 40% of shares in Rosneft and the agency describes itself as Russia’s largest taxpayer. It churned out 3.9 million barrels a day of liquid hydrocarbons in 2021, in accordance with its annual report, sufficient to fulfill 4% of worldwide oil demand.

Mr. Casimiro responded to an emailed remark request with an excerpt from the Oscar Wilde poem “The Ballad of Reading Gaol.” The stanza describes two doomed ships passing in a storm and never acknowledging one another, with one line studying, “We had no word to say.” 

Mr. Runje, Mr. Liron, Ms. Conroy and Mr. Karimov didn’t reply to requests for remark. A spokesman for Rosneft mentioned he didn’t know in regards to the departures. The departures had been reported earlier by Reuters.

The timing of the exits could also be associated to European Union sanctions, in accordance with one of many individuals acquainted with the matter. A ban on some contracts with sure state-owned Russian corporations, together with Rosneft, got here into pressure on May 15. Whether this additionally applies to employment contracts isn’t clear. Having residents of nations that imposed sanctions towards Russia within the govt ranks at state-owned corporations can also be now seen as much less acceptable by the Kremlin, the particular person mentioned.

Rosneft has come beneath strain because the invasion. Stores of oil in Russia are filling up and production is falling as a result of lost demand at home and abroad, in accordance with merchants, personal analysts and the International Energy Agency. Rosneft and state-owned Gazprom PJSC face a longer-term problem find options to Western applied sciences that governments have stopped corporations exporting to the Russian power business.

An artwork collector in his spare time, Mr. Casimiro was born in 1966 and is from Belgium. He held senior positions at

BP PLC

within the Nineteen Nineties and 2000s earlier than shifting to TNK-BP, the British firm’s three way partnership with a bunch of Russian businessmen. He joined Rosneft in 2012, in accordance with the agency’s 2020 annual report, earlier than the corporate bought TNK-BP in 2013.

Since then, Mr. Casimiro has at numerous instances overseen commerce, logistics, refining and petrochemicals. After being made first vp in 2020, Mr. Casimiro acted as a quasi chief monetary officer, one of many individuals mentioned.

Complicating Mr. Casimiro’s place: He has been topic to U.S. sanctions since 2020, when the Treasury Department focused Rosneft’s buying and selling actions in Venezuela. He was president of Rosneft Trading SA, its Swiss buying and selling subsidiary, on the time, in accordance with the U.S. authorities.

Mr. Casimiro obtained caught up within the worldwide dragnet once more shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine. In late March, the U.Ok. froze his property in a spherical of sanctions targeting other senior figures in the Russian energy and financial industries together with corporations corresponding to Alfa-Bank JSC.

Mr. Runje joined Rosneft in 2012 after a profession at Exxon Mobil Corp. As first vp for oil, gasoline and offshore enterprise growth, he was in command of the corporate’s upstream manufacturing operations. He was additionally sanctioned by the U.Ok. in March.

Mr. Liron is a French nationwide who as soon as labored for U.S.-listed oil-field-services agency

Schlumberger Ltd.

, earlier than becoming a member of Rosneft across the time it took over TNK-BP. Ms. Conroy is Irish and labored for BP and Rosneft in Russia since 1998.

Mr. Karimov hails from Uzbekistan.

Write to Anna Hirtenstein at anna.hirtenstein@wsj.com and Joe Wallace at joe.wallace@wsj.com