Qatar energy

19 March 2013

Six key individuals involved in the operation and expansion of Qatar’s Ras Laffan condensate refinery: Mohammed bin Saleh al-Sada, Sheikh Khaled al-Thani, Bryan Canfield, Bart Cahir, Keizo Morikawa and Vaseem Khan

Mohammed bin Saleh al-Sada

Position: Energy & industry minister

Biography: Mohammed bin Saleh al-Sada was appointed Qatar’s energy and industry minister in January 2011, and it is through this position that he also serves as the managing director and chairman of the board of Qatar Petroleum (QP). QP is the majority shareholder in the Ras Laffan condensate refinery with a 51 per cent stake. The company is also overseeing a $1bn expansion at the facility. Before assuming his current role, Al-Sada served as minister of state for energy and industry affairs from April 2007. He is vice-chairman of the board of Qatar Steel and chairman of Qatar Chemicals Company, QatarGas and Qatar International Petroleum Marketing Company. He is former technical director of Qatar Petroleum and managing director at RasGas. He has a bachelor’s degree in marine science and geology from Qatar University and a doctorate from the UK’s University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology.

Contact Tel: (+974) 4 484 6444

Sheikh Khaled al-Thani

Position: Chief executive officer (CEO), QatarGas Operating Company

Biography: Sheikh Khaled al-Thani was appointed CEO of QatarGas, the operator of the Ras Laffan condensate refinery, in 2010, replacing the long-serving Faisal al-Suwaidi. At present, the facility processes 146,000 barrels a day of condensate from the offshore North field, the world’s largest non-associated gas field. Sheikh Khaled has worked in Qatar’s hydrocarbons industry for more than two decades, having first started working for QP in 1991. He then became a director of Ras Laffan Industrial City, where all Qatar’s liquefied natural gas (LNG) infrastructure is based. In addition to his role at QatarGas, Sheikh Khaled is chairman and managing director of Qatar Real Estate Investment Company. He has a master’s degree in business administration and a bachelor’s degree in computer science from Pacific Lutheran University in the US.

Contact Tel: (+974) 4 473 6000

Bryan Canfield

Position: Managing director, Total Refining & Petrochemicals, Qatar

Biography: France’s Total is a 10 per cent shareholder of the Ras Laffan condensate refinery as part of its extensive refining and petrochemicals operations in Qatar. Bryan Canfield has been based in Qatar since 2008 and assumed his current role when Total merged its refining and petrochemicals operations in 2011. He started his career in 1990 working for Belgium’s Petrofina in Texas and over the next nine years he held several positions, including process engineer and solvents business manager. After Petrofina’s merger with Total in 1999 he moved to Belgium, where he was the operations manager at an olefins plant. He returned to the US in 2002 to look after all of Total’s US petrochemicals ventures. In 2004, he moved back to Belgium to work as the plant manager for the olefins plant. Canfield has a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from Oklahoma University in the US.

Contact Tel: (+974) 4 420 8350

Bart Cahir

Position: Production and general manager, ExxonMobil Qatar

Biography: Bart Cahir has worked for the US’ ExxonMobil since he left university in 1994 and has been in Qatar since 2010. ExxonMobil is a 10 per cent shareholder of the Ras Laffan condensate refinery and also has extensive interests in Qatar’s LNG industry. He started his career with Exxon as a petroleum engineer and has held several different positions since. After Exxon merged with Mobil in 1998, he worked for eight years as a reservoir specialist, rising to become reservoir supervisor by 2006. Between 2006 and 2010, he worked as a planning analyst, then engineering technical manager for ExxonMobil’s operations in the Aceh province of Indonesia. In 2010, he moved to Qatar as production and joint interest manager before assuming his current role in 2011. He has a degree in petroleum engineering from Pennsylvania State University in the US.

Contact Tel: (+974) 4 497 8467

Keizo Morikawa

Position: President and CEO, Cosmo Oil Company

Biography: Keizo Morikawa has been working for Japan’s Cosmo Oil in various roles since joining Daikyo Oil Company in 1971. Cosmo Oil is the result of a merger between Daikyo and Maruzen Oil. The firm has a 10 per cent stake in the Ras Laffan condensate refinery. The Tokyo-based company is one of Japan’s largest oil refiners. Morikawa has worked in sales control, fuel marketing (retail and wholesale), as well as industrial fuel marketing during his time at the company. He was made a director of Cosmo Oil in 2000. In 2002, he was appointed managing director before rising to senior managing director by 2004. Morikawa became executive vice-president of the company in 2008 and was appointed to his current position of president and CEO in June 2012. He has a degree in foreign languages from Tokyo University of Foreign Studies.

Contact Tel: (+81) 3 3798 3211

Vaseem Khan

Position: Senior vice-president, Middle East, Technip

Biography: Vaseem Khan replaced Arturo Grimaldi as senior vice-president of Middle East operations for France’s Technip in January 2013. The firm carried out the front-end engineering and design for the Ras Laffan condensate refinery’s $1bn expansion, which will double production to 292,000 barrels a day. Khan joined Technip in Abu Dhabi in 2003 and was responsible for several high-profile projects in the oil and gas, and petrochemicals sectors. In 2009, he became chief operating officer for the Middle East overseeing project staff and production, including process engineering, procurement, construction and commissioning. Khan previously worked for UK-based chemicals group ICI (now part of Dutch paints and chemicals firm AkzoNobel). He has a bachelor’s and master’s degree in mechanical engineering and a postgraduate diploma in international management.

Contact Tel: (+971) 2 661 6000

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