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She began her 31-year career with the Brazilian national as a production. Saudi Aramco also chemical engineer, and was named CEO on 13 February 2012. oversees 288.4Tscf of gas.

Graças Foster, a close friend to Brazilian President Dilma Over a 30-year career, he worked

Roussef, is currently helming a company with close to 90,000 through the ranks of the company, employees present in 17 countries that rakes in more than holding positions such as executive

US$9.1 billion net pro? t. However, Graças Foster’s Petrobras vice president of operations and intends to be one of the top ? ve integrated energy companies senior vice president of gas operations in the world by 2030, with as sustainable average output of and industrial relation. 4MMbo/d from 2020-2030. She is currently leading the com- He was named president and CEO

Khalid A. Al-Falih pany through the initial phases of its 2030 Strategic Plan and on 1 January 2009. He was also presi-

Photo from Aramco Services the 2014–2018 Business and Management Plan. dent of Petron Corp., a joint venture

In her career, Graças Foster has also served as the CEO of with the Philippine National Oil Company.

other Petrobras subsidiaries, and is the chairwoman of the He also serves as a member of the Saudi Arabian Supreme

Board of Transportadora Brasileira Gasoduto Bolívia-Brasil, Council of Petroleum and Minerals Affairs, chaired by the of Transportadora Associada de Gás, and a member of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, King ‘Abd Allah ibn ‘Abd

Boards of Petrobras Transporte, Petrobras Biocombustível and al-‘Aziz Al Sa‘ud. He also advocates for social programs and

Braskem. education.

She is also the former Ministry of Mines and Energy’s sec- The ? rm announced the 2013 deepwater Al-Haryd oil discov- retary for Oil, Natural Gas and Renewable Fuels from January ery in the Red Sea in its June annual report, inching up its total 2003 to September 2005. number of discovered ? elds to 121.

It recently expanded into fuel oil derivatives, also known as is the president, paper, trading and the petrochemicals sector.

Igor Sechin chairman of the management board,

Economics, regulation, and government and vice-chairman of the board of

Enrique Peña Nieto directors of Russian state-owned is the president

Rosneft, the world’s largest publicly- of Mexico, a member of the PRI traded company. (Institutional Revolutionary Party)

Born in Soviet Leningrad (renamed who transformed Mexico’s energy

St. Petersburg), he studied languages at economy with the passage of the the Leningrad University. He is one of country’s energy reforms.

Igor Sechin

Putin’s closest allies, with a friendship Prior to the energy reforms and

Photo from Rosneft that has lasted decades, and is com- his secondary legislation, Mexico’s monly considered to be the second-most powerful men in Russia, national treasure had only one cus-

Enrique Peña Nieto after the president himself. tomer, one explorer, one producer

Photo from presidencia.gob.mx

According to a 20 June 2010 Reuters article naming Sechin and one re? ner: state-owned Petróleos “Russia’s energy tsar,” both he and Putin rose through the ranks Mexicanos (Pemex), itself inexorably tied to treasury funds and of the Kremlin together. in need of streamlining and rejuvenating.

Sechin served as Putin’s deputy prime minister and, before General Lázaro Cárdenas served as Mexico’s president from that, Putin’s chief of staff. 1934-1940. According to the US Department of State’s Of? ce

His standing with Putin is what landed him on the US of the Historian, on 18 March 1938, Cárdenas expropriated

Department of the Treasury’s Specially Designated Nationals all international companies’ oil by asserting Article 27 of the list, as the US government were targeting those that were Constitution of 1917, wherein Mexico claimed rights to any- seen as being part of the president’s “inner circle.” Sechin has thing below the ground, and nationalized the natural resource. worked around Western-imposed sanctions by strengthening Prior to this, Shell subsidiary Mexican Eagle Company ties with the East: China, in particular. accounted for more than 60% of domestic oil production.

As the deadline approached for Western companies to close American-owned oil ? rms including Jersey Standard and operations and withdraw from Russia, Rosneft and partner Chevron predecessor Standard Oil Company of California

ExxonMobil announced they hit hydrocarbons in the north- accounted for around 30% of total production. ernmost well in the world – the Universitetskaya-1 well in Distrust of international companies helped foster nationaliza- the Prinovozemelskiy license in the Kara Sea, 250km off the tion long past when it remained good for the country. Following

Russian coast in the Arctic. nationalization, International companies reeled at the country.

Sechin said that the ? eld would be named Pobeda (Russian Bans were instituted, and diplomatic relations were broken. Oil for “Victory”) and extensively thanked the company’s Western would remain nationalized until Peña Nieto staked his candi- partners and service companies in a statement. Rosneft esti- dacy on the reforms.

On 13 December 2013, more than 75 years after it was national- mated the structure to have 338Bcm of gas and more than 100 ized, energy reforms passed in Mexico. million tonnes of oil.

The PRI and opposition party PAN presented a united front

Khalid A. Al-Falih is the president and CEO of Saudi Aramco, against Mexican leftist party PRD, and passed the bill by a vote of the state-owned oil company of Saudi Arabia. 95 to 28 in the Mexican Senate. The lower chamber of Mexico’s The company manages the largest proven oil reserves in

Congress, the Chamber of Deputies, followed suit, voting 353 to the world, with 3.4 billion bo of production for 2013, which 134 in favor of the reform.

the company says equates to 1bbl for every 8bbl of the world’s “The number, depth and signi? cance of the reforms approved oedigital.com December 2014 | OE 19 018_OE1214_feature1.indd 19 11/21/14 10:38 PM