(Bloomberg) — Hadi Hallouche, head of Trafigura’s downstream oil division and an executive who was once touted as the firm’s future leader, is leaving the company.
He is the latest senior departure in a leadership succession process at Trafigura, one of the largest traders of oil, gas and metals, that saw Richard Holtum become the company’s third-ever chief executive officer in January.
One of several protégés of Trafigura’s founder Claude Dauphin, Hallouche was long seen as a rising star who had built the company into a significant player in liquefied natural gas trading. But expectations that he might succeed Jeremy Weir as CEO were dashed in September 2023, when he was dropped from the company’s reconstituted executive committee.
Hallouche joined Trafigura in 2011 after a career at Shell Plc, and was tasked by Dauphin with building the company’s LNG business. In 2019, he was named co-head of oil trading, and in 2021 he was given the task of turning around Puma, one of the largest fuel distributors in Africa and Central America.
In a statement, Puma Energy said that Hallouche would be succeeded as CEO by Mark Russell, formerly Trafigura’s head of energy for Middle East and North Africa. Hallouche and Russell will work as co-CEOs until June, the company said.
Other senior figures to retire from executive roles at Trafigura in the past year include Weir, who has become non-executive chairman; Jose Larocca, former head of oil; and Christophe Salmon, former chief financial officer.
The large-scale leadership change has put a strain on Trafigura, which pays out departing executives for their shares in installments after they leave. Trafigura is deferring some share buybacks this year, Bloomberg reported in November.
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