Korea’s oil refiner S-Oil has appointed Othman Al-Ghamdi, the former Aramco Asia Korea’s representative director, as the new CEO, the company said Monday.

The Saudi-born CEO will succeed Nasser Al-Mahasher who headed S-Oil for four and half years. 

Building career as an engineer at Saudi Aramco from 1990, he worked for Fujian Refining and Petrochemical Company in China, the joint venture that Saudi Aramco established with Exxon Mobil and Sinopec, from 2004 to 2008.

Al-Ghamdi returned to Saudi Aramco as the engineering head in 2008 and started to serve as the representative director of Saudi Aramco’s Korea office from September last year.

“The current top priority is completing the residue upgrading complex project and olefin downstream project successfully, (The company) will strengthen the business basis to become a profitable integrated energy company through these projects,” Al-Ghamdi said in the inauguration speech.

By Lee Hyun-jeong  (rene@heraldcorp.com)