Total Kenya gets new board chair

French oil major Total Group has appointed its chief in Nigeria Jean Philippe Torres to oversee operations in Kenya, becoming the fourth board chair since September 2011.

Total Kenya #ticker:TOTL, the country’s second largest oil marketer by share, announced Friday that Mr Torres had been appointed chairman following a board meeting last Wednesday.

Mr Torres, an insider in the group since 1992, replaces fellow Frenchman Jean-Christian Bergeron who has resigned from the position he held from September 2015.

“I write to advise …following the board meeting of the company ... Mr Jean-Philippe Torres was appointed as a director of the company and the chairman of the board with effect from September 5, 2018,” company secretary John Maonga said in a letter to the Capital Markets Authority. Total, which controlled 23.1 per cent share of volume sales in the first quarter of the year, did not give reasons for Mr Bergeron resignation.

Previous board chairs, largely insiders, at the firm whose shares trade on the Nairobi bourse have not served for more than three years.

Mr Bergeron had replaced South African Jonathan Molapo who chaired Total’s board for two years from September 2013.

Mr Molapo had taken over from Frenchman Jean Papee who had held the position since September 6, 2011.

The new chair first joined Total Group in 1992 as a financial controller in France, rising through senior ranks to become managing director of Total Nigeria.

The firm’s net profit for the six months through June 2018 rose 8.06 per cent to Sh1.03 billion, it reported last month.

Total trailed Vivo Energy, the retailer of Shell-branded fuel products, which controlled a 28 per cent stake by sales volumes in the first quarter of the year, statistics by the Petroleum Institute of East Africa show.