Naresh K Nayyar has been appointed deputy chairman of Essar Oil, the first person outside the promoter Ruia family to be elevated to that level.
"Until now, Nayyar has held the dual roles of Chief Executive Officer of Essar Energy plc and Managing Director & CEO of Essar Oil," the company said announcing the elevation.
Essar Oil Limited (EOL), a subsidiary of London-listed Essar Energy Plc, is headed by Shashi Ruia as chairman. Ravi Ruia is the vice chairman.
The company also said Lalit Kumar Gupta has been appointed as managing director and chief executive officer of Essar Oil.
"Gupta's appointment allows Nayyar to relinquish his current role at Essar Oil and to focus on his wider executive responsibilities across the Essar Energy portfolio. These include the refining, power, and exploration and production businesses. He will remain on the board of Essar Oil as a non-executive director in the newly created role of Deputy Chairman," the statement said.
A rank-holder Chartered Accountant, Gupta is also a Company Secretary and has a bachelor’s degree in Commerce (gold medallist) from Jiwaji University, Gwalior.
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With 31 years of experience, he joins Essar Oil from JSW Energy, where he was the Chief Executive Officer and the Joint Managing Director. Prior to this, he was Director (Finance) in Mangalore Refinery & Petrochemicals Ltd.
Nayyar said: "Gupta's appointment comes at a key time for Essar Oil, where we are nearing the completion of our phase one expansion at the Vadinar refinery."
Essar Oil is a fully integrated oil & gas company of international scale with strong presence across the hydrocarbon value chain from exploration & production to refining and oil retail.
It has a global portfolio of onshore and offshore oil & gas blocks, with about 2.1 billion barrels of oil equivalent in reserves & resources.
Essar Oil has over 300,000 barrels per day of crude refining capacity that is being expanded to 405,000 bpd. There are more than 1,600 Essar-branded oil retail outlets in various parts of India.