New structure for Rompetrol

American-born Andre Naniche, 49, the man who worked on restructuring downstream operations of TNK – BP in Russia, has unveiled the new management structure of Rompetrol, a group whose operations now include 12 markets, from the Atlantic to the Caspian Sea.
The big structural change occurred after takeover of French company Dyneff at the end of 2005, which meant the opening of the second major front of operations in the West, after the Balkans and the Black Sea.
In 2008, the management of the Rompetrol group plans an IPO on a foreign stock exchange, perhaps London or another market, as an integrated petroleum company, and, with that in mind, it aims to make a major acquisition in Russia.
The Rompetrol group now has four business units: exploration & production (upstream), refining, retail & marketing as well as trading. The four departments will be headed by Scotsman Peter Hamilton, Cosmin Cocean, Eric Chis and Dan Ionescu. The four will manage the business segments, each with its own development strategy within the general strategy of the group.
The Rompetrol group, which, officials say, has joined the club of the top 20 petroleum companies in Europe in terms of turnover, aims to see its turnover go up from 6 billion dollars in 2006, to somewhere between 12 and 20 billion dollars in the next five years and targets an EBITDA worth 5% of the business volume.
Dinu Patriciu, as chairman and CEO of the Rompetrol group, will handle mergers & acquisitions, while Alexandru Bucsa, the financial manager (who is also vice-president of the group) and Andre Naniche, operations manager, will report to Patriciu directly.
Naniche will coordinate all the companies that are part of the structure of the Rompetrol group.
“In the past, we were grouped into approximately 22 companies, most of them involved in different activities, but working on many similar projects.
Following talks with Dinu Patriciu and Phil Stephenson, we concluded that restructuring would be a good idea, with two objectives in mind: the first, to put authority and responsibility in the hands of the people who know the business, and the second, to make as much profit as possible while spending as little as possible,” says Naniche.
“We have structured the group into four business units. I come from the world of western corporations, and BP, where I used to work, is structured into business units.
From my work with BP, I learned that when you have this type of structure, it is much easier to approach someone in charge of the whole spectrum of activity of that branch than in a pyramid-type hierarchy,” Naniche added.