An­drea Perez-Sobers

Se­nior Re­porter

an­drea.perez-sobers

@guardian.co.tt

Chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer of state-owned oil pro­duc­er Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um Com­pa­ny, Erik Kesku­la, has re­signed to take up a job of­fer at an in­ter­na­tion­al com­pa­ny.

Her­itage con­firmed his res­ig­na­tion via a news re­lease yes­ter­day.

He was se­lect­ed as CEO in June 2023 to run the oil com­pa­ny.

In his res­ig­na­tion let­ter, which was dat­ed June 30 and sub­mit­ted to En­er­gy Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal, Kesku­la stat­ed, “Af­ter con­sid­er­able thought and re­flec­tion, I am for­mal­ly re­sign­ing from my po­si­tion as CEO at Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um Com­pa­ny Ltd ef­fec­tive Sep­tem­ber 30, pro­vid­ing three months’ no­tice, aligned to my con­tract.”

He said lead­ing the com­pa­ny has been one of the great­est pro­fes­sion­al ho­n­ours of his ca­reer.

“Af­ter more than two years, I have had the priv­i­lege to lead and work along­side a ded­i­cat­ed team com­mit­ted to dri­ving growth, in­no­va­tion, and sus­tain­abil­i­ty in the en­er­gy sec­tor, all for the good of the peo­ple of T&T. To­geth­er, we have risen above many chal­lenges, achieved new mile­stones, and built a strong foun­da­tion for growth and trans­for­ma­tion. This de­ci­sion did not come light­ly. It stems from my de­sire to pur­sue new pro­fes­sion­al chal­lenges in the en­er­gy sec­tor. Please be as­sured that I will do every­thing I can to en­sure a smooth han­dover with­in the months ahead.” he stat­ed.

The let­ter fur­ther stat­ed that he re­mained op­ti­mistic about Her­itage’s fu­ture and would con­tin­ue to sup­port the com­pa­ny in any way pos­si­ble.

Kesku­la told Guardian Me­dia by What­sApp “I en­joyed my time at Her­itage and the op­por­tu­ni­ty to help grow the busi­ness to the ben­e­fit of the peo­ple of the coun­try. In the past few months, I was of­fered an­oth­er po­si­tion in the en­er­gy sec­tor, and it was an op­por­tu­ni­ty that was too good to turn down. I re­main com­mit­ted to sup­port­ing the com­pa­ny and the Gov­ern­ment in a smooth tran­si­tion to an­oth­er CEO.”

In a memo to staff, Kesku­la said “I would like to ex­press my heart­felt grat­i­tude to the lead­er­ship team, the ex­tend­ed lead­er­ship team, and the staff of Her­itage for your un­wa­ver­ing com­mit­ment and ex­cel­lence. Your ded­i­ca­tion has been in­stru­men­tal in our achieve­ments. To all staff mem­bers, thank you for your co­op­er­a­tion and sup­port. The mem­o­ries we have cre­at­ed to­geth­er will be cher­ished for years to come.”

Kesku­la is a grad­u­ate of the Col­orado School of Mines, he is a geo­physi­cist who spent 25 years at the Amer­i­can en­er­gy multi­na­tion­al Cono­coPhillips, work­ing in vary­ing ca­pac­i­ties around the globe be­fore he left the com­pa­ny in 2022.

On Mon­day, a new Her­itage board was giv­en its in­stru­ments of ap­point­ment, by En­er­gy Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal.

The chair­man is Kurt Ram­lal, a for­mer chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer of Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion of T&T (UDe­cott) and the di­rec­tors are Khalid Has­sanali, Lin­coln Dookhran, Ron­nie Sookoo, Richard Han­sraj and Kami­ni Ram­raj.

In de­liv­er­ing re­marks, Min­is­ter Mooni­lal em­pha­sised the crit­i­cal role Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um and Paria Fu­el Trad­ing play in the na­tion­al en­er­gy land­scape and re­mind­ed the mem­bers of the man­date is­sued by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, for the coun­try to re-emerge as the en­er­gy hub of the Caribbean.