Aug 2016 Financial News

Mark Loquan appointed new NGC president

Aug 29, 2016

The National Gas Company (NGC) has appointed Mark Loquan as its new president.

Loquan, the former president of Yara Trinidad before he departed to take up the position as president of Upstream Business Development-Angola/Sub-Sahara Africa at Yara International and then chief executive at Yara Pilbara in Australia, replaces Indar Maharaj, who was fired last December.

Maria Thorne, NGC’s vice-president of Legal and Corporate Management/company secretary, has been acting chief executive in the interim.
Loquan will assume duties on September 1.

Loquan’s appointment was announced to staff via email yesterday by NGC chairman Gerry Brooks.

“Mr Loquan has over 30 years’ experience in the petrochemical industry. He has held numerous leadership roles in countries including the USA, Europe, Africa and Trinidad and Tobago. His most recent role was that of CEO, Yara Philbara in Australia, where he was responsible for restructuring of an existing ammonia facility and integrating the site with a recently constructed world-scale technical ammonium nitrate plant, the latter a joint venture between Yara International and Orica,” stated Brooks’ e-mail.

Loquan graduated from The University of the West Indies with a BSc in chemical engineering (First Class Honours) and earned his MBA at Duke University, Fuqua School of Business, Durham, North Carolina, USA.

“Mr Loquan’s extensive international experience and knowledge of the global energy sector will bring a wealth of technical and leadership capability to the company and position NGC to achieve its strategic objectives,”
said Brooks.

On December 15, 2015, the NGC board fired Maharaj, saying “the decision was taken by the chairman and board of directors after careful deliberations and in a manner consistent with proper industrial relations practice”.

On Brooks’ first board meeting in October 2015, Maharaj was sent on leave from the company in October along with three managers – Charmaine Mohamed – manager, Corporate Communications; Cheryl Boodoosingh – manager, Procurement and Contracts; and Nazim Sarjad – manager, Construction Services.

That decision centred around the cost overruns at the Beetham Waste Water Plant, which had been awarded to a consortium headed by Super Industrial Services (SIS). SIS was subsequently fired from the project and that matter is still before the courts.

For the financial year ending December 31, 2015, NGC’s profits were $561 million, considerably lower than the profit of $4.5 billion for 2014.
Brooks said NGC’s performance was affected by the decline in energy prices--ammonia and methanol dropping by 18 per cent and 30 per cent, respectively, while oil and gas prices declined by 40 per cent.

“The decline in oil and gas prices impacted the recoverability of the company’s investment in Block 2C and Block 3A assets which led to an impairment loss being recognised in the amount of $1.3 billion. This loss is non-cash and may be reversed with the improvement in prices,” he said in his chairman’s report.

Brooks said NGC has developed a 2016-2020 strategic plan which will be rolled out in the third quarter of this year and that NGC is being re-engineered to “navigate and succeed in this new, more complex environment”.

Source:
By Asha Javeed
asha.javeed@trinidadexpress.com
Trinidad Express
Sunday August 28, 2016, 10:20 pm AST

http://www.trinidadexpress.com/20160828/news/mark-loquan-appointed-new-ngc-president