NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Energy Intelligence announced today that José Sergio Gabrielli de Azevedo, chief executive officer of Petróleo Brasileiro S.A. (Petrobras), has earned the distinction of his peers – leaders of many of the world’s 100 largest oil companies – as the 2011 Petroleum Executive of the Year.
“This selection reflects Mr. Gabrielli’s success in leading Petrobras during a period of enormous growth that’s seen it become the second largest oil company in the world by market capitalization, and encompassed the discovery of vast deep water oil and gas reserves in the sub-salt area in the South Atlantic – the most important new petroleum province of the last 10 years,” noted Thomas Wallin, president of Energy Intelligence, a global information provider of industry publications, analytics and research. “He also led the company during its record and highly successful $70 billion share offering last year.”
Gabrielli’s background is unconventional for an oil company CEO. He is not an engineer, geologist or MBA. He is an academic economist with a PhD who joined Petrobras in 2003 as a high-level finance executive before being appointed CEO in 2005. Gabrielli’s academic specialties include the success of state-owned companies; his tenure at Petrobras has afforded the opportunity to put his ideas into practice.
The Petroleum Executive of the Year selection process begins with Energy Intelligence eliciting nominations from the heads of the 100 largest oil companies determined by The Energy Intelligence Top 100: Ranking The World’s Oil Companies, an EI publication. These nominations are then voted on by a committee of previous award winners and former senior oil executives. “There was strong consensus that the 2011 award should go to Mr. Gabrielli,” Wallin said.
Under Gabrielli’s leadership, Petrobras made discoveries expected to more than double its oil reserves and production in the years to come. The company has established itself as a leader in deepwater exploration and production technology with among the highest safety and efficiency standards in the business. He also raised huge amounts of capital to fund these upstream developments and allow the state company to remain very much the dominant force in the development of Brazil’s oil industry.
Rio de Janeiro-based Petrobras is publicly traded yet controlled by the Brazilian government. So Gabrielli also contends with the reality that his is a political appointment; running a state-controlled firm like Petrobras requires considerable political as well as management skills.
Past winners of the Petroleum Executive of the Year Award include Andrew Gould of Schlumberger (2010), Christophe de Margerie of Total (2009), Paolo Scaroni of Eni (2008), Abdulla al-Attiyah of Qatar (2007), Dr. Shokri Ghanem of Libya (2006), Abdallah Jum'ah of Saudi Aramco (2005), David O'Reilly of Chevron (2004), Lee Raymond of ExxonMobil (2003), James J. Mulva of ConocoPhillips (2002), Sir Mark Moody-Stuart of Royal Dutch Shell (2001), Thierry Desmarest of Total (2000), Lucio A. Noto of ExxonMobil (1999), Luis Giusti of PDVSA (1998) and Lord John Browne of BP (1997).
The Petroleum Executive of the Year Award will be presented to Gabrielli in London on October 10th as the centerpiece of the 32nd Annual Oil & Money Conference, convened by the International Herald Tribune and Energy Intelligence.
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