CNOOC has shuffled its top management. The company has promoted CFO Yang Hua to the CEO position to replace current CEO, Zhou Shouwei, who will retire next year. Replacing Hua as the company’s CFO will be Zhong Hua, who is the current CFO of China Oilfield Service Ltd. (COSL).

Another major change is to post COSL’s CEO Yuan Guangyu to the position of executive vice president of CNOOC’s exploration and production arm CNOOC Ltd. CNOOC’s executive vice president Liu Jian will take over Yuan Guangyu’s current job, as COSL’s CEO.

The reshuffle will also see Fang Zhi, now the company’s vice president, heading its outfit in Indonesia replace Zhu Mingcai as the president of CNOOC International.

Zhu will be relocated to Huizhou to become the party secretary of CNOOC Refining and Petrochemical. Meng Liming, the former president of service unit CNOOC Energy Technology & Service Company (ETS) will become the president of CNOOC Refining and Petrochemical. In the same reorganization, Li Fanrong, president of CNOOC Shenzhen will be heading ETS.

CNOOC’s new CEO, Yang, joined the company in 1982. He is a graduate of China University where he earned a degree in petroleum engineering and he has an MBA degree from the Sloan School of Management at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His first posting with CNOOC was in the company’s research center. From 1993 to 1999, he served as CNOOC’s deputy chief geologist, the deputy director and acting director for overseas development department and vice president of CNOOC International. In 1999, Yang became a senior vice president. From 2002 to 2003, he was the president of CNOOC Southeast Asia Ltd. He was appointed company CFO in January 2005 as well as the executive vice president in December 2005.

Yang’s successor as CFO, Zhong Hua, was born in 1960. He joined CNOOC after graduation from Southwest Petroleum Institute in oil and gas exploration in 1982. He received a master degree in petroleum engineering from Britain’s Heriot-Watt University in 1988. From 1982 to 1999, he served as deputy manager of CNOOC Oilfield Optimization Co. Since 2005, Zhong has held several positions with COSL, including vice president and CFO.

COSL’s new boss, Liu Jian, was born in 1958. At CNOOC, he was responsible for E&P business. He graduated from Huazhong University of Science and Technology and also holds an MBA degree from Tianjin University.

He joined CNOOC in 1982, first as manager of CNOOC Bohai Corporation Oil Production Company, and then as deputy manager of the Tianjin Branch of Cnooc Ltd., manager of the Zhanjiang Branch of Cnooc Ltd.

The 50-year-old Yuan Guangyu graduated from China Petroleum University in 1982, in drilling engineering. He joined CNOOC in 1982 to head the drilling team of Bohai Drilling, and later was promoted to be deputy manager of China Offshore Oil Northern Drilling Company. In 1996, Yuan was transferred to CNOOC headquarters to head the operation department.