Petron welcomes new president

Publicly-listed Petron Corp. formally welcomed its new president, Khalid D. Al-Faddagh, in a dinner reception. He replaced Motassim A. Al-Ma’ashouq last August. Al-Faddagh has been a Petron director since July 2001.

With more than 20 years of experience in the oil industry, Al-Faddagh has held several profession and managerial positions in Saudi Aramco. This included assignments with central engineering, and in refining and oil production facilities. He was also assigned to the United States to work with two major equipment suppliers in their design and engineering facilities.

Until his promotion to president, Al-Faddagh was manager of Facilities Planning Department tasked to evaluate the economics of the company’s capital plans.

Al-Faddagh said Petron’s new management team will pursue initiatives designed to add value to the company’s bottom line.

"In a competitive market, it is imperative that we continue to emphasize Petron’s brand image of partnership, quality and innovative service. For us to sustain our market leadership, we will have to continuously look for enabling technologies in the area of IT and process automation to support our business," Al-Faddagh said.

The company upgraded its system to the latest SAP software version last year to support initiatives in supply chain management, e-commerce, and customer relationship management. Petron will also invest $100 million to put up additional units at its Bataan refinery to produce CAA-compliant fuels.

Al-Faddagh cited Petron employees for their active participation in the company’s corporate social responsibility efforts in education, community health, environment, and social services.

"Our people show in their volunteer work the same kind of passion and commitment that they bring to their work environment. I am personally committed to work with our people, the business and community volunteers to make these programs more effective," he pointed out.

Al-Faddagh holds a bachelor of science degree in Mechanical Engineering and has obtained a master’s degree from the University of Manchester and a doctorate in Engineering from the Imperial College, London University.