Tan Sri Hassan Marican, who retired as Petronas CEO last year because of friction with the Najib administration, has accepted another directorship outside Malaysia, this time at US oil and gas giant ConocoPhillips.
Since leaving Petronas at the beginning of last year, Marican has accepted several directorships with Singapore GLCs including at Sembcorp, SembCorp Marine and Singapore Power.
ConocoPhillips said today that Marican was appointed as a new outside director effective December 1, 2011.
Marican was part of the board that had appeared to have clashed with Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak back in late 2009 over the appointment of a former senior aide as a Petronas director despite the prime minister having absolute powers in board appointments.
It was reported then that the former aide — Omar Mustapha — was rejected twice and was appointed only after Najib had put his foot down.
Petronas had also decided not to sponsor the Malaysian-backed Lotus F1 Racing team, going instead with the Mercedes Formula One team.
Marican was widely credited with turning Petronas into the only other state-run major international player in the oil and gas space apart from Norway’s Statoil.
The former Petronas chief stepped down on February 2010 after 15 years with the company and was appointed a director with Singapore GLC Sembcorp Industries by June.
Marican’s flurry of overseas appointments also come at a time when Malaysia is grappling with a chronic brain drain that threatens to derail its developed country ambitions.
ConocoPhillips is a global integrated energy company. The company is headquartered in Houston with approximately 29,900 employees, US$160 billion (RM506.05 billion) of assets and US$244 billion in annualised revenues as of June 30, 2011.
