Pouyanne and Desmarest: New helmsmen at Total

French oil major Total has appointed refining head Patrick Pouyanne as chief executive and former CEO Thierry Desmarest as non-executive chairman.

The nominations at the head of the world’s fourth-largest integrated oil company came less than 48 hours after the death of Chairman and CEO Christophe de Margerie in a plane crash in Moscow.

Desmarest, previously honorary chairman of the oil group, will keep his new position until the end of 2015, after which the roles of CEO and chairman would again be combined, Total said in a statement following an emergency board meeting.

Pouyanne, 51, had a key role in merging Total’s loss-making “downstream” refining and petrochemical units in recent years, and also had senior roles at the group’s “upstream” exploration units in Angola and Qatar.

Pouyanne will likely face a politically sensitive situation in France, where he told unions earlier this year that Total would seek to cut capacity among its five refineries, with more details about the plan expected next spring.

The company will be hoping to avoid a repeat of its problems in 2010 when Total’s decision to close down the Dunkirk refinery prompted weeks of strikes by angry unions and disrupted French oil supplies.

A graduate of France’s elite Polytechnique and Ecole des Mines engineering colleges, Pouyanne was also a ministerial advisor under previous conservative governments.

Desmarest, 68, headed the group during the mergers of Total with Petrofina and then Elf in 1999.