Cosco Shipping Energy Transportation has appointed the human resources head of its parent group as chairman, its first chair without a deep maritime background.
In a statement, the Chinese tanker giant said Ren Yongqiang’s appointment became effective on Thursday as Liu Hanbo retired at the age of 61.
Ren has been leading the human resources department of China Cosco Shipping — China’s largest state-owned shipping group — since February 2016.
The 48-year-old has also become the secretary of the Chinese Communist Party Committee, an executive director, the chairman of the strategy committee, and a member of the risk control committee for Cosco Energy.
Ren, who holds a doctoral degree in political economics, had previously worked for the local authorities of Tibet and China’s State Council.
Cosco Energy was created in 2016 as part of the merger between Cosco Group and China Shipping to create China Cosco Shipping.
Past chairmans such as Liu, Sun Jiakang and Huang Xiaowen all had decades of experience working within Cosco Group.
Cosco Energy, whose shares trade in Shanghai and Hong Kong, has expected to report a net profit for the first six months of 2021 of between CNY 503m ($77m) and CNY 603m.
This would be much weaker when compared with the CNY 2.95bn profit Cosco Energy achieved between January and June 2020.
In July, the company said it suffered from weak tanker earnings amid a slow recovery in global oil demand, the ongoing Opec+ output cut, severe tonnage oversupply and higher fuel costs.
Cosco Energy added that despite the adoption of measures, such as slow steaming, the poor market sentiment still led to a year-on-year decline in the revenue for the group’s tanker segment.
But the company has hoped its bottom line would be cushioned by time-charter coverage and stable LNG shipping business.
Cosco Energy saw its net profit rise to CNY 2.37bn last year from CNY 432m in 2019, mainly due to strong charter rates in the first half. Yearly revenue increased to CNY 16.4bn from CNY 13.9bn.
The company, which has more than 160 gas, crude and product tankers, is due to publish its interim results by the end of August.
