Ecuador has chosen a new top executive for Flota Petrolera Ecuatoriana (Flopec) in a move that returns to the long tradition of having a navy officer at the helm of the government-run tanker company.
Flopec's board of directors, which is made up of three government officials, has chosen vice admiral Johnny Enrique Estupinan Echeverria for the general manager job, which is the equivalent of chief executive or managing director.
He replaces Pilar Ferri Moncayo, the tanker owner and operator's chartering director who had been acting general manager for more than nine months.
Estupinan spent more than 30 years in Ecuador's navy, where he is currently in passive service.
His business experience includes stints at shipyard Asitinave and at Flopec, which previously had been part of the Ecuadorian navy.
He teaches master's degree-level courses at Universidad del Pacifico in Guayaquil, where he previously was director of special projects in the university's ocean and environment department.
Estupinan has a bachelor's degree in naval sciences and a master's degree in maritime military strategy.
Ferri, his predecessor at Esmeraldas-based Flopec and a veteran chartering executive at the tanker company, took the acting general manager job in December.
TradeWinds reported on 4 October that since starting, her term in the top executive role has involved an investigation into a series of deals carried out by her predecessor, Jaime de Jesus Condoy, who had quit to defend himself against what the outfit described at the time as "a complaint filed against him".
The company has also been working to return to profitability as those costly deals were followed by a slump in the tanker market.
