Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc and the Committee of State Capital Management have approved the resignation of Nguyen Vu Truong Son as general director of energy firm PetroVietnam (PVN).

Nguyen Vu Truong Son has resigned from PVN's CEO.

PVN on April 16 held a meeting of executives to discuss candidates for Son’s replacements. However, the group has yet to announce its decision until the substitute is available. PVN is expected to hold a meeting to propose candidates on April 18.

At the same time, the Committee of State Capital Management also agreed to take candidates who are now executives of PVN. PVN currently has four deputy general directors namely Nguyen Quoc Thap, Le Manh Hung, Do Chi Thanh and Nguyen Xuan Hoa.

Nguyen Vu Truong Son submitted his resignation letter to PVN’s management board at the beginning of March, but not until March 12 did board hold a meeting to consider his resignation.

Son, 57, had been in the oil and gas industry since 1987 and held many key positions at PetroVietnam's (PVN) subsidiaries including deputy general director of Vietnamese-Russian joint venture Vietsovpetro.

He was appointed as general director of PetroVietnam Exploration Production Corporation (PVEP) in July 2009. From February 2012, Son served as a deputy general director at PVN until being promoted to general director in March 2016.

The police earlier this year initiated an investigation into an oil exploration project in Venezuela, which was carried out by PVEP from 2010 and was stopped in 2013 due to heavy losses. PVN reportedly paid hundreds of millions of USD to the Venezuelan government for signing bonus.

Hanoitimes