Energy Intelligence has announced that Amin Nasser, President and Chief Executive Officer of Saudi Aramco, has been named as Energy Intelligence’s Energy Executive of the Year for 2020. He was chosen by a selection committee made up of top global energy industry executives, and he is the 24th winner of this highly-regarded, peer-selected honor. The award will be presented to Nasser at a gala dinner on October 13, at the close of the first day of the inaugural Energy Intelligence Forum conference in London.

Nasser distinguished himself by stewarding Aramco through the unprecedented attacks on the Abqaiq processing plant and Khurais oil field last September. Through his leadership, Aramco was able to swiftly restore output with minimal disruption to customers, helping the company get through the industry-defining incident with flying colors.

“Amin Nasser’s leadership was put to the test in 2019 with a series of major challenges –launching the world’s largest IPO, acquiring one of the world’s largest petrochemical companies, SABIC, and responding to the attack on Saudi oil facilities,” said Alex Schindelar, President of Energy Intelligence. “His steady hand and focus on execution helped steer Saudi Aramco through these often choppy waters, delivering results that many predicted were impossible.”

Since taking over as president and chief executive in 2015, Nasser has guided Aramco through a period of considerable change and upheaval in Saudi Arabia itself and in global oil markets more generally. Domestically, the plans for an Aramco listing first announced in 2016 formed the cornerstone of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s Vision 2030 economic reform program, and were finally brought to fruition in December 2019 on the kingdom’s Tadawul stock exchange. The success of this enterprise was in large part down to Nasser’s management skill and diplomacy.

Globally, Aramco has delivered on Saudi Arabia’s commitment to keeping oil markets in balance as part of the Opec and non-Opec alliance. Under Nasser, Aramco has sought to strengthen its long-term economic resilience via a number of downstream deals, including the acquisition of domestic petrochemicals giant SABIC, the takeover from Royal Dutch Shell of the US Motiva joint venture, and new refining and petrochemical agreements in China and India.

Nasser joined Aramco in 1982 after gaining a bachelor’s degree in petroleum engineering from the King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals in Dhahran, and had held a number of leadership positions, including seven years as head of the company’s upstream operations, before being appointed president and CEO in September 2015.

In addition to his role at Aramco, Nasser is a member of the International Advisory Board of Saudi Arabia’s King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals and the Board of Trustees of the King Abdullah University of Science & Technology, of the World Economic Forum’s International Business Council, and of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Presidential CEO Advisory Board. He is also a long-time member of the Society of Petroleum Engineers, whose Lifetime Achievement Award he received in 2017, and a member of JP Morgan International Council.

The selection process for the Energy Executive of the Year award – formerly known before 2019 as the Petroleum Executive of the Year award – is administered by Energy Intelligence, which gathers nominations from the heads of the world’s 100 largest oil and gas companies and stakeholders, as determined by the annual Energy Intelligence TOP 100 rankings. Nominations are then voted on by a special selection committee made up of previous award winners and other senior oil executives. Previous winners of the award include Ben van Beurden of Royal Dutch Shell (2019), Bob Dudley of BP (2018), Patrick Pouyanné of Total (2017), H.E. Khalid al-Falih of Saudi Aramco (2016), Rex W. Tillerson of Exxon Mobil (2015), Emilio Lozoya Austin of Pemex (2014), Peter Voser of Royal Dutch Shell (2013) and Fu Chengyu of Sinopec (2012).

Amin Nasser
President & Chief Executive Officer

Saudi Aramco