(Trinidad Newsday) Trinidad & Tobago national Arlene Chow is the interim CEO at Heritage Petroleum.
In a release today, the state oil company announced that Chow will replace Mike Wiley, who was relieved of his position two weeks ago.
Wiley, who is from the US, is abroad being treated for colon cancer.
He and most of the former board of Heritage and its parent, Trinidad Petroleum Holding Co Ltd, including chairman Wilfred Espinet, were dismissed in a surprise move by the government.
Chow was to assume responsibilities from yesterday, September 2.
According to the release, Chow began her career almost 40 years ago, in 1982, as an operations geologist at Trintoc and worked her way up the ranks, becoming a development geologist, then a technical specialist (mapping), and lastly a technical specialist (well information systems).
She joined AMOCO in 1998 as a database administrator and was soon promoted to head of exploration and production information systems. In 2001, she was appointed subsurface team lead for BP’s Teak, Samaan and Poui fields and was promoted to asset/delivery manager of the fields in 2003. In 2005, shebecame vice president of corporate operations for BPTT.
Since then she has held several leadership roles in oil and gas operations both locally and internationally, the most recent being COO at Atlantic – a position to which she had been seconded from BP in January 2013 and held until she retiredin December 2018.
She was chief of staff in the executive office of the production division at BP’s head office in London, where she supported the executive vice president in overseeing global standards, policies and processes; safety and operational risk; and performance management of the group’s production function.
She has previously held positions at BP Alaska – North Slope infrastructure manager, project manager- reorganization, and area operations manager. As bpTT’s VP of corporate operations, she had overall responsibility for health, safety security and environment (HSSE), facility management, information technology and performance management.
Chow has a BSc in geology and chemistry from the University of the West Indies and an MSc in engineering from the University of Florida. She served as a member of the Energy Chamber of TT and a member of the steering committee for BP women (BPWIN).
She currently does operational, leadership and safety coaching and is the proud grandmother of twin grandsons.
