BP's chief economist leaves for Abu Dhabi Investment Authority

Δημοσιεύθηκε: 20 Μαΐου 2014 - 09:08

Christoph Ruhl, BP's highly respected chief economist, is leaving the company to become the first global head of research at Abu Dhabi Investment Authority.

Mr Ruhl, 55, is credited with enhancing the public profile of BP's economic research and bringing it to a much wider audience. His job was to provide senior management with insights on economic and energy market trends that helped to mould the company's strategy. But his many public appearances have made him one of the most recognisable faces in the world of energy economics.

For the past five years he has overseen BP's long-term energy outlook, which was initially designed for internal use only, but since 2011 has been presented to the wider public and has helped to shape the debate about future energy trends.

In BP's 2012 outlook, Mr Ruhl predicted that the boom in shale gas and unconventional oil would make North America almost totally self-sufficient in energy in two decades - a prediction that is now industry consensus.

He also presents BP's annual Statistical Review, which has long been seen as Big Oil's bible.

During his nine years at BP, Mr Ruhl worked under three chief executives - Lord John Browne, Tony Hayward and Bob Dudley. It was a time of turbulence at the company, as BP battled with its Russian partners in TNK-BP and was rocked by the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster.

In a statement, Mr Dudley said Mr Ruhl's "broad engagement with governments, industry and academia have increased the world's understanding of the potential impact of future energy developments". He said he had built and led a "first-class global team whose reports are benchmarks for economic analysis in our industry".

ADIA said in a statement that Mr Ruhl would create and run a new global research function to provide senior executives with fundamental and macroeconomic research and strengthen the investment authority's relationship with leading global research entities and institutions. He will be based in Abu Dhabi.

Before joining BP, Mr Ruhl was the World Bank's chief economist in Russia and Brazil, and before that was principal economist at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

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