Total oil company has named Patrick Pouyanne, head of refining, as its General Manager, and Thierry Desmarest, ex – General Manager, as Chairman of the Board, informs BBC.

The decision from the Leadership Committee comes after Christophe de Margerie, the President and General Manager, has died on Monday in a plane crash on Vnukovo Russian airport, in Moskow. The roles of chief executive and chairman will be split temporarily, Total said.

Patrick Pouyanne, aged 51, is a graduate engineer, spent many years in the French Industry Ministry before joining Total in 1997, writes Agerpres. Thierry Desmarest, aged 68, was chief executive between 1995 and 2007, and was appointed honorary president of Total’s board of directors in 2010. The French company said that Mr. Desmarest would retire at the end of 2015, after which the roles of chief executive and chairman would be re-combined.

Mr. de Margerie, who replaced Mr. Desmarest in 2007, was one of the most recognizable and outspoken executives in the oil industry. He was a critic of European sanctions against Russia, arguing that such actions would simply push Russia closer to China.

The plane crash that has killed French oil giant Total director, Christophe de Margerie, on Vnukovo airport in Moscow, was caused by a ‘criminal negligence’ on the part of airport management, announced on Tuesday the russian committee established for this case.