Randy Woelfel has joined Nova Chemicals Corp. and will become its CEO, the company said Oct. 19.
Woelfel will replace Chris Pappas, who announced in September that he will retire as president and CEO on Dec. 31 — less than a year after assuming the top post at the Pittsburgh plastics and chemicals firm.
Most recently, Woelfel was president and chief operating officer of Hawthorne, Calif.-based bioresin maker Cereplast Inc.
Before that, he was president of the North American business unit of Dutch polypropylene giant Basell Holdings BV, which in 2007 was absorbed into Rotterdam, Netherlands-based LyondellBasell Industries AF SCA.
Woelfel began his career in 1977 with Shell Oil Co. of Houston and was a key member of the team that in 1995 helped create Montell Polyolefins BV, which now is part of LyondellBasell.
“We are pleased to bring someone to Nova with the extensive industry experience of Randy Woelfel,” Mohamed Al Mehairi, chairman of Nova and director of investments for International Petroleum Investment Co., said in the news release.
“Along with Borealis and Borouge, Nova Chemicals is an important part of IPIC's plans to build a new global polyolefins leader,” Al Mehairi said.
IPIC, a state-owned petrochemicals firm in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, bought Nova for $500 million in April. IPIC also owns 64 percent of Borealis AG, the Vienna-based European polyolefins maker that has capacity in the Middle East through its Borouge joint venture with the Abu Dhabi National Oil Co.
Woelfel earned a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering from Rice University in Houston and a master's in management from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge.
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