Former Canadian PM named PetroKazakhstan adviser
Date: 05-Feb-04
Country: CANADA
Author: Jeffrey Jones
PetroKazakhstan, a Canadian-based company that produces and refines oil in the former Soviet republic of Kazakhstan, said Chretien, 70, will not act as a liaison between the firm and Canada's government, however.
"He will be interfacing with our government relations people and working with international governments whom we obviously work with," PetroKazakhstan spokesman Jeffrey Auld said.
Chief among them is the government of Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, Auld said.
Chretien is not joining PetroKazakhstan's board of directors and will work with the company "as and when needed," he said.
Chretien retired from politics late last year after 10 years in power, handing the reins to his onetime Liberal Party finance minister Paul Martin.
This month, he joined the Ottawa office of law firm Heenan Blaikie as counsel and has also taken on an advisory role at Calgary-based Bennett Jones, a law firm known as a specialist in energy issues.
The latter move surprised many political observers, given a long history of strained relations between the ruling Liberals and Western Canada's oil patch.
Under Chretien, Canada ratified the Kyoto accord on climate change to the consternation of many in the energy industry, who feared crippling costs for cutting greenhouse gas emissions.
PetroKazakhstan chief executive Bernard Isautier, the French-born oil man who became a Canadian energy-industry veteran, and Chretien have known each other for several years and have often exchanged views on energy and politics, company officials said.
Shares in the company, which said last week it planned to spend $174 million on its Kazakh oil operations in 2004, jumped C$1.24, or 4 percent, to C$31.37 on the Toronto Stock Exchange.
PetroKazakhstan also named Jan Bonde Nielsen and Jean-Paul Bisnaire to its board of directors.
Bonde Nielsen, 65, is a Danish businessman and chairman of Greenoak Holdings, which has interests in such businesses as the Batumi Oil Terminal in Georgia, Ajarian Electricity Co., and Caspian Maritime Ltd., a builder of oil tankers for the Caspian Sea.
Bisnaire, 52, is senior corporate law partner at Toronto law firm Davies Ward Phillips and Vineberg LLP.
