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Galp CEO Resigns Amid Ethics Probe at Portuguese Oil Firm
(Bloomberg) -- Galp Energia SGPS SA Chief Executive Officer Filipe Silva resigned after just two years in the role as the Portuguese oil company conducts a probe into an alleged personal relationship.
Silva, 60, leaves with immediate effect and Galp will announce new executive leadership in the coming days, it said in a regulatory filing late Tuesday. The shares slipped as much as 0.6% at the open on Wednesday.
Portuguese news website Eco reported Jan. 3 that Galp’s ethics committee was investigating an anonymous tip about an alleged personal relationship between Silva and a manager at the company. Eco said the CEO denied any relationship had threatened his decision-making. Galp said he resigned for family reasons.
The change at the top comes as Galp ramps up drilling in Namibia, where it’s described its Mopane find as a potentially “important” discovery. The company also holds stakes in blocks off Brazil and operates the Sines refinery in Portugal. In recent years, Galp has followed larger oil producers in expanding in renewables, and has about 1.5 gigawatts of generation capacity, mostly solar.
Silva’s exit “is unlikely to significantly change the company’s core strategy and focus: growing its upstream segment, with Namibia a key catalyst,” said Bloomberg Intelligence Senior Analyst Salih Yilmaz. The firm is also concentrating on “transforming and decarbonizing the downstream unit with expansion in renewable power generation, hydrogen and renewable biofuels.”
A spokesman for the Lisbon-based company said Tuesday night that the ethics committee’s investigation is ongoing, and declined to comment further on the probe. The spokesman said Silva also declined to comment.
The firm is among Europe’s smaller oil explorers, with a market value of about €11 billion ($11.4 billion). Silva had been CEO since January 2023, succeeding Andy Brown, and his term was scheduled to end in 2026. He was previously Galp’s chief financial officer, and before that was the head of Deutsche Bank AG in Portugal.
“I would like to emphasize the contribution Filipe has made to the company over the last 12 years, a period during which his dedication was important for Galp’s growth,” Chairman Paula Amorim said in the statement. “Galp’s executive committee remains in the hands of a highly qualified team.”
Amorim Energia BV, a venture controlled by Amorim’s family and part-owned by Angolan oil firm Sonangol EP, is Galp’s biggest shareholder, with a 37% stake. Portuguese state holding company Parpublica owns 8.2%.
(Updates with shares in second paragraph, analyst comment in fifth.)