Kian Granmayeh, CFO of Tellurian, has resigned, effective March 10, 2023. Khaled Sharafeldin, the company’s Chief Accounting Officer, will serve as interim CFO.

[Update – One hour after the Tellurian announcement, another Houston company, Carriage Services, announced that it had hired Mr. Granmayeh as its CFO].

Mr. Granmayeh has been the CFO for 3 years. He began at Tellurian as a consultant to the CFO in January 2019 and was appointed as Director of Special Projects in July 2019 and Director of Investor Relations as month later. Prior to joining Tellurian, he worked at Apache.

Mr. Granmayeh will receive severance payments of $525,000, equivalent of one year’s salary. This will be paid over 12 months. He will forfeit all outstanding equity awards and long-term cash-based awards, except for 174,942 restricted stock units issued in January 2022. At that time they were valued at $3.38 each (or $591,304). The current share price is $1.49.

No details were given on what bonus, if any, Mr. Granmayeh received this year for 2022 performance. That will be disclosed in the annual proxy, to be filed next month.

Mr. Sharafeldin has served as the Chief Accounting Officer since January 2017. Prior to that, he worked at Cheniere as its Director of Internal Audit (correction – he was VP of Internal Audit)

Mr Souki’s margin calls

Since I wrote about the non-exec drama last month, the company has disclosed that CEO, Charif Souki, has had to sell more than 15.5 million shares (60% of his holding in Tellurian) to cover a 2017 real estate loan.  This isn’t the first time Mr. Souki has had to sell shares to cover a margin call. In fact, shortly before Mr. Granmayeh’s initial appointment in 2020, he had to sell 18 million shares. Presumably, the loan is related to a ranch in Aspen that Mr. Souki owns. It covers 800 acres and 8 houses. It was originally put up for sale for $220 million in May 2020.

Currently, Tellurian is trying to build an LNG export plant in Driftwood, Louisiana. In September 2022, Shell canceled an agreement to buy 3 million metric tons a year. At the same time, Tellurian canceled a similar-sized deal with Vitol.

Gunvor Contract

That leaves just one deal with Gunvor Singapore. That original deal included clauses that Tellurian had to have issued an unconditional notice to proceed to Bechtel, the EPC contractor for the facility by December 31, 2022 and that Tellurian had to have secured the necessary financing by the same date. That date has been extended twice, in one month increments to February 28, 2023. Gunvor and Tellurian can jointly agree on a new date. If there is no agreement, either party can terminate the deal. There has been no word on the current status.

SEC filing – Tellurian CFO

Dane Neumann has been promoted to CFO at Sugar Land-based CVR Energy. He was the VP of Finance and Treasury until he was appointed interim CFO in August following the departure of Tracy Jackson.

CVR operates two refineries in Kansas and Oklahoma as well as related pipelines and infrastructure. The company has a market capitalization of $1.9 billion, up $600 million since  Ms. Jackson resigned. That’s because, in September, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed big cuts to US biofuel blending requirements. This benefits oil refiners at the expense of farmers. Analysts speculate that CVR will re-instate regular dividends once the change is finalized.

Mr. Neumann joined CVR in June 2018 and also worked for Andeavor and its affiliates from March 2011 until June 2018. He will receive a base salary of $400,000.

The predecessor to Ms. Jackson was Susan Ball. She resigned last week from her position as the CFO of Team Inc.

SEC filing – CVR Energy – new CFO

Tracy Jackson has resigned as CFO of Sugar Land-based CVR Energy, with immediate effect. She is replaced, on an interim basis, by Dane Neumann, VP – Finance and Treasurer.

No reason was given for Ms. Jackson’s departure and no severance details were disclosed. [UPDATE 08-25-21 – The company filed an update. Ms. Jackson will get $789,000 through August 2024.]. However, there is clearly some turmoil at the company, as Matthew Bley also resigned last month as the Chief Accounting Officer. Ms. Jackson joined CVR in 2018 from San Antonio-based Andeavor. Mr Bley joined the same day and had worked with Ms. Jackson at Andeavor.

CVR operates two refineries in Kansas and Oklahoma as well as related pipelines and infrastructure. Activist investor, Carl Icahn, owns 72% of CVR, which has a market capitalization of $1.3 billion.

Until recently CVR also owned a 15% stake in Delek, a convenience store fuel retailer. Mr. Icahn lost a recent proxy battle with Delek when his three proposed board nominees failed to get elected. As a result, in June, CVR issued a special dividend of $492 million comprising $241 million in cash and the remainder in shares of Delek.

Mr. Neumann joined CVR in June 2018 and also worked for Andeavor and its affiliates from March 2011 until June 2018.

Jeffrey Conaway has been appointed Chief Accounting Officer, replacing Mr. Bley. He joined the company in August 2020, having previously been with Patterson-UTI Energy

SEC filing – CVR refining – CFO steps down

Huntsman Corporation, based in The Woodlands, has appointed Phil Lister as its new CFO. He replaces Sean Douglas, who resigned in April to take a senior leadership position with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Mr. Lister is currently the VP of Corporate Development, a role he has been in since May 2019. He has spent his entire career with the company or its predecessors. He started out his career with ICI in the UK, shortly before it was acquired by Huntsman in 1999.

No compensation was disclosed for Mr. Lister, other than he will receive an initial equity award of $610,000 that will vest over three years. By comparison, Mr. Douglas had a base salary of $650,000.

SEC filing – Huntsman appoints new CFO