Talal Al-Awfi

Talal Al Awfi joined OQ as the Group Chief Executive – Commercial in February 2019 overseeing all commercial activities of the Group, which currently markets and trades ~35 mtpa of more than 100 different types of oil and gas products through 11 sales offices and 6 trading offices globally, before being appointed as Group CEO in January 2021.

Talal has over 20 years’ experience in oil, gas, and petrochemical marketing and trading. During his career he has held several key positions in the public and private sectors, notably the setting-up of Oman Trading International (OTI), which started as a JV company between Oman Oil Company then and Vitol (the largest Independent Oil Trading Company in the world) with an initial modest investment of $2M and a team of 5 in 2006. Since then, OTI has witnessed tremendous growth, as highlighted by $414M in dividends to its shareholders and a cumulative net profit of $883M since 2006. Oman bought back all OTI shares in 2015 and OQ Group currently owns 100% of the company. The company is currently active, through global offices in all major markets, and trades both Oman sourced products in addition to buying third party energy related products around the world.

Prior to joining OTI, Talal spent just over a year at Oman Oil Company (OOC) as a project manager to assist in the creation of the trading vehicle with the aim of maximizing the value of all commodities that were produced or planned to be produced by OOC projects (existing and new). Before his stint with OOC, Talal was part of the Joint 3rd train (Qalhat LNG) commercial team negotiating with the Spanish Union Fenosa and other investors and offtakers, in addition to the joint team that help set-up Oman Shipping Company.

Talal started his career as an oil price analyst with the Ministry of Oil and Gas and spent the first two years in various secondments at International Oil companies, including Shell, Total, Koch in Europe and Idimitsu and Itochu in Japan, before being appointed the Marketing Director responsible for marketing the government’s share of oil production.

Talal has extensive experience in the oil and gas value chain that covers oil trading, marketing, shipping and logistics, retail/distribution, all aspects of financing (e.g., project finance, credit facilities), infrastructure projects, LNG and a thorough understanding of both downstream and commercial aspects of Upstream. Talal has been an active Board member of several strategic companies in Oman and abroad.
Talal has his master’s degree (MSc) in Marketing from Manchester, UK. He completed his BSc (Hons) in Business and Finance in Manchester UK.
Talal has attended Multiple courses from leading institutions including: Invincible Trading Course (Cambridge), Economics of refining at BP, and Corporate Culture & Leadership Courses at IMD.