The chief executive officer of US polyolefin giant LyondellBasell (LYB, Houston, Texas; www.lyondellbasell.com) has announced his intent to retire from the company on 31 December 2021, which is when he will also resign from the company’s board of directors. Bhavesh V. “Bob” Patel joined LYB in March 2010 and was appointed CEO in January 2015. The company said its board has established a sub-committee to search for his replacement.

Yan Zhang, chair professor of strategic management at Rice University’s Jones Graduate School of Business in Houston, Texas, told the Houston Chronicle newspaper that she believes Patel’s departure is tied to a deadly 27 July accident at a company plant in La Porte, Texas (see Plasteurope.com of 09.08.2021). The company has not commented on his resignation beyond a news release.

Patel has an MBA from Fox School of Business, Temple University in Philadelphia, and he worked with petrochemical firm Chevron Phillips Chemical (The Woodlands, Texas; www.cpchem.com) for over two decades. He also holds a degree in chemical engineering from Ohio State University.

In his time as CEO, LYB witnessed some noteworthy milestones, such as the acquisition of US-based A. Schulman (Akron, Ohio) in 2018 (see Plasteurope.com of 23.08.2018) the takeover of Belgian plastics recycler Tivaco (Blandain; www.tivaco.be) with Suez last year (see Plasteurope.com of 16.12.2020), and the establishment of joint ventures in the US and Asia.