State-owned energy giant China Petroleum and Chemical Corporation, better known as Sinopec, has appointed Hou Qijun, general manager of peer China National Petroleum Corporation, as its new chairman, succeeding Ma Yongsheng.

Sinopec did not disclose why Ma, 63, stepped down from the post in the recent management reshuffle announcement. However, he is likely retiring due to exceeding China's mandatory retirement age of 63 for chairmen of central state-owned enterprises.

Hou has spent most of his career holding senior management roles at CNPC and its subsidiary's oilfields, mainly working at the firm's headquarters in Beijing after 2011. He became vice GM of CNPC in 2017 but left the company to step in as GM of the newly established National Pipeline Network Group before returning as GM of CNPC in 2021.

Ma started his career at CNPC before joining Sinopec in 1998, emerging as one of its key early managers in upstream operations. The International Asteroid Center named an asteroid "Ma Yongsheng Star" in honor of his contributions to oil and gas exploration theory and practice in 2017.

China National Offshore Oil Corporation, another petroleum giant, also reshuffled its top management earlier this month, naming Zhang Chuanjiang, ex-GM of power giant China Datang, as its new chairman.