Nova CEO Randy Woelfel steps down

Randy Woelfel, the CEO of Calgary-based polyethylene maker Nova Chemicals Corp., has stepped down after four years at the company’s helm.

Woelfel will be replaced by Chief Financial Officer Todd Karran, who has been with Nova for almost 30 years. Karran will serve as acting CEO. “The Board of Directors will begin a search for a permanent replacement immediately that will include both internal and external candidates,” Nova said in a statement.

Woelfel also will no longer be a Nova board member, the company added.

Woelfel and the Nova board “felt that this was the time for Randy to move on to new challenges, and to make a leadership change,” Nova chairman Khadem Abdulla Al Qubaisi said in the statement.

Woelfel’s resignation comes on the heels of Nova’s most recent earnings update. The company generated profit of $245 million in the first quarter of 2014, compared to profit of $185 million for the first quarter of 2013, due primarily to what Nova called increased operating profit in the polyethylene segment. “The Olefins/Polyolefins business unit generated $377 million of operating profit in the first quarter of 2014, compared to operating profit of $336 million in the first quarter of 2013,” Nova said in its earnings update statement. “[And] the Performance Styrenics segment generated operating profit of $3 million in the first quarter of 2014 compared to break even in the first quarter of 2013.”