Stolt Tankers has appointed a former Shell executive as its chief financial officer to move forward its plans for an initial public offering.

Emile Hoekstra will join the Stolt-Nielsen chemical tanker subsidiary on 15 February in a newly created role.

He spent 14 years at oil major Shell before becoming CFO at oil and gas company Dyas.

From there, Hoekstra progressed to chemicals group Orica as their CFO for Europe, the Middle East and Africa.