Richard Owen's retirement comes as the company continues to consider offloading its 50% share of its legacy offshore Victoria assets. 

Owen worked for ExxonMobil for 37 years, embarking on his career with the company after graduating with a Bachelor of Chemical Engineering from the University of Sydney. 

His first position was shortly after his graduation when he took up an assignment at the Longford Gas Plant in Victoria. 

"My first three years at Longford was a fantastic start to my engineering career and an opportunity to establish a lot of practical process engineering skills," Owen recounted. 

"There were no personal computers and most work was done by hand. There were ample opportunities to work with pumps, compressors, separators, and distillation columns to improve capacity or recoveries."

Over the span of his career with the US oil and gas major, he travelled the world holding several senior positions in the USA, Germany, and Indonesia, before returning back to Australia. 

"My first international assignment in New Orleans was a real eye-opener… it was amazing to see that so much was the same right across the breadth of the organisation," Owen recalled. 

He is one of the only people employed by the company to visit all the offshore platforms operated by ExxonMobil in the Bass Strait. 

In 2013 Owen was appointed chairman of the Australia branch after spending 12 years abroad including a stint as lead country manager in Indonesia. 

Owen said one of the most memorable experiences for him throughout his career has been the opportunity to mentor and coach others within the company.