Total SA appointed Patrick Pouyanne CEO, succeeding Christophe de Margerie, killed in a plane crash earlier this week.

Pouyanne, currently the company’s refining chief and long-touted as a potential successor, was named CEO at a board meeting in Paris, the company said in a statement. Thierry Desmarest returns for a second stint as chairman of the board until the end of 2015.

The new CEO will have to see through a round of cost cuts as lower oil prices and weak returns from refining eat into profit at France’s largest company by sales. De Margerie, killed Oct. 20 when his private jet struck a snowplow on a Moscow runway, had sold older fields and sought to pare investments in new projects as part of a pledge to investors last month to cut $2 billion in costs a year.

“Christophe de Margerie’s death comes at a delicate time for oil companies,” Olivier Appert, head of IFP Energies Nouvelles research institute, said by telephone. “Oil prices are volatile and the challenges are numerous in many countries like Russia. European companies like Total are also facing downstream issues due to the downturn in refining.”

The company will split the role of chairman and CEO, which de Margerie had combined, until the end of 2015, when Desmarest, 68, reaches the mandatory retirement age.

CEO before de Margerie took charge in 2007, Desmarest had remained chairman until 2010.