Death of Exec Leaves Void at Unocal

The sudden death of Timothy H. Ling, Unocal Corp.’s president and chief operating officer, leaves the El Segundo oil company with an unexpected hole in its senior management team.

Ling, 46, also was a member of the company’s board of directors. He died Wednesday after an ice hockey workout. The cause of death was not immediately known, and an autopsy will be performed.

“The entire Unocal family is shocked and saddened by Tim’s sudden passing,” said Unocal Chairman and Chief Executive Charles Williamson on Thursday. Ling, he said, “was a brilliant executive with boundless energy and enthusiasm.”

Wall Street analysts who follow the oil and gas exploration and production company said that while the people of Unocal would feel the loss personally, the corporation would suffer from the loss of an energetic and focused leader who helped Williamson make major changes at the company in recent years.

The company’s stock fell 27 cents to $37.34 a share in Thursday trading on the New York Stock Exchange.

“He was an integral part of the transformation that the company has made,” said Robert Morris, an oil and gas exploration analyst at Banc of America Securities, a firm that gives Unocal’s stock a “neutral” rating and has done business with the company.

Together, Williamson and Ling rejiggered Unocal’s portfolio of projects and brought credibility back to earnings and production estimates, Morris said. Williamson said Ling helped strengthen Unocal and assembled “a multitalented, highly experienced management team.”

U.S. Commerce Secretary Don Evans called Ling “a very young and dynamic leader for his company and shareholders, employees and the industry.”

With Williamson only 55 years old, Ling was not viewed as an immediate successor at the company, said Fadel Gheit, an analyst at Oppenheimer & Co. Although Williamson will take over Ling’s responsibilities on an interim basis, Gheit predicted that the company would make that arrangement permanent, following an industry trend of consolidating the top posts.

“Companies survive people, but it’s a really big loss for the company,” he said. “This will create a huge vacuum.... He was like a catalyst. He always had a tremendous flow of ideas.”

Ling was a director of the American Petroleum Institute and the Domestic Petroleum Council, and served on a Department of Energy advisory board. He also was on the management board of the Stanford University Graduate School of Business.