At the meeting held on 16th February 2006 the Supervisory Board of UNIPETROL, a.s. unanimously appointed Mr. Francois Vleugels to become a Member of the Board of Directors as of April 1st 2006, at the same time recommending to the Board of Directors of UNIPETROL a.s. his candidature for the position of the CEO and the Director General.

Mr. Francois Vleugels was selected through a competition carried out with the participation of a professional recruitment consulting company. When making its choice, the Supervisory Board was guided by the criteria defined when the competition was announced, i.e. command of Czech language and knowledge of the international oil market, experience in managing large organizations and ability to implement effective integration of UNIPETROL Group with PKN ORLEN S.A.

Mr. F. Vleugels is 57 years old, is a graduate from the Belgian Catholic University in Leuven with a degree in analytical chemistry. He has 20 years of professional experience in the petrochemical sector, was responsible for operation of many industrial and petrochemical installations and business processes. He acquired his professional experience in such leading chemical corporations as: Imperial Chemical Industries, Eastman Chemical Company - a part of Grupy Eastman-Kodak Group and HEXION Speciality Chemicals. In Eastman Chemical Company he occupied the position of the CEO for the Region of Europe, the Middle East and Africa. He was recently the deputy CEO for logistics in HEXION Speciality Chemicals. He has lived in the Czech Republic since 2003.

At the same time the Supervisory Board expressed its appreciation and gratitude to Mr. Marek Mroczkowski for fulfilling the duties of the CEO since September 2005. Mr. Marek Mroczkowski will remain in his current position of a deputy CEO, the Director for Finance.