Suncor Energy has named company insider Peter Zebedee as its next chief executive and parted ways with finance chief Troy Little.

The Canadian energy company said current President and CEO Rich Kruger will transition to the role of executive vice chair in April next year. Zebedee, who now is Suncor's executive vice president of upstream operations, will be named president and CEO when Kruger makes his move.

Suncor, whose operations span oil sands mining, offshore production, petroleum refining and the Petro Canada chain of gas stations across the country, said former Chief Financial Officer Little was no longer with the company. It didn't disclose why he left but thanked him for his contributions.

Zebedee will be appointed chief financial officer on Sept. 14, with oversight of all non-operating functions, the company said.

Activist investor Elliott Management in a statement congratulated Kruger on his coming move and said it was confident Zebeddee was the right successor, bringing with him continuit and momentum.

Zebedee has more than three decades of industry experience. Before joining Suncor in 2022, he was CEO of LNG Canada, a big liquefied natural gas producer operating on the country's west coast between Shell, Petroliam Nasional Bhd, PetroChina, Mitsubishi and Korea Gas Corp. Over the years he has held positions at Shell, Petro Canada and Syncrude.

Suncor's leadership earlier this year laid out plans to lift oil production by 100,000 barrels a day to nearly 1 million by 2029. The target followed record output of 860,000 barrels a day last year for the Calgary, Alberta, company. Suncor, which said it has 400,000 barrels a day of future production capacity, said it also aims to lift its refining nameplate capacity by 10% over three years to 510,000 barrels daily.

Alongside the planned CEO succession, the company said Chief Human Resources Officer Adam Albeldawi will take on the role of executive vice president of upstream, effective Sept. 14. And Shelley Powell, currently senior vice president operations improvement and support services, will become executive vice president development and projects on the same date.