Rui de Sousa is a Portuguese national, born in Lisbon in 1955 and educated in Portugal and at University in Switzerland (Geneva University, Degree in Political Science). His chosen field of expertise was the energy sector.

He worked with several of the major independent oil trading companies becoming chief oil and gas trader and working throughout Europe, North America and the Far East for the Vanol Group. This was during the period of the early to the mid 1980s.

In the late 1980s he created a trading group, Toro Energy. This Monaco headquartered organisation included among its investors banking institutions such as the Indosuez Group and energy majors, including Elf Aquitaine. Toro employed several hundred people in its offices in London, mainland Europe, New York and Singapore. The group’s core activities included crude oil and products trading, refining, chemicals and shipping with annual worldwide turnover of $2 billion.

In 1990 he established and became chief executive of Douro Petroleum, a joint venture company in partnership with Petrogal, the state oil company of Portugal. This new company’s activity was the exclusive supply of crude oil to Petrogal’s refineries in Portugal and the marketing of the refined products from such and proved to be a successful venture with annual profits reaching levels in excess of $6 million.

Mediterranean Oil Supply and Trading was a new company created by Rui de Sousa in 1997 to be the exclusive supplier of crude oil to the Italia Energia e Servizi owned refinery in northern Italy. As chairman and a significant shareholder of this company, Mr de Sousa has overseen total profits in excess of $25 million.

Quantic was a new group of companies which commenced activities in 1997 with Rui de Sousa as joint owner and director. Its activities include crude oil supply and trading, sourcing from North and West Africa and the Middle East; engineering projects; shipping; and consultancy. Quantic’s head office is in Beirut. Quantic has achieved even higher levels of profitability, exceeding $10 million annually, than those enjoyed by Mr de Sousa’s other projects described above.

In 1999 Mr de Sousa created a consortium of investors which acquired 25% of SOCO International plc, an independent oil and gas exploration and production company headquartered in London and quoted on the London stock exchange. SOCO’s main operations are in the Far East, North and West Africa, and the Middle East. He holds a seat on the board of SOCO and since the investment by Mr de Sousa’s consortium, the share price of SOCO has increased by a factor of twenty eight with market capitalisation increasing from £26 million to current level in excess of £1 billion. Rui de Sousa is the Chairman of the Board. Rui de Sousa became a shareholder of an Italian industrial group in 2000 “Italia Energia E Servizi (IES)”. IES, in addition to its ownership of a refinery noted above, also has a distribution network of companies in Italy, a chain of petrol stations and oil pipeline facilities. IES has been sold in 2007 to MOL (Hungary) for about € 500 millions.

In 2008, Gazprombank Invest was created, as a full licence Bank in Lebanon, having as shareholders Gazprombank Moscow (Gazprom Group) and the Quantic Group. Rui de Sousa was a shareholder and member of the Board of Directors until the sale of the bank on December 31st, 2011.