London, England, United Kingdom
Petroleum Geologist with 37 years in the exploration and development business. I started my career with Billiton International in 1979 working in Mining exploration and Appraisal in South Africa and Portugal. Moved to Shell in 1984 and held a variety of technical and management roles in exploration & development operations and new business development.
Available for consultancy work on exploration and development business opportunity evaluation and valuation, particularly Farm-ins, Farm-outs, divestments, bid rounds and negotiated acreage access.
Senior Project and Deal Lead in Exploration Mergers, Acquisitions & Divestments Team with global remit. A very rewarding role as it utilised my 25 years of technical experience from global geology to field development, together with the last 12 years of more commercial and business development management roles. Additionally the role was externally focused and forward looking, so I was immersed in the subsurface opportunity set being pursued by numerous small, highly competent and well funded companies. Areas of activity mostly in Africa onshore and offshore, Europe and Central America.
Regional Exploration Manager for New Business Development, divestments and also a couple of non-operated exploration ventures. Going into this role I had a pretty complete knowledge of the exploration and development opportunity set across the region, including crucially where not to go!. The key challenge for a large multi-national in MENA is quality opportunity access on acceptable terms. I found understanding the external stakeholders drivers and constraints a key success factor. This brings into play the need to be patient, persistent and understand the cultural and economic landscape of the host country and government, something I really enjoyed. Areas of activity included Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Turkey, Iraq, Qatar, Pakistan, Kuwait, Oman.
Description: Technical Team Leader for MENA New Business Development opportunity evaluation team. The team was charged with regional play mapping and opportunity description and proposing acreage acquisition opportunities in the MENA region, through bid rounds and direct negotiations. A lot of focus on the major resource holders of Iran and Iraq at the time. Areas of activity included: Egypt, Iraq, Kuwait, Syria, Jordan, Qatar, UAE, Saudi Arabia.
Held a variety of operational technical roles, dominantly in the Gulf of Mexico, initially on the shelf but mostly Deepwater. I began working on the shelf in lease rounds, then matured and drilled three shelf prospects and ended-up leading the development of one of the discoveries; quite refreshing after 2 years in Romania trying to get a single deal over the line. After the shelf assets were sold in 1998, I moved over to Deepwater, mostly in non-operated field development ending-up as Venture Lead for the Chevron operated Tahiti field. An exciting time in Shell Oil with 14 active deepwater field developments and several new trends being explored by industry including Perdido, where Shell was the leader and deep Miocene, where BP had the edge. I loved my time in the GOM and learnt so much. Being at the cutting edge of the rapidly developing deepwater technology and the intense competition really push you as a professional. I also spent a year in panning and executive support during the initial steps into unconventionals, mostly tight gas.
Shell took a large exploration license in the pre-salt of northern Transylvania in 1992 and my job was to grow that gas focused upstream business outside of the operated license. I really got to know and understand the subsurface of the entire country and could target a few areas with remaining potential in a very heavily explored country. The main challenge in the post-1989 revolution period was gaining access to data and opportunities from the state companies, Prospectiuni, Romgaz and Petrom and progress was ultimately too slow.