Board and management
Board of directors
Peter Kidney, Non-executive Chairman
Peter is a fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants and he has 26 years of experience in natural resources, including oil and gas. Peter was previously the Chief Executive Officer of the quoted mining company, ARCON International Resources Plc which was taken over by Lundin Mining in 2005. He was also a founding non-executive director of Providence Resources Plc, an oil and gas exploration and production company admitted to AIM. From 2004 to 2006, Peter also acted as the chairman of the Irish Mining Industries Association, IMEG.
Paul Welch, Chief Executive Officer
Paul has extensive oil and gas industry experience having worked for Shell International for twelve years, followed by a further nine years with independent companies, most recently with Hunt Oil and Pioneer Natural Resources. He held a wide variety of engineering, management and business development positions throughout Shell’s global operations across all of its core regions of exploration, development and production. At Hunt Oil, Mr Welch was the Chief Engineer and Commercial Manager for the Global New Business Development Team, evaluating exploration and production opportunities across its international asset portfolio. More recently he worked in Northern Africa with Pioneer, responsible for producing assets in Tunisia where he was instrumental in significantly increasing the production profile and overseeing new business development in Algeria, Libya, Morocco, Egypt and Iraq. Paul graduated from the Colorado School of Mines with both a Bachelor and Masters degrees in Petroleum Engineering and also holds an MBA in Finance from the Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas.
James Burgess, Commercial Director
James set up Everett Financial Management Limited in 1992 and sold it in 2003. Since then, he has been involved in numerous fund raisings and admissions to trading on AIM of a number of companies in the energy and resource sectors operating largely in the African continent. Prior to Everett Financial Management Limited, James worked with Hoare Govett which is now part of ABN Amro. He is a non-executive director of a number of companies, including Chromex Mining plc which is listed on AIM.
Heindrich Ndume, Country Director Namibia
Heindrich is a Namibian national with mining exploration experience throughout sub-Saharan Africa. Heindrich has played a unique role within the development of Namibia’s mining and energy strategies, including acting as National Energy Council Secretary and World Energy Council Representative for the Namibian Ministry of Mines and Energy. Heindrich was one of the founding shareholders of Enigma.
Adonis Pouroulis, Non-executive Director
Adonis, one of the founders of Chariot and Enigma, is a mining entrepreneur whose expertise lies in the discovery and exploration of natural resources. Adonis is also Chairman of Petra Diamonds Ltd., a pan-African diamond mining company which he founded and listed on London's AIM market in 1997. Petra is now one of the largest independent diamond producers in Africa. He has been influential in the listing of a number of other companies onto AIM and has been instrumental in structuring and raising funds to help finance early stage exploration and mining projects across Africa.
George Canjar, Non-executive Director
George has 30 years of experience in the oil industry and began his career at Shell having graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Geologic Engineering from the Colorado School of Mines. He subsequently worked for Royal Dutch/Shell Oil for 17 years, followed by Carrizo Oil & Gas as Vice President of Exploration and Development and more recently he was Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer for Davis Petroleum Corporation. His career has spanned a broad spectrum of the E & P sector involving all petroleum engineering and exploration disciplines as well as a variety of corporate activity. His expertise lies in deal structuring, portfolio development, risk analysis, and strategic modelling in addition to being the operational catalyst for bringing successful projects to first production.
Robert Sinclair, Non-executive Director
Robert is managing director of the Guernsey-based Artemis Company and a director of a number of investment fund management companies and investment funds associated with Artemis Company. Robert is chairman of Schroder Oriental Income Fund Limited, a director of ING UK Real Estate Income Trust Limited, chairman of its audit committee and a director of Chromex Mining Plc. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales and is resident in Guernsey. Robert represents the interests of Westward, a major shareholder of Chariot.
Senior management team
Matthew Taylor, Exploration Director
Matthew is a petroleum geologist who has worked in the industry for nearly thirty years. He began his career with BP Exploration in 1980 and subsequently held senior geologist posts with BHP Petroleum and Triton Energy. Further to this Matthew consulted and advised a range of clients including Chevron, Dana Petroleum and Marathon Oil on New Venture projects, both identifying targets and providing detailed prospect and basin evaluations and opportunity assessments. Subsequent to this, he played a major role in the acquisition of exploration acreage in Namibia, Oman, Senegal, Togo and Western Europe working for Hunt Oil. Since 2006, Matthew has continued to provide strategic exploration advice and geological expertise to international oil companies through his consultancy agency GEO International Limited. Matthew is a member of the AAPG and a Fellow of the Geological Society of London and holds an honours degree in Geology from the University of Durham.
Julia Kemper, Senior Staff Geophysicist
Julia has more than 25 years of experience in the oil and gas industry having worked as a geophysicist for both BP and Shell and more recently as senior geophysicist with Hunt Oil and MND Exploration & Production. She has been involved in all aspects of geophysical work throughout her career and has been a formative part of, and had key roles in, New Venture divisions. Julia specialises in the development, interpretation and evaluation of 2D and 3D seismic programmes as well as the assessment of new opportunities. She has a long track record working in Namibia and her knowledge of the country contributed to securing the offshore acreage for Hunt Oil in 2005. She holds a degree in Geology from Trinity College Dublin as well as an MSc in Exploration Seismology from Oxford University.
Martin Richards, Chief Reservoir Engineer
Martin has worked in the oil and gas industry for over 30 years and has an in-depth experience of all aspects of subsurface management, reservoir engineering and petroleum economics. He has worked as both a Chief and Senior Reservoir Engineer for a variety of companies, including Petro-Canada, Suez Oil Company, Deminex and Mobil. He has particular expertise in operational and functional reservoir management, leading multi-disciplinary reservoir studies, asset management and reserves reporting. Martin has had numerous exploration and drilling successes; notably his subsurface development of De Ruyter oilfield for Petro-Canada from drilling to start up, where he made a number of exploration discoveries, and his achievement in doubling oil production for the Suez Oil Company in the Zeit Bay field by improving reservoir management and drilling. Martin has an MA in Physics from Oxford University, an MSc in Geophysics and Planetary Physics from Newcastle University and an MEng in Petroleum Engineering from Heriot-Watt University, where he was awarded the James Brown prize.
Alex Green, Commercial Manager
Alex has over 20 years experience in business development, commercial and financial experience in the upstream oil and gas sector. Alex began his career as a Petroleum Economist for Clyde Petroleum where he was responsible for developing the company’s corporate business model and evaluating acquisition opportunities. He subsequently worked as a Risk Analyst for BG Plc and moved to Commercial Manager and then Group Economics Manager for Paladin Resources. At Paladin, Alex led successful joint venture negotiations and ran the financial and commercial analysis within the company’s business development team. He also played a key role in developing internal and external financial models and during his tenure Paladin expanded their reserves base by some 42MMboe. More recently, Alex worked for Stratic Energy as Economics and Planning Manager. Alex graduated from Keele University with a BA in Geology and Management Science.
Siegfried Baumgartner, Namibia exploration team
Siegfried holds a degree in Geology from the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich and in Computer Science from the Control Data Institute in Munich. He has approximately 30 years of international experience in the oil and computer industry. He is a member of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG, active member), the Geological Society of Namibia (life member), the Petroleum User Group (ESRI) and the Scientific Society of Namibia. Prior to joining the Group, Siegfried worked for Namcor, the state owned oil and exploration development company.
This information is being disclosed for the purposes of AIM Rule 26.
Share price
+0.09p (0.07%)
14:40 29/07/2010
Shares in issue: 144,330,245
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