Our Team

The team has significant strength and breadth of experience from subsurface through engineering, commercial, HSEQ and capital markets, covering all required skillsets needed to successfully and safely execute oil and gas upstream projects.

Board

Chris is a geophysicist with over 28 years’ experience in the oil and gas industry having worked for major E&P companies, junior and small cap companies and service companies and was the Chief Executive Officer of Hartshead Resources Limited. Over the last 17 years Chris has held a variety of executive and senior management positions, has managed oil and gas operations in Europe and Africa and has been instrumental in the start-up and rejuvenation of multiple small companies.

Chris has been involved in multiple, small oil and gas ventures including successful exits from:

• Zeta Petroleum: Built a portfolio of assets in Romanian and sold to GMI Limited (CEO: 2005-2009);
• Centric Energy: Awarded license in the Kenya Tertiary Rift Basin, farmed out to Tullow Oil and then sold to Africa Oil (VP Exploration: 2010);
• VP Exploration: Lion Petroleum: The company had two blocks onshore Kenya and was successfully reversed into TSX listed Taipan Resources (VP Exploration: 2011);
• Black Star Petroleum: Awarded exploration licenses offshore Guinea Bissau and Namibia and sold company to Impact Oil and Gas (Co-Founder: 2013-2014).

Chris’s technical strengths are in exploration and development subsurface management and delivering effective and valuable sub-surface projects. Commercially Chris has been involved in license applications, negotiations with government bodies, new ventures transactions and capital raising for a variety of organisations.

Bevan has an extensive background in the corporate and financial services industries having worked in various accounting and corporate broking firms for the past 15 years.

Bevan has significant experience in the recapitalisation, restructuring and acquisition of assets for numerous ASX companies and was a Client Advisor at Patersons Securities and Partner of a venture capital firm.

Bevan is well experienced in executive and non-executive board roles with over 20 years of experience.

Nathan has broad experience working in Asset Management, Mining and the Energy Industry, and is well experienced in project identification and project development across multiple ASX listed companies.

Nathan is the founding Director of corporate advisory firm Advantage Management which specialises in business growth and project development of ASX listed companies or private companies aspiring to become listed.  Previously Nathan worked for ATCO Gas Australia and has previously held Executive and Managing Director positions for various ASX listed companies. Nathan is currently the Chairman for ASX listed, GTI Resources.

Since 2007 Nathan been involved in Asset and Fund Management and formerly operated a publicly unlisted business development fund. Nathan’s business network spreads across Australia and Asia and has strong ties with Australian broking firms, institutions and also Asian Investors.

Nathan has completed a Masters of Asset Management at Bond University, a Post Graduate Diploma in Asset Management and has a Bachelor of Business degree.

Senior Management Team

With more than 30 years’ experience in the oil and gas industry, Keith has developed extensive engineering and executive leadership experience locally and internationally. His background includes both offshore and onshore reservoir & production engineering, asset and operations management and Executive Director roles.

He has significant international experience including UK, Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, Italy, Algeria, Canada and the US. Keith has worked mainly with operating companies including Hess, Burlington Resources, E.ON Exploration and Production and most recently with Cabot Energy, where he was Chief Executive Officer.

As General Manager Operations for E.ON in Norway, Keith lead the successful start-up of operated exploration drilling, including the development and implementation of a new regional Well Management System. Prior to this at E.ON, he managed SNS development and producing assets including Babbage, Rita, Hunter and Johnston.

He also holds the positions of Chief Operating Officer at energy consultancy TelosNRG and Non-Executive Director at Baron Oil Plc.

Andrew has over 19 years’ experience within the oil & gas sector and, prior to that, worked for 5 years within the technology and telecoms sector. He has held the positions of Chief Financial Officer and Company Secretary at AIM listed Tower Resources plc, Sterling Energy plc and Matra Petroleum plc. He was the Group Head of Finance at Wentworth Resources plc, Xcite Energy plc and Infocell Telecom Limited.

He has extensive experience of operating and commercialising both onshore and offshore oil and gas production assets within the UK Continental Shelf, Sub-Saharan Africa as well as Russia and the Former Soviet Union.

He holds a BA (Honours) degree in Accounting and Business from Staffordshire University, is a Fellow Chartered Accountant of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales and is also an accredited ICAEW Business Finance Professional.

Don has 37 years’ experience and trained as a Petroleum Engineer with Conoco in the UK and internationally and was a founder shareholder of UK SNS focussed Highland Energy and Caledonia Oil & Gas, both having highly successful growth and exit histories.

From 2007 to 2011 he was a Director at First Reserve Corporation – serving as Board advisor for two North American E&P companies.

COO of Hansa Hydrocarbons, an E&P company focused on the UK and Dutch sectors of the SNS which exited to Discover Exploration in 2018.

Neil is a professional engineer with 40 years’ experience in the upstream oil and gas business, his early career was working on North Sea Projects in the UK and Norway with Conoco.

Neil Subsequently worked on assignments with Premier, BHP, Repsol YPF and Cairn on development projects in Pakistan, Algeria, Argentina and India.

From 2009 to 2017 focused on the UK Southern Gas Basin, where he led the development of the Clipper South tight gas field for RWE and Ineos.

Management Team

Simon is an internationally experienced geoscientist with a broad set of technical skills garnered over a 20-year career. He has held varied and progressive roles in subsurface studies and portfolio optimisation in the UK North Sea, Australian northwest shelf, Papua New Guinea and The Netherlands.

He spent the majority of his career with Shell as a Senior Production Geologist and Opportunity Manager working on a number of appraisal and development campaigns together with infill drilling and well optimisation planning for Dutch onshore, Permian Rotliegend gas assets. In addition to Shell he has held Senior Geologist roles at Oil Search, Nexen and a number of respected energy sector service companies giving him valuable commercial, risk management and leadership experience whilst maintaining a highly technical skill-set.

He is expert in appraisal, development and late-stage hydrocarbon projects whilst maintaining a commercial mindset. He has a history of leading geological studies and integrating across diverse teams to successfully identify and deliver large scale full lifecycle commercially attractive hydrocarbon opportunities.

Steve is a highly qualified and experienced wells Oil and Gas professional with over 34 years of experience in Exploration, Field Development, Completion, Intervention, P&A and Decommissioning Well operations.  He has managed Deepwater, all MoDU types, Land and Platform operations with specific experience in UK West of Shetland, mature platforms in NNS/CNS and SNS field developments.

In addition to his wells background, he also has experience in Merger & Acquisitions, Asset management, Global Wells Technical Assurance activities and as a Wells Technical Authority.

He has a BSc in Exploration & Mining Geology, an MSc Drilling Engineering and is a Chartered Engineer with the IMMM. 

Jeff is a seasoned industry player with over 40 years’ upstream oil & gas experience. He managed 14 UK Southern Gas Basin developments and infrastructure projects within his 31-year tenure at ConocoPhillips (UK) Limited.

He is industry recognised within the UK Southern North Sea with a track record of delivering successful UK capital projects.

Previously he was director of New Ventures at ODE (Offshore Design Engineering) Limited and a member of ODE’s Executive Management Board. He has operated at Director and Project Management levels across UK and international business.

Dave is an Oil and Gas Industry professional with over 35 years of experience in all aspects of exploration and production operations. He has held senior management positions with both Oil and Gas Operating Companies and in major contracting organisations in the Oilfield Services sector in most operating regions.

His last assignment prior to joining Hartshead Resources was as SCM Development Director for a highly successful Project Management company pre-eminent in providing development solutions for oil & gas operating companies.

He brings to the company, a focused and solution-centric approach to our needs backed by a wealth of experience accumulated over his previous management roles in SCM, operations, exploration, drilling support, field development activities, host government relationship management and business process audit, design and development.

Steve is a proven manager and seasoned negotiator with over 30 years’ experience and extensive track record in delivery of major projects in the upstream oil & gas sector. He has extensive experience of UK Southern Gas Basin and wider UKCS during commercial management roles within British Gas, Amerada Hess and Phillips Petroleum.

Since 2003 Steve has acted for energy majors, utilities and AIM-listed companies in the role of Commercial Advisor, often working at CEO or Operations Director level.

He was a Board Director of Interconnector UK Limited.

Mat has over 20 years experience as a quality, health, safety, environment and risk management professional, including 14 years in the energy industry working with multiple companies both onshore and offshore across the UKCS and internationally. He has provided expert QHSE advice and support across the full Oil and Gas project lifecycle to support operators and their supply chains to help identify and manage their key business risks including HSE, compliance obligations and associated mitigations.

He has worked with many drilling and operations project teams undertaking audit and assurance activities, contractor selection, auditing and management, monitoring, measuring and reporting of HSE information and improving HSE leadership culture as well as playing a key role in managing HSE incident rates on all projects.

Specific expertise and experience includes QHSE management systems & Enterprise Risk Management (ERM), HSE due diligence audits for a variety of clients for M&A projects in the UK and across the world, undertaking audits to the requirements of the Equator Principles and the IFC Performance Standards, safety and environmental compliance assurance and auditing, Environmental Impact Assessments (EIA), applications for consent(s) and permit(s) to ensure legal compliance, Environmental Social and Governance (ESG) activities, risk assessment, greenhouse gas reporting and designing and implementing Operations Management Systems (OMS).

As QHSE Manager, Mat’s focus is on assuring that the project team are aware of their various compliance obligations, ESG requirements and general QHSE requirements in terms of managing the development and exploration of fields in Licence P2607.