PERSONNEL MOVES AND PROMOTIONS: Qatargas names chief executive officer

July 12, 2010
Qatar named Sheikh Khalid bin Khalifa Al-Thani as chief executive officer of Qatargas. Al-Thani succeeds Faisal Al-Suwaidi.

Qatar named Sheikh Khalid bin Khalifa Al-Thani as chief executive officer of Qatargas. Al-Thani succeeds Faisal Al-Suwaidi.

Al-Thani was previously director of Ras Laffan Industrial City, home to much of Qatar's LNG production facilities and run by state energy giant Qatar Petroleum.

Other moves

Devon Energy Corp. elected company Pres. John Richels to the additional position of chief executive officer. Devon cofounder and Chairman J. Larry Nichols, who has served as chief executive officer since 1980, will continue with Devon in the newly created position of executive chairman.

Richels has served as president of the company since 2004 and has served on Devon's executive committee since 1998. Prior to joining Devon in 1998, he served as chief financial officer of Northstar Energy Corp.

Tri-Valley Corp., Bakersfield, has appointed Michael P. Stark as vice-president of exploration. The position has been vacant since 2008.

Stark will be responsible for exploration, including land management. He has more than 35 years' experience with oil and gas producers in increasingly responsible positions.

Most recently he was vice-president of exploration and land for Ivanhoe Energy (USA) Inc., where he worked for 12 years. Before that he spent 20 years at Occidental Oil & Gas Corp.

Petromanas Energy Inc. appointed Hamid Mozayani as chief operating officer.

Mozayani has more than 38 years of oil and gas production experience relating to drilling, well completions, well servicing, production engineering, and production operations in Canada, the US, Europe, and the Far and Middle East.

In the past 25 years he has held various technical, operational, and managerial positions with ExxonMobil Corp. including responsibility for worldwide offshore and onshore drilling operations.

Jeffrey Scott, who has been acting as interim chief operating officer, has resigned this position to make way for Mozayani. Scott remains a company director.

Petromanas Energy is an international oil and gas company focused on the exploration and development in Albania. Through its wholly owned subsidiary, Petromanas holds three production-sharing contracts with the Albanian government.

BG Group appointed Chris Finlayson as executive vice-president, Europe and Central Asia. Most recently he served as executive vice-president, upstream, Shell Global Solutions. Finlayson joins BG Group effective Sept. 1.

Ashley Almanza, who has been acting in this role in addition to chief financial officer duties, will continue to have responsibility for BG Group's interests in Kazakhstan, with a view to transferring this responsibility to Finlayson later in the year.

Imperial Oil Ltd. reported that Glenn Scott, currently president of ExxonMobil Canada Ltd. and production manager for ExxonMobil Canada East, will succeed Randy Broiles as senior vice-president, resources division.

Broiles has accepted a position as vice-president, Americas, with ExxonMobil Production Co. effective July 1.

Scott started his career with Mobil Oil Corp. in 1986 as an operations-completions engineer and progressively held more responsible positions in the company. In 2006, he was appointed president of ExxonMobil Canada and production manager for ExxonMobil Canada East.

The board of Ute Energy LLC, Denver, named Joe Jaggers as president and chief executive officer.

Jaggers, with nearly 30 years in the industry, was president and chief operating officer of Bill Barrett Corp., Denver. Ute Energy is owned jointly by the Ute Indian tribe and affiliates of Quantum Energy Partners.

Meanwhile, Bill Barrett Corp. named R. Scot Woodall, executive vice-president, operations, as chief operating officer, chairman, and chief executive officer. Fred Barrett will take the added role of president.

Woodall, with 26 years of industry background, was with Forest Oil Corp. in 2000-07 before joining Bill Barrett Corp.

Ute Energy also completed a private placement that will help it pursue upstream and midstream development opportunities and acquisitions in the Uinta and other Rocky Mountain basins.

Ute Energy, founded in 2005, has net production of 2,500 boe/d, more than 400,000 acres of leased lands, and interests in three gas gathering and processing partnerships in the Uinta basin with more than 400 MMcfd of gathering capacity and 500 MMcfd of processing capacity.

The company also has operating partnerships with Anadarko Petroleum Corp., Newfield Exploration Co., Bill Barrett Corp., and Berry Petroleum Corp.

Saudi Aramco has appointed Nasir K. Al-Naimi as executive director of pipelines, distribution, and terminals operations, effective July 1.

Al-Naimi has served as made manager of the terminal department and took on several acting assignments as executive director of industrial services. He most recently served as general manager of southern area producing in Udhailiyah.

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