Energy Players

Tulsa-based Helmerich & Payne Inc. said June 12 that Thomas A. Petrie has been appointed to the company's board of directors effective June 6. He is chairman of Strategic Energy Advisors, a Denver-based investment banking firm that offers financial advisory services to the oil and gas industry. Petrie served as a vice chairman of Bank of America until April of 2012. He was also a vice chairman of Merrill Lynch until its acquisition by Bank of America in 2009. Petrie was a co-founder of Petrie Parkman & Co., a Denver- and Houston-based energy investment banking firm that merged with Merrill Lynch in 2006. He is also a former managing director and senior oil analyst of First Boston Corp. Helmerich & Payne is primarily a contract drilling company. As of June 12, the company's existing fleet included 273 land rigs in the US, 29 international land rigs, and 9 offshore platform rigs.

Murphy Oil makes management changes

Murphy Oil Corp. has appointed Steve Cossé as president and CEO. David Wood, the company's current president, CEO and member of the board of directors, will retire after a 17-year career at the company and resign from his director position. The board has named Roger Jenkins, the company's executive vice president of Exploration & Production, to the newly-created position of COO. Cossé, a current member of Murphy's board of directors, previously served as executive vice president and general counsel of the company. Prior to joining Murphy in 1991, Cossé served as general counsel for Ocean Drilling & Exploration Co. in New Orleans, a majority owned subsidiary of Murphy at that time. Jenkins joined Murphy in 2001 and was named executive vice president of Exploration & Production in 2009. He holds a bachelor's degree from Louisiana State University, an MBA from Tulane University and completed the Advanced Management Program from Harvard Business School.

Sieminski begins as new EIA Administrator

Adam Sieminski began service June 4 as the administrator of the US Energy Information Administration (EIA). As EIA's eighth administrator, Sieminski is responsible for directing the nation's primary energy statistical and analytical agency. From 2005 until March 2012, Sieminski was chief energy economist for Deutsche Bank, working with the institution's global commodities research and trading units. From March 2012 to May 2012, while awaiting confirmation as EIA administrator, Sieminski served as a senior director on the staff of the National Security Council. From 1998 to 2005, he served as the director and energy strategist for Deutsche Bank's global oil and gas equity team. Prior to that, from 1988-1997, he was the senior energy analyst for NatWest Securities in the US, covering the major US international integrated oil companies. He also had acted as a senior advisor to the Energy and Natural Resources Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He is a senior fellow and ex-president of the US Association for Energy Economics and served as president of the National Association of Petroleum Investment Analysts. In 2006, Secretary of Energy Samuel Bodman appointed Sieminski to the US National Petroleum Council, an advisory group to the US Secretary of Energy. In addition to his affiliation with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, he was also an advisory board member of the Global Energy and Environment Initiative at Johns Hopkins/SAIS. He has also served as chairman of the Supply-Demand Committee of the Independent Petroleum Association and as an advisory member of the Strategic Energy Task Force of the Council on Foreign Relations. Sieminski received both an undergraduate degree and a master's degree from Cornell University.

Chesapeake names Archie Dunham new chairman

Chesapeake Energy Corp. has appointed Archie Dunham, 73, as the company's new independent, non-executive chairman. The board took the action on Thursday, June 21. Dunham formerly served as chairman and CEO of ConocoPhillips. The Chesapeake board also named four new directors, including three proposed by Southeastern Asset Management, its largest shareholder, and investor-advocate Carl Icahn, the company's second-largest investor. Southeastern Asset Management named Bob Alexander, Brad Martin, and Frederic Poses to the board. Icahn's choice was Vincent Intrieri–one of the company's largest shareholders. The company's audit committee is said to still be reviewing loans made to Chesapeake CEO Aubrey McClendon. Icahn, famous as a "corporate raider" in years past and a key figure in many hostile takeovers, said he believes Chesapeake is going in the "right direction."

Taylor joins Whitney Bank

Forrest Taylor has joined Whitney Bank as a senior vice president in middle-market lending. Houston-based Taylor previously served as a senior commercial lender for Mutual of Omaha Bank. He joined the Omaha-Neb.-based bank's energy lending group where he focused on the oilfield service sector from the Houston office. Prior to Mutual of Omaha, Taylor spent time as market CEO for Sterling Bank. He has over 30 years of banking and finance experience. Gulfport, Miss.-based Whitney Bank is a subsidiary of Hancock Holding Co.

Reeves joins GCA

Scott Reeves has joined Gaffney, Cline & Associates (GCA) as Global Head of Consulting for Unconventional Resources and is based in the firm's Houston office. Reeves has more than 27 years of technical and business leadership experience in unconventional resources, enhanced recovery, and carbon sequestration in the production, consulting and R&D sectors. Previously he served as VP of Unconventional Resources for the BG Group. He holds a bachelor's degree from Texas A&M University and an MBA from Duke University. GCA provides a range of technical, commercial and strategic advisory support to the private and public sectors of the oil and gas industry, as well as to financial institutions, service and power sectors. GCA is a part of Baker Hughes Reservoir Development Services division.

Emerson names Shanahan president of Roxar business unit

Emerson Process Management has named Bret Shanahan president of its Roxar business unit. Shanahan has worked for 22 years in engineering, operations, sales, and management in the areas of flow technologies and instrumentation, predominantly within Emerson's Rosemount business unit. Prior to taking up the role of president of Roxar, he was managing director of Emerson's Roxar instrumentation division, Roxar Flow Measurement. He has an MBA and a bachelor's degree from Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota and Oregon State University, respectively. Roxar, a business unit of Emerson Process Management, is an international technology solutions provider covering the entire reservoir optimization value chain.

Stoehr named global head of capital markets at Standard Chartered

Standard Chartered has appointed Carsten Stoehr as global head of capital markets. Based in Hong Kong, Carsten will report to Lenny Feder, group head of financial markets, Wholesale Banking. Carsten joins Standard Chartered after a 17-year career at Credit Suisse, where he was most recently head of fixed income Asia Pacific and a member of the Global Fixed Income Management Committee and Asia Pacific Management Committee.

Lazard hires Cecil as managing director

David Cecil has joined New York-based Lazard Ltd. as a managing director, financial advisory, and head of North American Exploration & Production. Cecil previously served as a managing director and co-head of Scotia Waterous (USA), the oil and gas arm of Canada's Scotiabank, where he co-led the US energy investment practice. He is based in Houston. Cecil has advised oil and gas companies on mergers and acquisitions and capital markets transactions since 1998. Prior to joining Scotia Waterous in 2007, Cecil was a managing director in the US energy investment banking group at BMO Capital Markets. He holds an MBA from Duke University and a BBA from the University of Texas.

Jason Reimbold joins M1 Energy Capital

M1 Energy Capital Management LLC has appointed Jason P. Reimbold as vice president, A&D Advisory. Reimbold joins M1 Energy Capital from PLS Inc., where he served as vice president, oil and gas divestments. While at PLS, he executed A&D engagements. Previously he served as vice president of A&D for The Rodman Energy Group where he originated and executed A&D engagements and sourced new financings. Reimbold is also a contributing editor to Oil & Gas Financial Journal. M1 Energy Capital is a Houston-based energy advisory firm specializing in capital sourcing, acquisition and divestiture transaction services and corporate advisory practice.

Trio of energy lawyers to join Baker Botts

A trio of energy lawyers has joined Baker Botts LLP in New York and Houston. William S. Lamb and Michael W.E. Didriksen of New York and Thomas J. Moore of Houston join Baker Botts from Dewey & LeBoeuf LLP. Lamb, who was co-chair of Dewey's Utilities, Power and Pipelines Global Industry Sector Group, is counsel to The AES Corp. in its sale of two gas-fired generating plants. He advises both public and private companies in mergers, acquisitions and divestitures, as well as financings. He represents bidders and targets in both negotiated and unsolicited mergers and acquisitions. Didriksen, who was a partner in Dewey's US Energy and Utilities Practice Group, represents major energy industry companies and other large corporate clients, primarily on project development, mergers and acquisitions, and divestitures. His experience includes structuring transactions for both regulated and unregulated companies in the electric power and gas industries. Moore, who served as co-chair of the energy mergers and acquisitions practice at Dewey, leads the representation of the Angola LNG project that is designed to eliminate flaring of natural gas produced in Angola's offshore oil production. Also, he led the representation of RWE in its acquisition of a 50% interest in Excelerate Energy.

Transzap appoints Slack president, CEO

Transzap Inc., the parent company of Oildex™, provider of eRevenue, ePayables, eStatement, and eBudgeting Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solutions, has appointed Richard Slack as president and CEO. Peter Flanagan, founding partner and previous president and CEO of Transzap, remains on Transzap's board. Slack brings over 30 years of oil and gas industry experience to Transzap. Prior to his appointment with Transzap, Slack held a variety of roles at energy industry software technology companies, including Halliburton/Landmark Graphics, Wellpoint Systems, GeoGraphix, Bolo Systems, and CogniSeis Development.

Endeavour names Midkiff senior VP, general counsel

Ralph A. Midkiff has joined Endeavour International Corp. as senior vice president and general counsel, based in the Houston corporate offices. Midkiff practiced with Porter & Clements LLP from 1984 to 1993, where he was a partner from 1989 to 1993. He was a partner with Clements, O'Neill, Pierce, Wilson and Fulkerson, LLP from 1993 to 2004. He established Zummo & Midkiff LLP in 2005 and was a partner there until 2008. Since 2008, Midkiff has been a shareholder of Chamberlain Hrdlicka, Attorneys at Law. He graduated Summa Cum Laude from Rice University in 1981 with a Bachelor of Science degree in chemical engineering. He graduated with Honors from the University of Texas School of Law in 1984, where he was on the Texas Law Review and received the Order of the Coif.

GulfMark Offshore shuffles management

David Rosenwasser has been appointed to the newly created position of executive vice president and COO at GulfMark Offshore Inc. Rosenwasser joined the company in 2001 and has directed the company's Americas region since February 2009. He previously held the positions of Area Manager-Brazil from 2007 to 2009 and director of business development from 2001 to 2007. Sam Rubio, David Darling, Lee Johnson and Rick Safier have been promoted to the level of senior vice president. Rubio joined GulfMark in May 2005 and in 2009 was appointed the company's chief accounting officer. Darling joined the company in July 2007 and GulfMark's chief human resource officer. Johnson joined the company in March 2009 serves as chief information officer. Safier joined the company in March 2011 as vice president, general counsel and secretary.

Stephens promotes Wyatt to cover MLPs

Stephens Inc. has expanded its Research Division's energy practice, promoting Ben Wyatt to senior research analyst covering master limited partnerships (MLPs). Previously a member of Stephens' exploration & product research team in Fort Worth, Wyatt's energy research will now extend to MLPs. Currently there are over 100 publicly-traded MLPs, most of which are in the energy market. Wyatt, a former pitcher for the Atlanta Braves, graduated from the University of Arkansas and earned an MBA from Texas Christian University. Prior to joining Stephens, Wyatt worked as a vice president in the wealth management division of Citi Smith Barney and with Regions Bank's private banking group.

Credo Petroleum CFO to retire

Alford B. Neely, CFO of Denver, Co.-based Credo Petroleum plans to retire. Neely joined Credo in 2006, and was promoted to CFO in 2008. The company recently signed a definitive agreement pursuant to which Forestar Group Inc. will acquire Credo in an all cash transaction for $14.50 per share, or approximately $146 million. Upon Neely's retirement, Brian Mazeski, the company's controller, will be promoted to chief accounting officer. Mazeski is a certified public accountant. He worked for PriceWaterhouseCoopers LLP from 1996 to 2001. He has subsequently been employed as controller by several public companies and, most recently, served as principal accounting officer of a public company. The position of CFO position will not be filled pending shareholder consideration of the Forestar/Credo merger agreement.