NZOG reshuffles senior management team

By Romel S. Gurky

ASX-listed New Zealand Oil and Gas Ltd (NZOG) announced Tuesday a reshuffle at its senior management team, in which Andrew Jefferies, who was previously Vice President of Operations and Engineering will takeover responsibility for exploration and becomes Vice President for Exploration and Production.

Meanwhile, Chris McKeown joins the senior management team as General Manager, Southeast Asia. He was previously Business Development Manager.

New Zealand Oil & Gas chief executive Andrew Knight said in a statement that the appointments align the company?s management with its focus on cost effectiveness and maximizing value from its current portfolio.

"We are focusing on creating more value from our existing assets with a more efficient and cost effective structure. In this environment it makes sense to combine responsibility for our exploration and operations activity,? he said.

"It is also the right time to establish a new role with responsibility for managing our assets located outside New Zealand following our drilling success in the Kisaran production sharing contract and the expansion of our portfolio in Sumatra,? he added.

McKeown joined New Zealand Oil & Gas in 2012. He has previously been chief executive of a start-up oil company, asset manager of a producing oil field, and general manager of a gas exploration company. Chris moved to New Zealand in 2002 after working in business development and reservoir engineering in the UK. He has PhD in Geology.

Andrew Jefferies started his career with Shell in Australia after graduating with a BEng (Mechanical Hons) from the University of Sydney in 1991. He has worked in Australia, Germany, the United Kingdom, Thailand and Holland, in operations and petroleum engineering. He has an MBA (technology management) from Deakin University in Australia, and an MSc (Petroleum Engineering) from Heriot-Watt University in Scotland. He joined New Zealand Oil & Gas in early 2013.

Editing by Reiner Simanjuntak