EnQuest promotes North Sea business head to COO

UK-based oil and gas development and production company EnQuest has named a new chief operating officer (COO) and appointed new non-executive director. 

EnQuest said on Thursday that Carl Hughes was appointed as the new non-executive director while Neil McCulloch was named the new COO and is set to join the board as an executive director at the next AGM.

Carl Hughes will join the EnQuest board effective January 1, 2017. Upon joining the Board, Hughes will take over from Philip Nolan as the chairman of EnQuest’s Audit Committee, a position which Nolan is occupying on an interim basis, following the appointment of Jock Lennox as the chairman of the EnQuest Board on September 8, 2016.

As a result of Hughes’ appointment, Lennox will cease to be a member of the Audit Committee. Nolan will remain as a member of the Audit Committee while Hughes will also become a member of the Remuneration and Risk committees.

Before EnQuest, Hughes was a vice chairman and senior audit partner at Deloitte and a leader of Deloitte’s energy and resources practice. He retired from Deloitte in 2015, with nearly 30 years’ experience in the oil and gas, and mining industries. He is also a trustee and member of the Energy Institute Council.

McCulloch, currently EnQuest’s President for the North Sea region, is being promoted to the group position of Chief Operating Officer. He will also join the EnQuest board as an executive director at the company’s 2017 Annual General Meeting. His existing responsibilities for EnQuest’s North Sea operations will expand to include production from the Kraken field and FPSO, which set sail from Singapore to the North Sea last month, and the firm’s operations in Malaysia.

Jock Lennox, Chairman of EnQuest, said: “I am delighted to welcome Carl Hughes to EnQuest as a non-executive director. Carl has many years of experience in the energy sector, and I look forward to working with him as a member of the board.

“I am also very pleased to congratulate Neil McCulloch, both on his appointment to the role of Chief Operating Officer and on being invited to join the board. These appointments recognize Neil’s success in helping to increase EnQuest’s production from a 2013 average of 24,222 Boepd, before he joined us, to 42,520 Boepd in the first half of 2016.”