Former Fastjet chief financial officer joins Lekoil

Lekoil, an oil company focused on Africa, has appointed the company’s new chief financial officer (CFO), effective immediately.

The company said on Monday that Lisa Mitchell was appointed as the new CFO following the resignation of Bruce Burrows who decided to pursue another opportunity to better fit family circumstances.

Following a one-month handover period, Burrows will be leaving the company at the end of October.

Apart from Mitchell, Lekoil appointed Tom Schmitt as a non-executive director, also with immediate effect.

Lisa Mitchell is a certified practicing accountant who was most recently the CFO and executive director of Fastjet, a low-cost airline based at Gatwick Airport. Before that, she was the CFO at Ophir Energy where she was responsible for contributing to the overall business strategy of the company, leading the finance function – including all financial, taxation, treasury and funding issues, IR, and providing financial support for all M&A activity. She also worked with Pan Pacific Petroleum NL, GCM Resources, CSL Limited, and Mobil Oil.

Tom Schmitt is the president of Hunt Refining in Alabama. Before this, he was a senior vice president with Hunt Oil Company for Hunt’s development in Kurdistan, Iraq. He began his career as a petroleum engineer with the Atlantic Richfield Corporation and also worked with Alliance-Bernstein, and the Global Research Growth Fund.

Samuel Adegboyega, chairman of Lekoil, said: “Lisa and Tom are both oil and gas industry professionals with significant experience. Lisa’s knowledge of investment and capital markets, together with Tom’s mix of upstream, downstream and finance experience will benefit our board and company. The entire board would also like to wish Bruce well in his future career and thank him for his contribution to date.”

Lekoil’s main revenue driver is the Otakikpo field in oil mining lease (OML) 11 off Nigeria.

The Otakikpo field is adjacent to the shoreline in the south-eastern part of the Niger Delta. Production in the OML 11 is jointly developed by Green Energy International as the operator and Lekoil as a technical and financial partner.

Since starting production in February 2017 at an initial rate of 5,000 bopd, production has averaged approximately 5,500 bopd through July 31, 2017.

Lekoil said on mid-September that the production at Otakikpo had been raised to approximately 7,000 bopd.

Offshore Energy Today staff