UK’s OGA elects new head of regulation

UK’s Oil and Gas Authority (OGA) has named a new Director of Regulation, effective March 1, 2017.

OGA said on Wednesday that, following the retirement of Simon Toole, the organization appointed Tom Wheeler as his successor.

Wheeler became Head of Commercial for the Department of Energy & Climate Change (DECC) and its upstream oil and gas team in 2014 before joining the OGA in 2015.

He previously trained as a solicitor and spent seven years working in private practice before taking a role as in-house counsel in the oil and gas industry.

Andy Samuel, OGA Chief Executive, said: “In a career spanning 33 years, Simon has made a significant contribution to the UK’s oil and gas industry and to the various government departments he has worked for, and led, during his outstanding career.

“On behalf of the OGA, we are extremely grateful to Simon for his insight and experience over the last two years, and we look forward to the next chapter with Tom leading our important regulatory work to enable us to deliver our remit of maximizing economic recovery of the UK’s oil and gas resources.”