The Company is presently primarily managed by its Directors and the Company Secretary, whose details are as set out here.
James M D Willis LLM (Hons) Dip Acc
Chairman
(Executive Director)
Until his resignation in 2007, Mr Willis had been a partner in the leading New Zealand law firm of Bell Gully for 25 years. His practice speciality was in the upstream oil and gas area, particularly relating to issues concerning gas contracting and the development of oil and gas reserves, joint ventures and upstream petroleum related acquisitions. He has acted for the leading participants in the upstream petroleum industry in New Zealand.
In 2007 Mr Willis relocated to Australia to take up a management role with the group of companies controlled by Mr Albers and his associates (including Exoil Limited) and is now a fulltime executive director of companies in that group.
Mr Willis was until recently a director of MEO Australia Limited, a position he had held for 10 years during a crucial period of that company’s growth. With Mr Albers he was co-founder and later a director of Southern Petroleum N.L., a successful New Zealand explorer now wholly-owned by Shell.
Mr Willis is a director of Gascorp Australia Pty Ltd, a company controlled by Mr Albers and interests associated with him and which is a joint venturer in various of the Company’s permits.
He has been a Director of the Company since 2004.
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E Geoffrey Albers LLB
(Executive Director)
Mr Albers has over 30 years experience as a director and administrator in corporate law, petroleum exploration and resource sector investment. He is a law graduate of the University of Melbourne and, after being admitted in 1969 as a Solicitor of the Supreme Court of Victoria, practiced commercial and corporate law in Victoria until 2001.
In 1978 Mr Albers first became involved in oil exploration. At that time companies associated with him applied for and were awarded exploration permits in the offshore Bass Basin. Exploration in one of these permits, T/14P, led directly to the discovery of the Yolla Gas/Condensate Field which is now being produced by Origin Energy Limited and others.
In the early 1980's Mr Albers formed Cue Energy Resources Limited ("Cue") in New Zealand, of which he remains a director and which has a significant interest in the offshore Maari oilfield development in that country. Cue also has interests in the unitised S E Gobe onshore oilfield in PNG and in the Oyong oil and gas development in offshore Indonesia. Mr Albers is a director of and substantial shareholder in Cue. Information about Cue can be found on its website www.cuenrg.com.au.
Mr Albers was a founder of MEO Australia Limited and is a former director and shareholder of that company. MEO is now pursuing the development of a $2 billion gas processing plant on Tassie Shoal in the Timor Sea, 300kms north-west of Darwin. He also founded Bass Strait Oil Company Ltd (“Bass”) which has developed a portfolio of interests in the offshore Gippsland Basin and is a niche explorer in that basin. Mr Albers is a director of and substantial shareholder in Bass and information concerning that company can be found on its website www.bassoil.com.au.
In 2004 Mr Albers was instrumental in the formation of Moby Oil & Gas Ltd (“Moby”) which has extensive interests in various permits in Bass Strait. He is a director of and substantial shareholder in Moby and information about that company can be found on its website www.moby.com.au.
In 2002 and under Mr Albers’ control, Octanex N.L. (“Octanex”) and Strata Resources N.L. (“Strata”) acquired common interests in the Exmouth and Dampier areas of the North West Shelf, offshore Western Australia. These two companies are pursuing a merger via a scheme of arrangement that, once completed, will see Strata become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Octanex. Octanex is listed on NSX and has been highly successful. Its website is www.octanex.com.au. Mr Albers is a director of and substantial shareholder in each of Octanex and Strata.
He has been a Director of the Company since 1981 and is a substantial shareholder.
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Pamela J Albers
(Non-Executive Director)
Mrs Albers has more than 35 years of commercial experience, including co ownership and management of a significant primary production operation. She has a background in human resources, health & safety and in public relations.
Mrs Albers has been a director of a number of corporations, including public companies, over the last 15 years. She is a director of the NSX listed Octanex and a substantial shareholder in that company.
She has been a Director of the Company since 1984 and is a substantial shareholder.
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Graeme A Menzies LLB
(Non-Executive Director)
Mr Menzies is a solicitor practising in the area of commercial and company law. He graduated from Melbourne University in 1971 and qualified for admission to the degree of Master of Laws in 1975. He was admitted to practice in 1972. Since 1987 he has carried on practice as a sole practitioner under the name of Menzies & Partners. In the course of his legal practice, Mr Menzies has been involved in a wide range of activities including takeovers, litigation in respect thereof, numerous capital raisings and corporate reconstructions. He has been involved in the listing or relisting of a large number of public companies, both industrial and mining.
Mr Menzies is a director of Gascorp Australia Pty Ltd, a company controlled by Mr Albers and interests associated with him and which is also a joint venturer in various of the Company’s permits.
He is also a director of each of Moby, Octanex and Oil Basins Limited, all of which are involved in exploration for oil and gas. Additionally, Mr Menzies is a director of the ASX listed companies Papyrus Australia Limited and China Cattle Limited, as well as being a director of a number of other private and unlisted public companies.
Mr Menzies has generally acted as a non-executive director of exploration companies or technology companies and he has a significant skill base which is of considerable value to the Company in carrying out its activities.
He has been a Director of the Company since 2004.
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J G (Jack) Tuohy BCA, ACA
(Company Secretary)
For all but two years since 1986, Mr Tuohy has acted as Company Secretary to Public Listed companies in New Zealand. The first half of that period he spent in the oil and gas sector, initially administering three oil and gas exploration companies in which Messrs Albers and Willis were directors and which they had originally listed. He then acted for only one of them, Southern Petroleum N.L., when it became a successful oil and gas production company.
Following that period Mr Tuohy acted in a forensic accounting capacity in a multi-party legal action, before returning to a secretarial position in the motor vehicle industry where he spent 10 years.
In these positions, Mr Tuohy has been involved in the various aspects of public and private company administration, especially as this relates to the oil and gas exploration sector and to public listed company activities, obligations and requirements.
He recently relocated to Australia to take up the position of Company Secretary of a number of Mr Albers’ and his associates group of companies, of which Exoil Limited is one.
Mr Tuohy is a chartered accountant in New Zealand.
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The Company’s leading consultant is Strat Trap Pty Ltd, the principal of which is Dr Simon Sturrock.
Dr Simon Sturrock B.Sc. Hons. Ph.D. FGS
Simon Sturrock is a seismic interpreter and sequence stratigrapher with 18 years international and Australasian exploration and development experience, including 11 years with British Petroleum. Simon possesses a unique and powerful skills combination for stratigraphic prediction. He holds a proven track record in accurately predicting reservoir and seal distribution that has substantially reduced costs and assisted in the discovery of significant hydrocarbons. He has an extensive knowledge of practical sequence stratigraphy, and is highly experienced in applying these skills to field appraisal and development, exploration prospect and play fairway evaluation and risk analysis.
Simon established, and is a director of, Strat Trap Pty. Ltd., a successful geological interpretation consultancy based in Perth, Western Australia.
He is skilled in the interpretation and integration of 2-D and 3-D seismic, electric log, core, sedimentological and stratigraphic data into predictive depositional models for improved risk analysis. He is an accomplished sequence stratigrapher with a thorough experience in clastics and carbonates and an extensive knowledge of reservoir distribution and quality in submarine fans. He is accomplished in high-resolution sequence stratigraphy and facies delineation for stochastic reservoir modelling and a proficient user of personal computers and workstations (VoxelGeo, Stratimagic, GeoLog; Geoquest, Charisma, IESX, SeisClass, Strat Log, Well Pix; Landmark, Seisworks & Stratworks & Petrosys mapping). He is skilled in teamwork and multi-disciplinary project co-ordination and management. He is accomplished in making technical presentations to senior management and joint venturers. In addition, he has taught sequence stratigraphy courses to oil companies and university Petroleum MSc classes.
Dr Sturrock is a member of the Petroleum Exploration Society of Australia, the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, the Petroleum Exploration Society of Great Britain, the Society of Exploration Geophysicists, the Australian Society of Exploration Geophysicists and the Formation Evaluation Society of Australia as well as being a Fellow of the Geological Society of London. He has also carried out British Petroleum funded post doctoral research at the British Museum of Natural History.
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