Board & Management

Gordon Stollery, Non-Executive Chairman, 60
Gordon has over 30 years of experience founding and managing energy companies. He is Chairman of AGS Resource Management Limited and is also currently Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Highpine Oil & Gas Limited (“Highpine”), an Alberta-based Canadian public oil and gas company that he founded in 1998. Prior to Highpine, Gordon was Chairman of Northstar Energy Corporation from 1997 to 1998 and Chief Executive Officer of Morrison Petroleum Limited from 1980 to 1997. Gordon also either founded or co-founded OGY Petroleum Limited, Storm Energy Limited, Canadian Gas Gathering Systems Inc. and Ballistic Energy Limited.

Peter Buchanan, Chief Executive, 45
Prior to founding Valiant in 2004, Peter was a Director for Oil and Gas at The Royal Bank of Scotland, with specific responsibility for North Sea structured finance. During his five years in banking, Peter was involved in several hundred million pounds of debt, mezzanine and equity fundings primarily to UK independent oil and gas companies. As a result of various equity investments, Peter represented the bank on several boards.

Before moving into banking, Peter had a career spanning 12 years in the oil industry where he held senior technical and managerial roles with companies such as CogniSeis Development Inc (now Paradigm Geophysical Limited), Oil Search Limited and Premier Oil plc. Much of this time was spent in South East Asia (including Papua New Guinea and Myanmar) where he was partly responsible for several significant oil and gas discoveries.

After completing an MSc at Imperial College in structural geology in 1986, Peter started his career with BP working with their research function during which time he completed a PhD which was later complemented by a Diploma in Applied Finance and Investment with the Securities Institute of Australia.

Steven Edgley, Finance Director, 45
Steven has spent 20 years in commercial and investment banking predominantly within the hydrocarbon sector. In 1995, Steve joined The Royal Bank of Scotland as Head of Oil and Gas, Structured and Project Finance. During this time the bank became one of the leading global oil and gas banks. In 2003, Steven moved to Caledonia Oil and Gas Limited (“Caledonia”) as Finance Director. Caledonia was a private independent oil and gas company focused on the UK Southern North Sea. In November 2005, Caledonia was sold to E.ON Ruhrgas UK Holdings Limited for £470 million.

Michael Bonte-Friedheim, Non-Executive Director, 41
Michael is a banker by background having been in a number of senior positions within Credit Suisse First Boston, Morgan Stanley International Limited and up to August 2006 as managing director in the Energy & Power Team at Goldman Sachs International Limited. Michael is currently the Non-Executive Chairman of Mediterranean Oil and Gas plc, a UK AIM-listed stock focused on E&P opportunities in and around the Mediterranean.

Kevin Lyon, Non-Executive Director, 46
Kevin qualified as a Chartered Accountant in 1985 and after two years in merchant banking, joined the private equity and venture capital business, 3i plc, in 1988. While with 3i, Kevin built and developed several successful investment teams across the UK and led transactions in a wide range of sectors, many leading to profitable exits or successful stock exchange listings. He left in 2004 to build a portfolio of non-executive interests and is currently Chairman of MK One Limited, a retailer of ladies clothing; Mono Global Group Limited, an infrastructure support services to the telecoms sector; Wyndeham Press Group Limited, a printing and communications group; Julian Graves Limited, retailer of specialist ingredients and luxury snacks and is a non-executive director of Booker plc, a wholesale cash and carry business, which listed on AIM in June 2007.

Sandy Shaw, Non-Executive Director, 54
Sandy has hands-on experience with 29 years in the oil and gas industry, through senior positions held amongst executive teams while acting as group legal counsel and commercial director for a number of companies including Consort Resources, LASMO, Esso Petroleum, Marathon Oil and Mobil. She has handled six private equity subscriptions raising a in excess of circa. £160 million, along with having led a £200 million trade sale through to final negotiations. Sandra continues to act as a legal consultant (since 2004), latterly in private practice providing commercial and legal services to oil and gas companies worldwide.

Phil Crookall, Technical Director, 41
Philip has 20 years’ industry experience with both independent international oil companies and consultancy groups (Hamilton Brothers Oil and Gas Limited, Ultramar Limited, LASMO plc, Hardy Oil and Gas plc, Scott Pickford Limted, Paradigm Geophysical Limited). Philip has operational expertise in development geology and petrophysics. Philip has managed multi disciplinary projects through specification, execution and delivery stages in UKCS, Middle East, West Africa and S.E.Asia. Philip is responsible for all technical aspects of Valiant Petroleum’s asset register, and management of reserve audits.

Brian Elliot, Operations Director, 41
Brian has over 20 years’ North Sea and international experience in offshore development projects and operations. He provides expertise in project execution and facilities engineering and has completed major fast track FPSO, subsea and fixed platform developments (Dumbarton, Bohai Bay, Leadon) and facilities management (Gryphon and Janice fields). Brian was Development Manager for Kerr-McGee China and Head of Projects for Maersk North Sea.

Nick Ingrassia, Corporate Development Manager, 28
Immediately prior to joining Valiant, Nick spent two years at Morgan Stanley in its Energy Investment Banking Division with a primary focus on delivering products and corporate finance advice to companies active in-and-around the upstream sector. Previous to that, Nick was at The Royal Bank of Scotland where he spent four years on the Oil & Gas Project and Structured Finance team. During his time there, Nick worked on a wide range of structured debt facilities for a number of North Sea E&P companies (including Venture Production, Paladin Resources, Oilexco Inc and Caledonia Oil and Gas.)

Gavin Milne, Financial Controller, 41, BSc ACMA
Gavin began his career in Aberdeen with BP specialising in offshore drilling and well cost analysis before becoming the Management Accountant for the BP Wytch Farm asset in 1995. Gavin relocated to London in 1997 and has filled a number of key roles implementing accounting and business systems across a number of emerging oil and gas companies in the upstream sector, including Highland Energy Ltd and Caledonia Oil and Gas Limited. Gavin is also the Company Secretary of the Company.

Justin Morrison, Exploration and New Ventures Manager, 43
Justin has spent over 20 years in the industry with independent oil companies (Burren Energy plc, Canadian Natural Resources International (UK) Limited (“CNR”), Ranger Oil (UK) Limited (“Ranger”), British Gas plc and Ultramar Limited) with activities covering new business, exploration, development and enhanced oil recovery. During 2003 to 2007, Justin was Exploration Manager for Burren Energy plc when the company drilled over 140 wells. Prior to this, Justin was Cote d’Ivoire Exploration Manager for Ranger/CNR responsible for the Baobab discovery and Espoir re-development. Other projects included the Nile Delta exploration campaign with British Gas plc and the Franklin, Markham, and Ross field appraisal/developments for Ultramar