Faces

Stephen Gerlach stepped down as chairman of Australian independent Santos and retired from its board of directors on 31 December. Deputy chairman Peter Coates takes over as chairman.

Stephen Johnson (pictured) became president and CEO of J Ray McDermott on 1 January following the retirement of Bob Deason. Johnson was previously president and COO of parent company McDermott International (see ‘Firms’).

Maxim Barsky, TNK-BP EVP for strategy and business development, has been named as the group’s next CEO, effective 1 January 2011. Until that time, executive chairman Mikhail Fridman continues to act as interim CEO. After five months working in various BP upstream businesses and BP’s head office in London, Barsky will return to TNK-BP on 1 June in a senior executive role, joining a management team recently strengthened by the appointment of Bill Schrader, former president of BP Azerbaijan, as COO.

Bradley Beitler (pictured) is the new VP technology at FMC Technologies. Beitler previously served FMC as director of technology and director of business development.

Rob Saltiel (pictured) was named EVP and COO at Transocean. He previously served as the driller’s EVP performance. President and COO Steven Newman remains president until he steps up to CEO on the retirement of Bob Long early this year.

N Pharr Smith, VP of Transocean, was named chairman of DNV’s Rig Owners Committee. The committee represents owners and managers of mobile offshore units and floating production units in dealings with the risk management organization.

Andrei Galaev (pictured) has stepped up from deputy chief executive to CEO at Sakhalin Energy Investment Company. Former CEOIan Craig, who led SEIC for five years, is expected to take up a new appointment with Shell early in 2010.

Carl Sheldon has been promoted to GM of Abu Dhabi National Energy Company PJSC (TAQA), with Peter Barker-Homek stepping down as CEO of the company.

Abdul Munim Saif Al Kindy, general manager of Abu Dhabi Company for Onshore Oil Operators’ (ADCO), has been announced as the new conference chairman of the 2010 ADIPEC exhibition and conference.

Clive Vaughan (pictured) has been appointed to the newly created post of CEO upstream oil and gas in Foster Wheeler’s Global Engineering & Construction Group. He joins from Endeavour International where he was director of facilities engineering and new developments, and prior to that headed up the KBR Granherne division’s operations in Australia. Based in Houston, Vaughan is tasked with further expanding FW’s upstream oil and gas business platform through organic growth and additional acquisition activity, following its purchase last year of OPE’s offshore engineering division and a majority of Atlas Engineering’s assets.

Uri Nooteboom has been promoted from SVP to CEO of IntecSea, part of the WorleyParsons Group. Nooteboom replaces Chris Tam.

Phil Howe (pictured) was named manager, subsea systems at KBR consulting subsidiary Granherne. Howe joined Granherne/KBR from Flex LNG Management, where he was head of subsea engineering.

John Fraser (pictured) has been promoted to head up Senergy’s newly launched software division, Senergy Software, initially based in Aberdeen. Nigel Blott assumes the role of global operations manager in the new division, with Frank Whitehead and Hamish Strang becoming the development managers for the company’s Interactive Petrophysics (IP) and Oilfield Data Manager (ODM3) technologies respectively.

Mike Pearce, formerly president of Smith Technologies, has assumed the newly created position of EVP strategy implementation, focused on the identification, selection and negotiation of potential acquisitions and joint ventures for Smith International outside of North America. Norman Mckay succeeds Pearce as Smith Technologies president, based in Dubai, UAE

Luiz Fernando Oliveira (pictured) is relocating from Brazil, where he served as manager of DNV Energy Solutions South America, to head up DNV Energy France and manage the integration of recent acquisition Sof Conseil (see ‘Firms’). On 1 April he will also take on the role of regional manager, West Mediterranean and North Africa.

Warren Schneider has joined Cedar Park, Texas based 3PS as VP business development for the company’s wireless torque and tension systems.

Dave Drysdale has been promoted to area manager for the Northern Europe and West Africa (NEWA) region of BJ Services pipeline services group. Supporting him in the role of business development manager NEWA and Nigeria is Pete Clenshaw. Both joined BJ Services as a result of the Norson acquisition in 2007 and are based Portlethen, Aberdeen.

Drew Cadenhead has been promoted to COO and Blair Johnson to CFO at Tag Oil, a Canadian independent E&P;company operating in New Zealand.

Andy Robson (pictured) is MD of the newly established Singapore branch of Dutch naval architects and marine engineers Offshore Ship Designers.

Jon Ben, formerly head of engineering at Fire Fighting Enterprises, has been appointed technical director of the company.

Jimmy Gray stepped down from the Cromarty Firth Port Authority board on 31 December after a nine-year stint – the maximum allowed. The new CFPA chairman is Neil McArthur and Douglas Russell has joined the board.

John Aw has joined UK-headquartered Offshore Container Holdings as regional director to head up the recently established OEG Asia Pacific operation in Singapore. Aw was previously HB Rentals’ Asia Pacific regional sales manager.

Issue: January 2010