Key figures
Moustapha Niasse
Chairman, Non-Executive Director and Founding Member.
Moustapha Niasse is the former Prime Minister of Senegal. Previously he was Minister of Foreign Affairs and Minister of Urbanisation, Housing and Environment. In 2002, he was appointed as UN Special Envoy to help reach an all-inclusive agreement on power sharing during the transitional period of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Apart from the various political positions he has held, Mr. Niasse has also been Chairman, CEO and Director of various companies in the private sector. Notably, he was Founder and Chairman of ITOC Group, comprising seven companies in crude oil and refined products, insurance and port activities. He was also a co-founder of ADDAX Petroleum.
Pierre Achach
Executive Director and Founding Member
Pierre Achach has 24 years of experience in the commodity business. He is a former member of the US National Futures Association and was a broker and trader in financial and commodity futures and options with Dean Witter Reynolds at the Chicago Board of Trade and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. Later, he was Chairman and CEO of Finance 55, a consultancy and investment company focusing on the commodity sector in Africa.
As a former advisor to the Chairman of SAGA, a leading Franco-African stevedoring and transportation company, Pierre managed to build a strong network of relationships with decision makers in Africa. Having been a founding member and Chairman of LSF network, a successful internet company based in San Francisco, Pierre Achach has substantial experience in launching new businesses.
Christopher Pitman
CEO, Executive Director and Founding Member
Christopher Pitman has extensive experience in the energy sector. At the start of his career he worked as a reservoir geologist with different companies, making him the recognized expert in reserve certifications that he is today.
He is currently a non-executive board member of several public and private energy companies and has gained extensive international energy-sector experience through advising oil companies, private equity houses, governments, investment banks and multi-lateral agencies.
Before founding Surestream, Chris was the President of PGS Equity Ventures, from 2003 to 2005, where he originated several equity financing opportunities. Between 1997 and 2003, he was the Managing Director of PGS Reservoir Consultants, a leading independent petroleum engineering company, where he worked as corporate advisor on significant M&A transactions.
On many occasions he has been appointed as an expert for high profile equity determinations, audit reviews and witness testimonies for both government and corporate boards.
Jan Aarso Nielsen
Non-Executive Director
Jan Aarso Nielsen has an extensive career in top management consulting, industry and private equity, including the oil sector. He currently holds a portfolio of private interests where he acts as a non-executive board member and strategic advisor.
He started his career at the Copenhagen Business School as Associate Professor. Later he joined McKinsey & Company Inc. and became a senior partner co-leading the firm’s Scandinavian practice as well as their global corporate strategy and corporate finance practices. He left the consulting industry to become the COO of Petroleum Geo-Services ASA (a US$ 1.3 billion multidivisional oil field service corporation) and later joined the private equity sector both in deal origination and execution as well as a member of senior management buy-in teams.
Ahmed Khelif
Executive Director
Ahmed Khelif holds a BSc Degree (1967) in Electronics Engineering from the Algiers Polytechnic School, Algeria and a Masters Degree (1968) in Geophysics from the Algerian Institute of Petroleum, Algeria.
He worked with Sonatrach as an Exploration Manager from where he retired and is currently the Technical Director of the Petrolin Group (Switzerland), in charge of the Exploration & Production activity for the group in the Middle East and Africa.
He has over forty years of experience in the Petroleum Exploration & Production and the Information Technology fields.
John Brown
Senior Vice President, Exploration
John Brown has over 35 years of experience in the oil and gas sector. He has worked for a variety of companies from major oil companies (Burmah Oil) to large independents (Hamilton Brothers). He has also worked in consultancy for Robertson Research, ERC and PGS Reservoir Consultants. He was the Subsurface Manager with Atlantis Holdings, an oil and gas exploration company, which was registered in Norway by PGS in 1996.
He also held various management positions with Simon Petroleum Technology, where he headed a team undertaking studies on behalf of the World Bank in energy-related matters. This included projects in India, Malaysia and Thailand. He also had different oil and gas experiences in African countries, among which is Gabon.
Duncan MacGregor
Vice President, Geology
Before joining Surestream Dr. MacGregor had a 20-year career with BP, working largely in the Far East. He has worked and consulted for a number of independent companies and consultancies, including PGS, Mossgas, Sasol, Neftex, Noble, Richmond and BG, mainly on new ventures and play fairway scale studies in Africa. Dr. MacGregor joined Surestream Petroleum full time in June 2010 and is responsible for frontier plays in the East African Rift System. He also has extensive research interests on the evolution of the African continent. He has been the technical chair of the London PESGB/HGS African conferences for some years, has written over 20 papers, presents a number of courses and has edited two books on African petroleum geology, including ‘Petroleum Geology of North Africa’ in 1998.
Paul Phillips
Vice President, Geophysics
Paul Phillips has over 30 years of experience in the oil and gas sector. He has worked for major oil companies (Texaco, Burmah Oil, Enterprise and Fina) and as an independent consultant. He spent four years as a consultant geophysicist at the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company where he specialized in the processing and interpretation of 3D seismic surveys. He then joined Atlantis Holdings as a consultant geophysicist.
Paul has gained extensive experience of fully evaluating seismic data in numerous exploration and development projects in the North Sea, Africa and the Middle East. He has experience of seismic acquisition and processing, and interpretation of 2D data in Gabon.
Engin Adigüzel
Financial Controller
Engin Adiguzel, is a Certified Management Accountant (CMA) who has strong accounting and systems development background with 16 years of experience. Since 2001, he has been actively involved in accounting and financial management of oil and gas exploration operations. Before joining the oil and gas industry, he held management positions in the country operations of multinational service companies including Marsh and Dow Jones Telerate.
He made his entry into the oil and gas industry with Atlantis Holdings, at the time a wholly owned subsidiary of Petroleum Geo Services, which later was acquired by Sinochem. During his employment at Atlantis he was extensively involved in the company’s offshore drilling and onshore seismic operations in the UAE, Oman and Tunisia. He joined Surestream in August 2006.
Paul F. Jones
Operations Manager
Paul F. Jones has over 30 years of experience in the alluvial diamond and gold mining industry in both Africa and South America together with project management in the onshore oil sector. A former Project Manager of Incat Oilfield Logistics (DRC), he implemented the systems required to provide a comprehensive logistical service. He has also been managing short-term projects with offshore oil producer Chevron on operations off the coast of The Democratic Republic of Congo.
Andy Bates
Head of Security
Mr. Bates served for 23 years with the British Army, including 16 years in a specialist military role where he became the senior Amphibious Specialist. He has operated worldwide often in hostile environments, which included humanitarian operations. He also worked for the Oman Armed Forces for a number of years, where he was responsible for developing and training a specialist maritime unit. Andy worked for a major UK construction company during their initial deployment into Northern Iraq in 2004. More recently he worked as the Senior Security Manager for Special Projects and Services Ltd where he applied his knowledge and experience to a wide range of security consultancy and management tasks. Andy is the author of a security module for a distance learning diploma course.
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