TRAP Oil has said chief executive Mark Groves Gidney and chief operating officer Paul Collins are leaving the firm under a plan to cut operating costs by £1 million a year.
The London-based oil and gas firm said the two executives have agreed to step down from its board following an orderly transition period, expected to take approximately two months.
It said Simon Bragg was resigning as chairman with immediate effect.
Non-executive director Marcus Stanton became non-executive chairman to oversee the transition process.
Trap Oil said it wanted to reduce operating costs to a minimum while looking to maximise returns from its portfolio of North Sea assets.
The company bought Banchory-based Reach Oil & Gas for £30m in 2011 but has faced challenges following a strategy that involves farming out stakes in exploration acreage to partners who agreed to bear some of the related costs.
Trap Oil lost £10.3m before tax in 2013 when it drilled fewer wells than directors had hoped for and wrote down the value of some assets citing partner drag issues. In April Trap Oil said it had cut directors pay by 20 per cent this year and "trimmed" staff levels amid increased running costs.
Mark Groves Gidney said yesterday: "It is sad for myself and Paul Collins to be leaving the company which we both started seven years ago. However it has been a struggle for small cap explorers in the North Sea."
He said both felt the proposed strategy was in shareholders' interests.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article