Mark Lappin, the European boss of Dart Energy and the public face of its plan to exploit underground gas in Scotland, has resigned.
He left on Friday to take up a job with gas firm Centrica in Aberdeen, where he lives. His departure follows the stalling of Dart's planning applications to sink 22 wells at 14 sites to extract coal-bed methane at Airth, near Falkirk.
After prolonged delays by Falkirk and Stirling councils, and more than 1500 objections, Dart appealed to the Scottish Government last month for a decision. Both councils have urged ministers to hold a public inquiry.
Lappin joined Dart Energy in April 2012 as Europe general manager, responsible for progressing the company's flagship development at Airth. Before that he spent 16 years with the US oil giant, ExxonMobil, in Aberdeen, Texas and Germany.
His departure from Dart follows the loss of another senior manager, Lynne Campbell, four weeks ago. A further four staff have also left in the last two weeks. Dart is shedding 70% of its staff worldwide after the introduction of tough government regulations saw it withdraw from Australia, where the company has its registered office.
Critics said that Lappin's leaving is "another nail in the coffin" for the firm's plans in Europe.
Ed Pybus from campaign group Frack Off Scotland said: "Dart's development in Falkirk has been stalled, we hope permanently, due to overwhelming public opposition."
Dr Richard Dixon, director of Friends of the Earth Scotland, said: "Mark Lappin has deserted the sinking ship, obviously realising Dart's deeply unpopular proposal at Airth isn't going to make it through the planning inquiry."
But a Dart spokesman insisted it was "complete nonsense" to suggest that Lappin's departure indicated any loss of resolve to exploit coalbed methane in Scotland. With the "operational phase stalled" and the project at the appeal stage, "his job was done", the spokesman added.
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