Steve Remp of Ramco Energy was the first western oil man into the wilds of Azerbaijan when the Iron Curtain rusted away, but he takes special pride these days in his record as chairman of an Aberdeenshire preparatory school.

''What I do outside the company that gives me most pleasure is being chairman of Lathallan, which is in a Harry Potterish castle on the coast near Stonehaven. We've rebuilt the board and got some tremendous people in and we're doing some amazing things,'' he smiles, in his office in a handsome Victorian pile that he has restored with evident attention to historical detail.

While guarding the privacy of the younger generation of Remps, whose connections with Lathallan led to his own involvement with the school, he is happy to talk through the photographic saga of his Californian oil-drilling forebears that line the walls.

As he pauses to observe that ''nobody on their deathbed ever said they wished they'd spent more time with their business'', it is clear that life outside work is important to Remp.

Besides Lathallan responsibilities, the 56-year-old American - who has US and British citizenship - enthuses about his baronial home and time spent skiing, deer-stalking, and indulging a passion for riding fast bikes. His extra-curricular schedule has recently been adapted to include 45 minutes of yoga before work and a swim after clocking off.

In between he has plenty to keep him occupied as executive chairman of Ramco, supervising the reinvention of the company as an Irish gas developer - a move that is typical of the ability to take the long view he first developed as a post-graduate student of international affairs.

Although Esso walked away years ago from the find in the Seven Heads field off western Ireland on which Remp has staked much of the company's $150m ((pounds) 88m) winnings from a pioneering investment in Azerbaijan, he is sure he is on to a goer.

Development work by Ramco indicates the area contains far more gas than Esso, which was looking for oil, had ever expected, which makes sense of Remp's decision to forsake the former USSR for an area a major had spurned.

''Ireland is a small niche market that does not interest the majors but it's exactly the sort of place for us. We don't want to do battle with the majors,'' explains Remp.

With other projects that were planned to satisfy the country's growing demand for gas delayed, Ramco will be ''really quite important to Ireland'' as the driver of indigenous supply to the area.

The lucrative implications of that status help explain an absence of regret on Remp's part that majors have been piling into Russia and points east since Ramco sold its 2.1% stake in Azerbaijan's giant ACG field in 2000.

Although he is full of praise for the visionary qualities of Lord John Browne, the BP chieftain who is leading the charge, he says only time will tell if the strategy will

pay off.

''I hope his vision and luck stay with him, however, the real winners of what's going on are the Russians who got those assets for peanuts on privatisation and are selling (their stakes in local companies) if they can stay out of jail long enough to collect. The (TNK) guys that are doing the deal with BP are winning most as they are selling shares now for cash and they're de-risking.

''It will be some time before it's really clear if the Russian experiment for big oil can or will work.''

Having cashed in on ACG, Remp, who holds 12% of Ramco's equity, wants it to focus on underexplored areas where it could make big finds while exploiting advances in survey technology to limit the risks of chasing totally duff prospects.

In addition to offshore Ireland, the company's longer-term plans include exploring for gas offshore Montenegro, in the war-torn Balkans, from which the majors have kept a safe distance.

Remp has been a regular visitor to the country drawing on skills in operating in volatile regions that he honed in long years in Azerbaijan, where he set up camp after the 1986 oil price crash hit Ramco's North Sea services business hard.

A hunch that an area that once produced plenty of oil could be ripe for redevelopment in the post-Soviet era led to a long period spent living out of suitcases there. One of these he used to stuff with food and medicines to tackle the illnesses that flourished in unhygienic hotels and eateries. Conditions were so hard his wife kept asking why Remp persevered out east.

However, besides the lure of possible riches there were plenty of compensations, he recalls. ''There were a lot of people I liked. They were enormously charming and intelligent and I was captivated by the industry.''

New friends included Kurban Abasov, the then head of the decrepit state oil industry, who Remp the historian remembers with evident fondness. ''He was domineering, a tyrant but with enormous charisma and he liked me a lot for some reason and treated me like a son. Through him I was given an insight into what became the (four-billion-plus barrels) ACG fields.

''I was asked to help them find partners and to their credit, BP invited me into what became the first consortium. We were given a minimal percentage (of ACG) but that did not matter. It's to their credit that they did not try to walk over us.''

His admiration for Lord Browne notwithstanding, as an adoptive Aberdonian, Remp is concerned the gradual retreat of majors like BP from the North Sea could lead to a permanent drop in activity in the region.

He is worried these days by the number of ''for sale'' signs on vessels, that recall the forests of vendors' boards on housefronts in the dog days of '86.

Rather than chastise Shell and company, the affable Remp reserves his vitriol for the government's decision to increase the tax on North Sea profits at a time when it should have been aggressively encouraging new entrants to the region's waters.

''This is a phase that's really hurting Aberdeen.

''To get going again there needs to be entrepreneurs but we also need an aggressive tax structure.

''I really hope that the government will understand this transitional phase we're in,'' worries Remp.

Ramco for one will be unlikely to heed ministers' calls to invest more in North Sea exploration and production until Remp's mind is put at rest.

REMP'S RESUME

CV points:

Born May 5, 1947, in Glendale, California. Educated in Europe and the USA, obtaining a BA in Political Science and Economics from Claremont Men's College, California, and an MA in International Economics from The School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore. Came to Scotland in 1971 and spent six years in property development. Was a founding shareholder in Ramco Oil Services in 1977, which has expanded from tubular and pipeline coating

work into exploration and production

in the Caspian, eastern Europe, and Ireland.

What was your biggest break?

Being asked by the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) in the late 1980s to help find partners for one of the world's largest undeveloped oil fields, which no-one in the West knew about at that time.

What was your worst moment?

The oil price crash of 1986

What drives you?

My secretary!

What car do you drive?

Company car is a Range Rover, private car is a Porsche 911 Turbo. Also rides a Ducati ST4S motorbike.

What job did you want to do when you were a child?

US ambassador to London.