BOWLEVEN has announced sweeping job cuts across its sites in Cameroon and reduced headcount at its Edinburgh head office by two-thirds.

The Africa-focused oil and gas development group has also confirmed it does not expect to pursue any new exploration activity at the current time.

And its new chief executive cast doubt on Bowleven retaining its permit on the Bomono platform.

The company did not reveal the extent of the total job cuts, but said that once staff reductions and other cost rationalisations efforts are complete, the monthly cost savings would total about $250,000 (£194,000), with one-off costs of up to $4m.

Head office staff will be reduced from 18 to five staff, with contractors providing additional support.

Eli Chahin, who has been chief executive since Keith Hart was ousted in an investor revolt, said that the first phase on the new board’s plan was get the organisation into an “appropriate” shape. “We’ve got much more appropriate operating models given the fact that we don’t have that much money. It was difficult, particularly as exploration and production wasn’t necessarily what we want to be doing and we didn’t have the balance sheet to do it anyway. You need a big balance sheet to do that.”

Having steadily increased its shareholding in the group to 22 per cent, Monaco-based Crown Ocean in March successfully lobbied for the removal of Mr Hart, finance director Kerry Crawford and chairman Billy Allan and installed its own nominees to the board – retaining only chief operating officer David Clarkson.

Asked about the extent of the job cuts, Mr Chahin said: “The bulk of the people [in Cameroon] are actually service providers. We’ve cut it down and what we’re looking at is where the costs can be made and what impact it will have on overseeing the assets. We will protect that as best we can while finding resolution for the various stakeholders.”

He said the changes will allow Bowleven to retain "the necessary skills, relationships and capacity to progress a route to shareholder value at both Etinde and Bomono.”

Asked if the new board would offload assets, Mr Chahin said: “I can see there will be some development on it in the next weeks and months, [we will] liaise with the [Cameroon] government. We are the operator [of Bomono] at the moment. It remains to be seen whether we are going to be the operator going forward.”

Responding to the previous board’s accusation that Crown Ocean wanted to use the company as a cash dispenser, Mr Chahin said he didn’t believe there was any evidence to suggest that was the case.

Mr Chahin was joined in the new-look boardroom by Crown Ocean-nominated chairman Chris Ashworth.

Mr Ashworth commented: “The difficult decisions, made by the board and led by Eli Chahin as our chief executive, impact a large number of people.

"I would like to thank all the employees of Bowleven for their cooperation and contribution to Bowleven in the past and through this difficult transition period.”