Pentanova recruits senior management team

Canada’s Pentanova Energy said it has appointed a new senior management team to growth its oil and gas business in Columbia and Argentina.

The company appointed Dr. Ralph Gillcrist as chief executive officer and president, Alan Aitchison as chief operating officer and Rafael Orunesu as vice president, business development and country manager, Argentina. Dr. Gillcrist has also been appointed to the Board of PentaNova Energy Corp.

Pentanova said Dr. Ralph Gillcrist has over 28 years of experience in international oil and gas and has held various executive, technical, managerial and operating roles throughout Europe, Africa, Southeast Asia and South America for a number of international oil and gas companies. Dr. Gillcrist more recently served as Chief Executive Officer of Petroamerica Oil Corp. and is also an independent director at Madalena Energy Inc.

Alan Aitchison has over 30 years of corporate and resident in-country international experience throughout the world, predominantly in Latin America. Recently he served as chief operating officer and as an in-country manager in Colombia for PetroGranada.

Aitchison also spent 10 years in a variety of roles at Schlumberger, including vice president of production and prior to that held numerous technical and management roles that covered all aspects of facilities, production operations and evaluation of production and exploration wells.

 Rafael Orunesu was co-founder of Gran Tierra where he served as vice president, Latin America and country manager for Peru and Argentina. Prior to his position at Gran Tierra, he was engineering manager for Pluspetrol, responsible for planning and development operations in major oil and gas field developments in Peru. Orunesu has also been involved in numerous asset evaluations, purchases and divestments covering Latin America and North Africa.

Serafino Iacono has requested to step down as executive chairman of the company but will be continuing on as an independent director. Jeffrey Scott has been appointed as non-executive chairman and has a long-established relationship with the new management team. Scott is the founder and was chairman of Gran Tierra Energy, a South American based E&P Company from 2004 to June of 2015. Scott is executive chairman of Sulvaris Inc., a private fertiliser technology company since February 2012. Scott has been in the oil and gas business on both the E&P and service sides of the industry for over 34 years, with extensive management, financing, mergers and acquisition and public company experience.

Gregg Vernon and Warren Levy have resigned as president and president, Argentina operations. Luciano Biondi has resigned as chief executive officer of the company, but will be remaining with the company as a consultant, Pentanova said.