New chairman appointed ahead of second drill program

This morning our 2020 Energy Pick of the Year Invictus Energy (ASX: IVZ) strengthened its board by bringing in a new non-executive chairman.

IVZ appointed John Bentley who brings over 40 years experience including Africa’s upstream oil and gas industry since 1993.

John was the CEO exploration and production of South African oil company Engen, and helped form Energy Africa Ltd in 1996 before its listing on the Johannesburg and Luxembourg stock exchanges.

As CEO, over a five year period John led the company to increase production by >400% and helped setup operations across 12 different African countries with several major discoveries across the continent.

Eventually the company was taken over by Tullow Oil for US$500M in 2004.

John’s most recent experience was with Africa Energy Corp which made the Brulpadda and Luiperd play opening discoveries offshore South Africa.

We think John’s appointment comes at the perfect time, adding a proven operator to the IVZ team who has taken discoveries into production, all the way through to an eventual sale to a major company.

IVZ has just proved a working hydrocarbon system at its project and is now looking ahead to a second drill program this year, which we hope leads to IVZ declaring a commercial discovery.

To see our take on what’s next for IVZ check out our last note here: What’s next for IVZ?