Edmonds to take back seat at White Nile
FORMER England cricketer Phil Edmonds is to take a back seat at White Nile within six months as the company brings in an oil industry executive to run the business.
Edmonds and business partner Andrew Groves want to recruit up to four directors as White Nile begins exploration work across its 67,000 square kilometre block in South Sudan. Chief executive Edmonds is likely to stay on only as non-executive chairman.
Speaking in Sudan, Groves said: 'Things are advancing so quickly but there's also a market perception issue. As we get bigger, people will start saying: What do these guys know about drilling for oil?'
Edmonds and Groves brought in mining executives to run another of their former cash shells, Southern African Resources, last year. They are now planning to bring a new iron ore company to the City.
Trading in White Nile is due to re-start later this week upon completion of a reverse takeover that will see the national oil company, set up by the new authority in South Sudan, taking a 50% stake.
Confusion over who has the right to award exploration licences following the formal end of the country's 21-year civil war in January deepened at the weekend as the government in the north announced a $400m (£210m) deal with a consortium including Malaysia's Petronas for a different field in the south.
And French giant Total claims it holds the rights to the block awarded by the South Sudanese to White Nile under its own deal with the north.
- Database Search
- Unpaid Debt A comprehensive overview of the role of the Lundin Consortium in the oil war. ECOS calls upon the Swedish, Austrian and Malaysian governments to investigate whether, as a matter of international law, Lundin, OMV and Petronas 'were complicit in the commission of war crimes and crimes against humanity by others during the period 1997-2003.’ In response, the Swedish Public Prosecutor for International crimes opened a criminal investigation into ‘links between Sweden and the reported crimes’.
- In Depth For more specific information about the Lundin court case please visit the Unpaid Debt dossier.
