VAALCO Energy has appointed Phil Patman as chief financial officer (CFO) effective 17 April 2017. Patman has over 20 years of experience in the oil, gas and other areas of the energy industry in key roles including finance, business development, and legal management.
Prior to joining VAALCO, from 2012-2016, Patman served as senior vice president of business development, the Americas, for Thailand's national oil company PTT Exploration and Production (PTTEP). While at PTTEP, he led the company's exploration and production mergers and acquisitions activities in the US, Canada, and to a lesser extent, Brazil. These activities involved multiple deal structures and tax regimes, and frequently required assessments of the impacts to complex financial statements. Patman also served as managing director, mergers and acquisitions (Asia) for The AES Corp. from 2010-2011, where he led a team focused on acquisitions and sales of single and multiple-asset portfolios of Asian independent power plants. He also served as principal, global infrastructure, for Darby Private Equity, a unit of Franklin Templeton Investments, from 2007-2010, with a specific focus on Asian infrastructure, including energy systems and other fee-generating infrastructure assets. Before that, Patman was director, business development-Asia, for Globeleq Ltd. from 2004-2007 where he made acquisitions and divestitures; he also served on boards of directors of holding and subsidiary companies owned in part by Globeleq, and, as part of executing board decisions, had responsibility for approving financial statements. He also served as a professional consultant, Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) and Natural Gas, for Marathon Oil from 2002 to 2004, where he advised on the development of Marathon's Equatorial Guinea LNG liquefaction facility.
Patman began his career as a lawyer in private practice in Houston, from 1993-1997. He earned a J.D. from the University of Houston Law Center and a B.A. in the Plan II Honors Program from the University of Texas at Austin.
“[Patman’s] extensive experience in international energy finance and business development will be beneficial in helping VAALCO execute our ongoing strategy,” said Cary Bounds, CEO, VAALCO. “We believe as a team we can add significant shareholder value through the development of our premier Etame asset, while leveraging our existing infrastructure and technical expertise to seek attractively valued development opportunities.”