KEY POINTS:
New Pike River Coal chief executive Gordon Ward says high-level changes at New Zealand Oil & Gas will give the market more confidence before the float of the coal project.
NZOG chief executive Tony Radford will retire at the end of March to be replaced by David Salisbury, while Ward, the company's general manager, will take on the role of chief executive at its Pike River subsidiary.
"Without doubt clarification of the executive role at Pike and the fact that we want to appoint ... independent directors to the board of Pike and that Tony is stepping back as chief exec on the parent company will certainly assist in that process," Ward said.
The appointments come a month after three directors walked out of the Pike River project.
Ward said two new independent directors were being sought.
Paul Richardson, equities portfolio manager of NZOG shareholder BT Funds Management (NZ), said the market would see the senior executive appointments as positive.
"With the changes that have taken place in the board, we are obviously looking for the company to address that situation, and to continue to expand the company with its big projects by bringing good senior executives into the business and that looks like what they are doing."
In December, NZOG said Pike River independent chairman Dennis Wood and independent directors James Ogden and Graeme Duncan had left the board for personal reasons.
However, after an NZX request for more details, NZOG said the main factor behind the resignations was an NZOG decision to take direct responsibility for a float of Pike River - of which it owns about 61 per cent - and in the meantime treat its coalmine development as an NZOG project.
The company plans to issue a Pike River Coal prospectus next month for a float once planned for December.
New NZOG chief executive David Salisbury will start on April 1, having returned to New Zealand from Vienna.
He is now vice-president business development of OMV Exploration & Production, responsible for worldwide business and development.
"On the face of it getting a younger, energetic, sector-experienced CEO on board ... getting the float of Pike River on the road and getting cash flows into the business from their production is all things that we want to see from the business," Richardson said.
Current NZOG chief executive Tony Radford will become non-executive chairman, having flagged at the company's annual meeting in October that his role would change.
Radford said the company was delighted to have attracted a high-calibre replacement after an extensive international search.
"David will bring his global knowledge and experience back to New Zealand and continue to drive NZOG's strong growth."
Ward has been general manager of both companies and was appointed to the Pike River board last July, having been responsible for the project for several years. Coal production is planned to start in December.
NZOG's shares closed up 1c yesterday at 91c.
NZOG Executive Changes
David Salisbury
* Role: New chief executive NZOG.
* Current job: Austrian-based vice-president business development of OMV Exploration & Production.
Gordon Ward
* Role: New chief executive Pike River Coal.
* Current job: General manager of both New Zealand Oil & Gas and Pike River Coal.
