KEY POINTS:
David Salisbury has some pressing issues to resolve at New Zealand Oil & Gas, but the chief executive is already looking beyond them.
Salisbury, 39, was lured from the cultural delights of Vienna, where he oversaw international business development of Austrian oil giant OMV's exploration arm, to the Wellington-based job, which he began last month.
New Zealand is "underexplored" oil-wise and for a small exploration company such as NZOG, he believes there's a lot of potential.
"The worldwide market is starting to turn somewhat in New Zealand's favour. There's enormous pressure worldwide to get access to new exploration acreage and hydrocarbon resources.
"It's a very hot market internationally. That has spin-off effects for New Zealand. We have to pick up on that and promote ourselves, so we need to get fields developed to show the market there is the opportunity to invest here."
However, Salisbury has to resolve some pressing issues within the company first: to wrap up funding for the much-delayed float of the NZOG subsidiary, West Coast coal mining company Pike River, and to bed down development capital for the gas and light oil field, Kupe, in which the company holds a 15 per cent stake.
The Tui oil field, due to start producing oil next month and expected to produce 50,000 barrels a day, will provide the company with some much-needed cash flow.
Pike River has a messy history: the proposed float has been plagued by funding problems, and in December three of its directors resigned from the board after NZOG's decision to take control of the previously independent float plan.
Salisbury has been "kept informed" of what's been happening since he accepted the job late last year, but will not comment on the resignation of chairman Dennis Wood, and independent directors Graeme Duncan and James Ogden.
While Pike River, Kupe and Tui are the focus of attention now, Salisbury is busy planning for the future.
"For any exploration and production company you need to keep enhancing your reserves base, we have to grow all the time because as we produce, our asset base shrinks. So you always need to be thinking of what's next."
What's next will include securing more exploration permits, and, possibly, the acquisition of several local exploration companies.
"The main challenge is to enhance understanding of the investment opportunity in New Zealand, and NZOG is poised ready to grow off the back of that."
If his busy CV is anything to go by, Salisbury is more than capable of running a tight ship.
He started his working life as a junior solicitor with Bell Gully, and, finding that too dull, became a business analyst at then-Fletcher Challenge subsidiary, oil explorer Petrocorp.
After a brief stint as an energy consultant for Ernst & Young, Salisbury worked with Fletcher Energy, then with German mining company Preussag until it was bought by OMV in 2003.
He worked in OMV's New Zealand arm for a year before moving to Vienna. As vice-president of the giant's international business development he was responsible for increasing production from 330,000 barrels a day to 500,000 a day by 2010.
NZOG is a much smaller beast but the fundamentals are the same, he says.
"The questions that you're confronted with as a smaller exploration and production company are pretty standard worldwide. We know where to look for the answers. What we have to settle on is what is readily doable for NZOG."
NZOG shares have fluctuated between 86c and $1.11 over the past year. Shares closed down 1c at 96c yesterday.
