Cash-strapped North Sea explorer Trapoil revealed a shock clear-out of senior management yesterday as it looked to save £1 million.
Shares in the firm fell 3% after it announced it had continued to monitor expenditure since an earlier round of job cuts in April and had concluded that further “immediate short-term measures to significantly reduce the cost base” were required.
Trap said chairman Simon Bragg had resigned with immediate effect.
Following him out the door will be CEO Mark Groves Gidney and chief operating officer Paul Collins the two men who founded the firm who will step down from the board on completion of an “orderly transition period”, expected to take two months.
Non-executive director Marcus Stanton will assume the position of chairman to oversee the transition with immediate effect.
Senior management took a 20% pay cut in April in a bid to cut costs after the company posted a £10m loss for the year.
The firm, a partner in the Athena field, took a £9.4m hit from the sale of its interests in the Knockinnon and Lybster fields among others to Caithness.
The company yesterday also announced it was cancelling a three-year finance facility with GE Energy Financial Services in a move that will save £500,000 a year, and had waived its option on Total’s Scarnish well after deciding not to contribute to the drilling costs.
* Meanwhile, North Sea operator Ithaca Energy plunged into the red in the first half of the year after posting a $2.5m pre-tax loss.
The figure is in sharp contrast to the $73m made by the firm in the same period last year and came despite revenues rising in the period from $188.1m to $199.6m.
Cost of sales was almost flat but the firm did book an $18.1m increase in depreciation, depletion and amortisation costs, and other non-cash charges increased to $15.8m.
CEO Les Thomas said: “I am pleased with the progress made by the company over the last quarter, having further strengthened the business in three key areas: the successful third Stella well materially de-risked the ongoing field development, the Summit acquisition added high quality assets to the existing producing portfolio, and the successful bond offering introduced important funding diversification and flexibility.”
Shares in Ithaca fell 2% to 133.7p.