Oil & Finance – The rise of new NCS independents

- Joined DNB in 2001. Various Energy related positions including Head of DNB Houston (2006 – 2008) and Head of DNB’s UK Energy business (2015 – 2017). Global Head of Oil & Gas since 2010
- 1997-2001: Ministry of Petroleum & Energy

Marc Maestracci is a Managing Director in the oil & gas industry group of BNP Paribas CIB. In recent years he advised and financed a number of oil & gas companies active in EMEA, with a particularly strong focus on North Sea upstream. Previous positions include gas trading and petroleum economist at Engie. Marc holds MSc’s in engineering, petroleum & mineral economics from Ecole Centrale Paris, French Petroleum Institute and Colorado School of Mines.

Ketil Vestbakke is a project manager in Statoil’s business development unit, where he is leading strategic acquisition and divestment initiatives on a global basis. Most of the projects involve upstream E&P assets or companies, and he has experience from a wide spectrum of projects within both conventional and unconventional oil and gas.
Ketil has a background as Petroleum engineer and he holds an MSc in Industrial finance from The University of Stavanger.

Khash Mohajerani joined Blue Water Energy in 2013 and is responsible for the firm’s investments in the E&P sector. He currently serves as Non-Executive Board Director for three BWE portfolio companies: Siccar Point Energy, Wellesley Petroleum and Mime Petroleum. Previously, Mr. Mohajerani worked in the Energy group at Warburg Pincus and, prior to that, worked in the Energy & Power Investment Banking Division of Bank of America Merrill Lynch. He holds a MA (Hons) degree in Economics from the University of Cambridge.

Erlend Bakken has close to 20 years of experience as a legal and commercial advisor to oil and gas companies, oilfield service contractors, investors, financiers and investment banks on projects, corporate and corporate finance transactions.
His experience spans the full range of legal, commercial and financing aspects of offshore exploration and production, providing advice on strategy, negotiating projects for clients and managing disputes and restructurings.
He has been involved in many of the major corporate finance, restructurings and M&A transactions involving Norwegian oil field service companies and oil and gas companies and their assets. Bakken has spent significant parts of his career on secondment on full or part time to oil field service companies such as Petroleum Geo-Services ASA (General Counsel), Electro-Magnetic Geo-Services ASA and Teekay Petrojarl, and continues to make use of such experience when acting as a consultant advisor to executive management and board of directors in companies within the industry.

Dr. John Markus Lervik is the founder and CEO of Cognite AS, a Norwegian technology company providing software to industrial companies globally. Lervik has previously been the CEO and part of the founding teams for the software companies Fast Search & Transfer ASA (acquired by Microsoft) and Cxense ASA (listed at Oslo Børs). He holds a PhD from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), where he was awarded the Esso prize for best overall PhD. In 2005, Lervik was one of the technology innovators named as part of the prestigious Forbes E-Gang.

Anders Wittemann is an independent strategy and business development consultant for E&P companies based in Norway. He has background as Petroleum engineer and management consultant from Shell, McKinsey and other consulting companies, currently also with M&A advisor Infima.

Francis is Head of Forecasting within Argus Consulting, based in the London head office. He has over 30 years of experience in analysing and forecasting oil and energy markets and has consulted to a wide range of companies and government organisations. Francis started his career with Petroleum Economics Ltd in 1979, eventually becoming Manager of the Long Term Analysis Group. He subsequently left to help create EMC-Energy Market Consultants (now part of the FACTS group) in 1989. Since leaving EMC in 2005, Francis has worked with refinery process consultancy KBC Advanced Technology where he headed the Energy Economics Group, Wood Mackenzie (Head of Downstream Research Europe) and Saudi Petroleum Overseas (Marketing Manager). Francis joined Argus Consulting in 2014 and is responsible for coordinating, directing and executing all forecasting activities across a range of commodities but specifically oil and gas products.

15 years’ experience from the oil, gas and offshore industry, both as lawyer and as an in-house lawyer. He is advising oil companies, offshore service companies, and the government on regulatory and contractual matters in addition to M&A transactions. Grøndalen’s experience covers all aspects of the oil and gas industry, including contract and regulatory matters, M&A, gas transportation, gas sales and price revisions, construction projects, disputes and oil and gas operational matters. He has been involved in a large number of M&A transactions involving oil and gas companies and their assets. Grøndalen has experience as an in-house lawyer both within Gassco AS and BP Norge AS.

Thomas K. Svensen is a partner and the head of the Oil & Gas practise of the Norwegian law firm BAHR. He mainly works with clients in the energy sector, in particular oil and gas. He represents many Norwegian and international oil companies and other energy related clients. He has previously worked with the Attorney General’s Office (civil affairs) and as a management consultant with McKinsey & Company where he also worked with oil and gas related issues. His work includes both energy related transactions, field development projects (including fabrication contracts) and dispute resolution, in addition to advising on regulatory matters. He has been involved in many of the largest and most prominent oil and gas matters the recent years. He is recognised as leading within his field in all relevant domestic and international rankings, including Chambers & Partners and Legal 500. He was admitted to litigate before the Supreme Court in 2002. He also holds several appointments, including as board member for Oslo Chamber of Commerce, The Arbitration and Dispute Resolution Institute.

Harald Grøsfjeld har mastergrad i samfunnsøkonomi fra Universitetet i Bergen, i tillegg til å være autorisert renteanalytiker fra Norsk Petroleumsforening. Han har 29 års erfaring fra olje- og gassindustrien, finanssektoren og offentlig administrasjon. De siste 19 år har han jobbet for Pareto Forvaltning (1998-2001), Seadrill Ltd (2001-2012) som VP Treasurer og Spike Exploration AS (2012-2016) som finanssjef og medeier/gründer.

Alexander has eight years of credit experience, three of them doing traditional bank financing for large corporates at SEB. For the five years his focus has on the Norwegian high yield market, were he covers E&P, drilling and shipping.

Vidar Løhre is a lawyer in Wikborg Rein's Finance department and specialises in energy, infrastructure and real estate debt capital finance. Løhre has advised on numerous financing transactions within these areas, including on the Norwegian Continental Shelf, the UK Continental Shelf, the Netherlands, South-East Asia, Africa and Latin America.

Kine Neslein is a lawyer in Wikborg Rein's department for competition and public procurement law. Neslein specialises in state aid issues and has advised within this topic on numerous cases, including as an employee at ESA.