Central Petroleum Limited announces the appointment of several new team members in its exploration and development team.

Independent geological firm, DSWPET Pty Ltd has now identified over 5 billion barrels of oil equivalent in the Amadeus Basin west of Alice Springs, (See ASX announcement titled 'Independent Amadeus Unconventional Gas and Oil Appraisal' dated 7 February 2011), and another 11 billion barrels of oil equivalent in the Southern Georgina Basin to the north-east in unconventional prospective recoverable resources at 'mean' level.

US Group Ryder Scott has reported on similar prospective recoverable resources in Canadian group PetroFrontier's acreage in the Southern Georgina Basin bordering Central's acreage.

In the Officer Basin, immediately to the south of Central's acreage in the Amadeus Basin, another Canadian group, Rodinia Resources have announced plans to drill several wells to test unconventional potential. Canadian explorers have spearheaded a dramatic resurgence of interest in central Australia's onshore basins since Central first announced technical reports promoting unconventional potential in the Southern Georgina and the Amadeus Basin. (Central released its first in-house assessment of unconventional hydrocarbons in its central Australian project areas in April 2008, well before any other company publically promoted unconventional potential in Australia.)

Central announces the following appointments: Al Thorsen has been appointed Chief Operating Officer, primarily responsible for the management of drilling exploration, logistics, production, contracting and marketing. He has had thirty years' experience in managing operations across the oil fields of North America from British Columbia to North Dakota including the Williston Basin as well as remote jungle operations in Ecuador. His management roles have included exploration, extraction, logistics, marketing and business development. He comes to Central from his position of Vice President Operations, Zargon Oil & Gas of Calgary, a company with significant production of 10,000 barrels per day of oil equivalent, mostly oil. Previously he co-founded Orleans Energy and in his career he was operations manager of Renata Resources and Vice President Operations and Marketing for Rio Alto Resources International. He also was country manager of Ecuador for Rio Alto Exploration.

"Al brings to us vital North American expertise in both vertical conventional and horizontal drilling and completion techniques with multiple stage frac jobs a part of the process." said Central Petroleum Managing Director John Heugh.

'There is no doubt that North America is the home of the revolution of unconventional exploitation and so it is logical we should seek expertise from there. Al not only has high level management and technical expertise but as a student worked as a roughneck on oil drilling rigs to fund his university studies in Petroleum Engineering at Montana College of Mineral Science and Technology. This mix of professional and hands on experience will prove invaluable in the exploration and development of the remote desert basins the Company operates.'

Mr Thorsen is expected to take up his new role as soon as a Section 457 visa is granted.

In putting together his high-performance team, Mr Heugh has also added geophysicist Dr Jacques Sayers with over 20 years' experience in 2D and 3D seismic modelling, a PhD in geophysics from the prestigious University of Adelaide School Of Petroleum and a Masters degree in geophysics from the University of Durham in the United Kingdom. He also adds a Certificate of Management from the University of Sydney and an Honours degree in geophysics from the University of Tasmania to his resume.

With both industry and high level government experience, Dr Sayers is a highly regarded, and widely published, interpretational geoscientist who has worked on many of Australia's most successful geological projects. His work has included the Cooper, Perth, Bowen and Warburton basins onshore, and Gippsland, North West Shelf, Exmouth and Great Australian Bight offshore.

Dr Sayers foreign experience includes Turkey, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Thailand, Nigeria and Mexico. He comes to Central from his previous position as Team Leader for the Petroleum and Marine Division of Geoscience Australia.

Nathan Palmer is the third new member on the Central Petroleum team, a geophysicist from Western Australia with a First Class Honours degree from Curtin University. He comes to Central after a career with WesternGeco, working on both onshore and offshore exploration and production seismic acquisition, programming and analysis.

As Group Leader of a team of geophysicists, his management covered project processing, planning workflow, and all aspects of data processing, analysis and presentation.

Emmanual Cocodia, the fourth new member on the Central Petroleum Team, adds 8 years experience with Nexen and Sasol as a geoscientist, with well developed skills in petroleum geology and geophysics. He has worked in the oil basins of Australia, Gabon, Nigeria, Equatorial Guinea, Mozambique and the North Sea in exploration, development and operations. He holds a post graduate Diploma in Management from the London School of Economics and a Masters Degree and DIC in geoscience from the prestigious Imperial College in London.

Finally, UWA Engineering Honours graduate, Damian Theseira, has been appointed as a junior Drilling Engineer and will be assisting Mr Thorsen in drilling planning and execution.

Tags: Central Petroleum Limited