Circle Oil declared the appointment of Mr. Nicholas John Clayton as a Non-Executive Director with effect from today.

Mr Clayton (48) has provided strategic and corporate finance advice to a number of public and private oil and gas companies since January 2007. He began his career at BP having obtained a first class honours degree in Business Studies, sponsored by BP, from Portsmouth Polytechnic in 1985. He was Global Head of Oil and Gas Corporate Finance for Dresdner Kleinwort Benson from 2000 to 2005 having previously been Global Head of Energy Research between 1997 and 2000. Between August 2005 and December 2006 he was Global Co-Head of Oil and Gas Corporate Finance for Canaccord Adams (now Canaccord Genuity).

Mr Clayton is currently Chairman of Bridge Resources Corp., a Canadian listed company with operations in the North Sea and North America. He also provides strategic advice to Geopark, an AIM-listed company operating in Chile and Argentina. He is an independent Non-Executive Director at Sterling Energy Plc since 2009 and is the current Chairman of their Audit Committee.

Commenting on the appointment, Thomas Anderson, chairman of Circle, said: "I am delighted to welcome Nicholas to our Board and look forward to working with him to further advance the Company. He has significant experience of both the oil and gas industry and the capital markets and will strengthen our Board as we all work together to achieve our goals."

Tags: Circle Oil plc