MOROCCO Tendrara sale freeze: Sound Energy’s bad call

摘要

The British junior active in Morocco Sound Energy is having a much harder time selling 51% of its assets in the Tendrara block, Oriental region, than it had planned. The firm has revealed that talks with a potential buyer have stalled as it was not able to provide enough financial guarantees. This leaves Sound Energy’s temporary managing director Mohammed Seghiri in rather an awkward position. The announcement of the freeze comes shortly after three stalwarts left after running the company for years. The firm can no longer count on its financial director John Joseph Traynor, who according to our information, jumped ship in December. Traynor had previously been in charge of Shell’s investor relations. He is now a senior advisor at Wintershall DEA, a German junior active in Egypt and Libya. Traynor’s departure left in the wake of an overhaul of Sound Energy’s board of directors in November, following the announcement it had found a buyer for its Tendrara assets. The company chairman Simon Howard Davies and managing director James Parsons left shortly thereafter. With the three head of the firm gone and no surefire buyer in sight, the man now in charge, Seghiri, a French national, has an explosive situation on his hands. He will be able to draw on the help of the new executive chairman Graham Lyon, a former vice president at Petro-Canada, who was appointed head of the board on February 26.