About Us
BOARD
Oye Akindele Obe (BSc, MBA, MAICD)
Managing Director
Mr Obe is the founder of AKATA Resources. He has over 20 years experience in the resources industry including 12 years in technical, management and strategy consulting roles in upstream oil and gas. His international career began with Schlumberger Oilfield Services where he worked extensively in oilfield development projects in the Niger Delta and in Asia for companies such as Shell, Chevron, ExxonMobil, Texaco, Elf, Cairns Energy, CTOC, CPOC and WAPET.
As a senior manager at Accenture Strategic Services Australia, Mr Obe planned and delivered strategy and operations improvement projects at Petronas, CNOOC, PTTEP and Siam Petrochemicals. Mr Obe was also an Executive Vice President at a Perth-based simulation technology company focused on the global mining sector. He holds an MBA from Cranfield School of Management UK, a BSc (Hons) in Mechanical Engineering from Obafemi Awolowo University Nigeria, is a member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors and the Society of Petroleum Engineers. He is a dual citizen of Nigeria and Australia.
Dennis Karp (BCom)
Non-Executive Director
Mr Karp commenced his career in the Australian financial markets in 1983 and gained invaluable experience through his involvement in the markets in the following fifteen years as Australia dealt with the impacts of deregulation, derivative product innovation and overseas crises.
He was Head of Trading at HSBC Australia until joining Tennant Metals in 1997. At HSBC Australia he carried responsibility for the bank’s interest rate, foreign exchange and proprietary risk management.
Mr Karp is the managing director of Tennant Metals and has been involved in the global physical commodity markets since 1997. He holds a Bachelor of Commerce from the University of Cape Town.
Roger Harvey (BCom, CA, FTIA)
Non-Executive Director & Company Secretary
Mr Harvey is a Senior Manager with Grant Thornton Australia, a member of Grant Thornton International, one of the largest accounting and consulting firms providing assurance, tax and specialist advice through firms in over 100 countries.
Mr Harvey specialises in assisting Privately Held Businesses and has experience in assisting in company secretarial procedures for private companies.
He has over 20 years experience in the accounting profession including 4 years with PriceWaterhouse Coopers, has been a Fellow of the Taxation Institute of Australia for 13 years and a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants for 15 years.
TECHNICAL ADVISORY COMMITTEE
Jeff Skates (BSc, MBA)
Mr Skates has more than 20 years experience as a reservoir engineer, initially focused on offshore Western Australia with Woodside and Apache Corporation.
From 1998 to 2003, Mr Skates worked for Mitsubishi Corporation, evaluating more than 100 acquisition and farm-in opportunities across Asia and Australasia. Since 2003, he has principally consulted to Argonaut, a Perth-based investment banking firm, where he assesses the technical aspects of new oil & gas opportunities world-wide.
Mr Skates is a member of the Society for Petroleum Engineers and holds a B. Sc (Hons) and an MBA from the University of Western Australia.
André DiBiagio (BSc, MSc)
Mr DiBiagio is a co-Founder and director of Blade Petroleum Limited, an independent Australia-based, Philippines focused E&P company, an executive director of IPS Australasia, a leading integrated drilling project management and completions engineering consultancy in the Asia Pacific region and a co-founder of Oslo, Norway based IT services firm Intility AS.
He has more than 20 years of technical and management experience from the upstream oil and gas industry gained with several large international operators and independents, principally in the areas of drilling engineering and drilling project management.
Mr DiBiagio has a BSc (Hons) in Offshore Engineering obtained from Herriot-Watt University in Edinburg and an MSc in Petroleum Engineering obtained at the Royal School of Mines, Imperial College London.
Derick Markwell (BEng, MIEAust, MAICD)
Mr Markwell is an oil and gas facilities specialist with over 28 years of international experience. He has expertise in early stage evaluation and planning of developments and has led the definition of many highly successful and innovative concepts for offshore marginal field developments used by Chevron, Apache, Murphy and Talisman.
Mr Markwell is Founder and Managing Director of Atlas EPM, a company that specialises in the evaluation and engineering of small oil and gas developments. Prior to Atlas EPM, he co-founded and was Executive Director at ICON Engineering, a provider of oilfield engineering and construction services in Australia and Asia. Previous to ICON, he was the Chief Facilities Engineer for Chevron’s Barrow Island asset, a mature onshore oilfield, which he modernised to keep commercial. Mr Markwell has a B.E. (Hons) Civil from University of Queensland, is a Member of Institution of Engineers Australia, the Society of Petroleum Engineers, and the Australian Institute of Company Directors.
