David Callaghan - Managing Director
Ian Shann - Legal Counsel
David Orth - Director
Dr Jan Resnick
Walter Tieleman - Principal Consultant
Mark Fenton - Principal Consultant
Doug Ellis - Senior Level Drilling Engineer
Anne Furey - Grants & Concessions
Antonio Vieira - Oil & Gas Petroleum Engineer
Maria Schmidt – Systems Administrator

Key Personnel

David Callaghan - Managing Director

David has over 25 years senior management experience in both the financial and business services sectors. He has worked with global companies, local and international start-ups and established businesses.

After a successful career in finance raising seed capital, arranging joint ventures, merchant banking and IPOs he moved into the Oil & Gas Industry. There he developed Resource Personnel - specialists in upstream oil & gas field development projects. His business experience includes recruitment, organising specialist technical teams to advance and evaluate projects, and of course corporate finance often involving substantial assets.

In addition, he has given business coaching, management and development advice to many senior executives and organisations.

David brings his experience, his communication skills and a proven track record to Oil Advisers, now his primary focus. He heads a team of professional experts who determine objectives, and generate effective approaches to creating value and consummating fiscal deals.
 

Ian Shann - Legal Counsel

Ian has been involved in business in both the private and public sectors for almost 40 years.

Until 2007, Ian owned and managed his own legal firm in Perth for about 15 years with a team of up to twenty lawyers and support staff. The firm was one of the largest specialist family law organisations in Western Australia and developed a reputation for achieving high rates of negotiated settlements with a strong focus on solutions. Ian’s particular focus was on financial settlements and dealt with many complex and high value property matters throughout the State. He was a nationally Accredited Family Law Specialist. Prior to specialisation in family law, Ian was partner of a firm which concentrated on commercial and corporate matters.

Prior to coming to Western Australia in 1986, Ian owned and managed several businesses involved in aquaculture, property development and construction in Queensland, the Northern Territory and Indonesia.

Ian has also worked as a diplomat for the Commonwealth Government, being posted to West Africa and the South Pacific and was a legal officer involved in treaty negotiations in the Attorney General’s Department. He also worked with the New Zealand Ministry for Foreign Affairs in Wellington.
 

David Orth - Director

David has over 30 years of experience in the oil and gas industry beginning as an exploration geologist with Amoco International Oil Company from 1979 to 1985 based first in Houston where he dealt with West Africa and the Middle East. He was later assigned to London to handle the North Sea.

David joined BHP Petroleum in 1985 and was responsible for exploration and operations in South East Asia. He spent three years in Dubai as General Manager for the Middle East prior to being seconded to Canada for a year and then returned to Melbourne to assume the responsibility for Asian activities concentrating on China General Manager for new business development.

After a brief stint with Triton Energy as their General Manager in China, he established International Petroleum Consultancy in 1996 to handle project management and technical assessments in Australia and the Middle East to include north-eastern Africa.

He has served as an Executive Director and COO for Carnarvon Petroleum, Executive Director and CEO for Coretrack, and MD for Pan Pacific Gold all ASX listed companies.
 

Dr Jan Resnick

Jan has over 32 years experience advising business people. He has worked with high level executives and other levels of management from such companies as BP, National Westminster Bank, Bankwest, United Group, OneSteel, BHP Billiton, Chevron, Woodside, Royal Dutch Shell and others.

He has extensive investment experience in Europe and Australia since 1986. For 12 years he was responsible for running a Unit Trust that focussed on the resources sector.

Jan was Managing Director of The Churchill Clinic (Inc) for 15 years which grew to become the largest accredited training organisation of its type in Australia and New Zealand and now a registered charity. He was Founding President of his professional association and served on the management committee for 10 years. He has a PhD in General Psychology and has extensive clinical experience as a psychotherapist. He is also accredited by the Royal Australian New Zealand College of Psychiatrists as a recognized supervisor for psychiatry registrars.

His mix of business and investment experience combined with a long-standing professional life working with individuals and groups over many years provides a unique background for management consulting, coaching and training.
 

Walter Tieleman - Principal Consultant

Walter is a financial and tax specialist who has been involved in advising the minerals resources industry for a period of over 25 years.

His experience includes representation of the minerals industry through being a Board member of the Association of Mining and Exploration Companies (AMEC).

Walter has had considerable experience in capital raisings, capital management and general corporate restructuring, particularly from a taxation perspective. Much of this work has had an international dimension.
 

Doug Ellis - Senior Level Drilling Engineer

Doug Ellis has been in the drilling business for over 30 years, beginning in the US and then internationally. He moved to Australia in 1992 and has been involved in local projects as well as those in SE Asia and the Middle East. Doug has been an essential team member on several major oil and gas projects and has worked for three major international oil companies.

Currently, Doug is a Senior Level Drilling Engineer, specialising in concept selection, front end engineering and all aspects of Well Design.

Doug’s main areas of proficiency include the following

Doug brings to the team extensive well engineering and field experience combined with a strong business sense, and interpersonal, organizational, communication and facilitation skills. He possesses a good understanding of the subsurface disciplines including geology, reservoir engineering, and petrophysics and is comfortable working in multi-disciplinary team environments.
 

Anne Furey - Grants & Concessions

Anne has more than 20 years experience in Government and the private sector, as well as running her own successful consulting business. Anne has a background in scientific research, Government policy development, and most recently has been assisting companies to secure Government grant funding and concessions through her own consultancy.

Anne has worked closely with oil and gas services companies, assisting them to identify and capitalize on appropriate Government programs which can add value to their bottom line. Anne has extensive research and communication skills and understands technical issues, project planning and research and development processes.

Anne is familiar with a number of Government programs which provide grants and concessions to Australian companies involved in activities including research and development, export market development and large scale oil and gas projects. One such program is the Enhanced Projects Bylaws Scheme which provides significant cash benefits through a tariff duty concession for goods used on large scale projects where expenditure on capital goods exceeds $10 million.
In addition, Anne will be assisting Oil Advisers with corporate and technical consulting as well as business development activities.
 

Antonio Vieira - Oil & Gas Petroleum Engineer

Antonio is an experienced operations manager with over 30 years oil and gas industry experience based both in Australia and internationally. Antonio has developed a blend of operational, commercial, technical, project management and negotiation skills. Antonio will bring along an extensive network of key contacts within several institutions and governments from all over Africa.

Prior to a brief passage through Baraka Petroleum, as their Latin America Asset Manager, Antonio worked for Roc Oil as Representative Africa, as well as President of Roc Oil Cabinda. His international and domestic experience, particularly in remote locations demonstrates his capacity to work in any operational environment either with large or small companies. He began his professional career with Fina and Texaco, for whom he worked eight years of his formative career.

Antonio is qualified in both Civil (Universidade de Luanda) and Petroleum Engineering (Texas A & M). He has pursued post-graduate studies in Business Administration in Portugal (Instituto Certomodo). He is an active member of the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) as well as of the European Association of Geoscientists & Engineers (EAGE). Antonio speaks nine languages.
 
 

Maria Schmidt – Systems Administrator

Maria has significant experience in CAD design systems, PLC programming, electrical design, site construction and commissioning, database management and documentation processing. She enjoys learning and then mastering new software programs.

Maria is consolidating and developing different systems to stream-line, track and expedite the business operations of Oil Advisers. She is experienced in all areas of office administration. As systems administrator, she uses her data organisation and problem solving abilities methodically and efficiently to create computer-based and web-based internet systems which inter-face with each other and with the key personnel of the company. She is a self-motivated, pro-active, creative thinker who brings a fresh and independent perspective to the team at Oil Advisers.

She began her career working in the Western Australian mining industry and has now sought to expand into Oil & Gas. Maria has a Diploma in Electrical Engineering, and a Bachelor of Commerce in Accounting & Taxation.

Her personal philosophy is if we make people our focus then results will be our goal.