Wintershall DEA Picks Ex-Talisman CFO

BASF and LetterOne said November 6 they have agreed to appoint Paul Smith as the future chief financial officer (CFO) and board member of Wintershall DEA.

The appointment will take effect on closing of the merger of Wintershall and DEA, expected in 1H 2019 subject to regulatory approvals. It had originally been due for completion by end-2018.

Smith has over 25 years of international experience in the oil and gas industry, of which the last two years were as CFO of Vesta Energy, a small private Canadian shale oil and gas producer based in Calgary.

He was earlier the CFO of Calgary-based Talisman Energy, up to and during its sale to Spain's Repsol. Before that, he was accountable for the Canadian producer's North American operations, a business producing 180,000 barrels of oil equivalent a day (boe/d) and led its strategic shift there from a conventional gas producer to a leading shale gas producer, divesting $5bn non-core assets. For the first 15 years of his career, Smith worked for BP including as senior vice president West Siberia at TNK-BP; the head of BP’s North Sea business unit; and CFO of BP’s business in Trinidad & Tobago.

Wintershall DEA will operate in 13 countries and has pro-forma 2017 production of some 575,000 boe/d, of which almost 70% is gas. It is expected to reach 750-800,000 boe/d in the early 2020s.