US Energy (market cap $37 million) has appointed Mark Zajac as its new CFO. Ryan Smith, who had been CFO since May 2017, was appointed CEO in December 2019. He had been combining the two roles since then.

The company has its head office just west of the Galleria area. Historically it had interests in the Williston Basin, North Dakota and South Texas. However, in 2022 it completed a deal for about $100 million where the sellers sold their properties in the Permian and the Mid-Continent in return for an 80% equity stake in US Energy. The company has since made a couple of smaller bolt-on acquisitions.

Mr. Zajac retired from KPMG in February 2021 where he was a Partner and National Audit Industry Leader for Oil and Gas. He will receive a base salary of $255,000.

SEC filing – 8-K US Energy CFO

Amplify Energy has appointed Jim Frew as its new CFO. He replaces Jason McGlynn who resigned last month to become the CFO at Monarch Bioenergy.

Amplify Energy was formed in 2019 from the all-stock merger of Tulsa-based Midstates Petroleum and what was Memorial Production Partners. It has its head office in downtown Houston.

The company primarily operates mature wells in Oklahoma and East Texas, though last week it announced that it had received the required regulatory approvals to restart its operations in offshore Southern California. See my post last month for the background on this.

Previously, Mr. Frew worked for Linn Energy between 2011 and 2018 in Business Development and as VP of Marketing and Midstream. He was the CFO of Riviera Resources, which was spun out of Linn, from August 2018 to October 2020. Linn Energy grew rapidly by acquisitions between 2007 and 2014 before filing for bankruptcy in 2016 with debts of over $8 billion. Riviera ended up selling all its assets and liquidating itself (outside bankruptcy) in 2020.

Mr. Frew and Martyn Willsher, the Amplify CEO, worked together at JM Huber earlier in their careers. Most recently, Mr. Frew was a Partner in Sentinel Petroleum, a privately-held operator of wells in the Western Anadarko Basin of Oklahoma.

Last month, Amplify appointed Dan Furbee as its new COO. He, too, was a partner in Sentinel Petroleum and also worked at Linn Energy and Riviera Resources.

Mr. Frew will receive a base salary of $364,000

SEC filing – Amplify Energy – new CFO

Janet Yang, CFO of W&T Offshore, has resigned, effective May 11, 2023 as she is relocating to another city for family reasons. Trey Hartman, currently Chief Accounting Officer, has been appointed interim CFO. The company will conduct a permanent search for her successor.

W&T Offshore holds working interests in 47 offshore fields in the Gulf of Mexico. It has a market capitalization of $741 million.

Ms. Yang joined the company in December 2008 as a Finance Manager. She was appointed Acting CFO in August 2018. Her position became permanent three months later.

Mr. Hartman joined the company in April 2021 and was promoted to his current role in May 2022. He has previously been the Controller at Sheridan Production and Halcon Resources (that company appointed a new CEO this week) and Assistant Controller at Petrohawk (before and after its takeover by BHP).

SEC filing – WTI CFO departure

Luca Pacioli – the father of accounting

Jason McGlynn has resigned as CFO of Amplify Energy, effective March 17, 2023. He had been the CFO for just over two years, following the promotion of Martin Willsher from CFO to CEO. The company made no mention of its plans for a replacement.

[According to LinkedIn, Mr. McGlynn is now the CFO at Monarch Bioenergy. The company is a PE-backed joint venture between Smithfield Foods and Roeslein Alternative Energy that converts methane emissions from hog manure into natural gas].

Amplify Energy was formed in 2019 from the all-stock merger of Tulsa-based Midstates Petroleum and what was Memorial Production Partners. It has its head office in downtown Houston. Mr. McGlynn joined Midstates in 2013 as its VP of Strategic Planning, Investor Relations and Treasury.

Although the business mainly focuses on mature assets, mainly in Oklahoma and East Texas/North Louisiana, it has been in the news in the past couple of years for a pipeline it operated in offshore California that ruptured in October 2021.

The rupture occurred four miles offshore from Newport Beach and caused 588 barrels of oil to leak. A Coast Guard investigation concluded that two ships, the MSC Danit and COSCO Beijing, had sheltered in San Pedro Bay, ahead of a January 2021 storm. The winds and the waves from the storm caused the ships’ anchors to drag across the seafloor and damage the pipeline.

Last week, the companies that operated the ships, agreed to pay Amplify $96.5 million to settle all claims. During 2022, the company settled claims against it by;

• the Federal Government ($7.1 million fine and reimbursement of $5.8 million of costs)
• State of California ($4.9 million fine)
• a Class action lawsuit ($50 million settlement)

In total, Amplify estimates that it has incurred total costs of $120 million to $140 million, though it has received $87 million (through September 2022) from its insurance carriers. In addition the company has also received $46 million insurance proceeds related to the approved loss of production income.

The company is now in the process of repairing the pipeline. Before it can resume operations, it has to comply with requirements of the corrective action order of The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), which is part of the US Department of Transportation.

SEC filing – McGlynn resignation

Battalion Oil has appointed Kristen McWatters as its new CFO, effective January 26, 2023. She replaces Kevin Andrews, who has agreed to stay on until April 13 in an advisory role. Mr. Andrews had been the CFO since August 2020.

The company is based in NW Houston and has working interests in approximately 40,000 net acres in the Delaware Basin. Its market capitalization is currently $193 million.

The company was formerly known as Halcon Resources. It went into bankruptcy in August 2019. The company emerged in October 2019, having eliminated over $750 million of debt. In return, the debt holders got 91% of the newly reorganized equity. It changed its name to Battalion in January 2020.

Ms. McWatters was previously the CFO at Goodrich Petroleum, a similar E&P company to Battalion. Goodrich went into Chapter 11 in 2016, she joined as Assistant Controller in 2017. The company regained its listing in April 2017 and Ms. McWatters became CFO in December 2020. She left after Goodrich was taken private by Encap Investments in a $480 million deal.

For the past few months, Ms. McWatters has been interim Chief Accounting Officer at Perella Weinberg Partners, a publicly-traded investment bank. Perella, through its subsidiary, TPH, happened to advise Goodrich on its sale transaction.

Ms. McWatters will receive a base salary of $300,000. No severance arrangements were disclosed for Mr. Andrews in the filing announcing Ms. McWatters’ appointment. According to the last proxy, Mr. Andrews is entitled to a payment of $500,000 if his employment is terminated without cause.

SEC filing 8-K Battalion CFO

Jeff Wood, the President and CFO of Black Stone Minerals (BSM), is leaving the company at the end of February. Evan Kiefer, currently VP, Finance and Investor Relations, will become interim CFO upon Mr. Wood’s departure.

BSM has its head office in downtown Houston and is one of the largest owners and managers of oil and gas mineral rights in the USA. It has a market capitalization of $3.5 billion.

Mr. Wood joined the company in 2016 and added the additional duties of President two years later. It is not clear why Mr. Wood is leaving. The company has been performing well. It tends to hedge a big percentage of its production. That makes sense as it is primarily held as a yield stock, but does come in for occasional criticism for leaving money on the table when oil and gas prices rise rapidly, like they did earlier in 2022.

The 8-K filed with the SEC states that the company and Mr. Wood will be negotiating a severance agreement. That’s interesting because Mr. Wood already has a severance agreement in place. That would pay him 1x base salary ($358,000), plus target annual bonus (100%) plus pro-rata bonus for the year of termination. Restricted stock would also vest under the current agreement.

Mr. Kiefer joined the company in October 2013 as an analyst and was promoted to VP two years ago.

SEC 8-K filing – CFO departure