Former head of Kommersant joins Matra Petroleum board
MOSCOW. July 11 (Interfax) - Maxim Barsky is changing the management team at independent oil and gas company Matra Petroleum, in which he owns 29.8% of charter capital and of which he was appointed general director in May 2012.
Vladimir Lensky has been appointed managing director and a member of the board of directors. Lensky is known for his posts as general director of the Kommersant publishing house in 2005 and as executive director of NTV+ before that. From 2007 until he joined Matra Petroleum, Lensky was a managing partner at Soong Consultants Ltd.
Ekaterina Sapozhnikova has been appointed financial director. She previously held the same post at West Siberian Resources, which Barsky also headed.
Matra Petroleum owns LLC Arkhangelovskoe, which holds the license for the Arkhangelovskoe site in Orenburg region. The Sokolovskoe field has been opened within the site. The field has estimated C3 resources of 35.5 million barrels of oil equivalent and C2 reserves of 15.1 million barrels.
Barsky headed West Siberian Resources from 2004-2009. It later became part of Alliance Oil Company through a merger. He became deputy chairman of TNK-BP in 2009 and for a long time was considered the future head of the company. However, Barsky quit TNK-BP at the end of 2011.
Barsky announced in May 2012 that he wanted to develop a new project, buying 29.8% of Matra Petroleum. Sources said Matra Petroleum was looking into buying Spain's Vetra, which owns hydrocarbon resources in Latin America, in partnership with the AAR (Alfa-Access-Renova) consortium (the Russian shareholder of TNK-BP).
