Paul Blakeley was busy helping to run the Asian business of Canadian giant Talisman Energy when the group was snapped up by Spanish rival Repsol in 2014.
He and some ex-Talisman colleagues have now returned for what Blakeley calls “unfinished business” in the Asia-Pacific region with oil and gas producer Jadestone Energy.
Listed in London and Toronto, Jadestone is one of a growing band of newcomers buying fields from the oil majors as they move on to new areas.
The upstarts hope to use more efficient methods to work the fields at lower cost. The strategy helped Blakeley build Talisman’s North Sea business into one of the biggest during the 1990s. (It also helped win Blakeley, now chief executive of Jadestone, an OBE for services