White Nile recruits chief operations officer for Sudan

Nov 8, 2005 (LONDON) — White Nile, the Aim-listed oil and gas exploration company, has hired a chief operations officer to oversee its controversial project in Sudan.

Philip Ward has joined White Nile from the Sudanese division of Lundin Petroleum, the Swedish group.

White Nile was founded by Phil Edmonds, the former England cricketer, and Andrew Groves, his business partner. It listed on Aim in February without any assets, and its shares rose from 10p to 138�p in the first week of trading. The stock was then suspended after White Nile announced it had acquired a stake in an oil project known as Block Ba in war-torn southern Sudan.

The rapid rise in the group’s share price led to worries that the Aim oil and gas boom had got out of hand, and White Nile’s ownership of Block Ba was challenged by Total of France, which had owned drilling rights in the 1970s.

Total pulled out of Sudan in the 1980s but re-signed a deal with the northern government in Khartoum in January.

Last year White Nile signed a deal on Block Ba with the breakaway government of Southern Sudan, and yesterday said it remained confident its claim was legitimate. The shares closed unchanged at 98p.

The appointment of a chief operations officer at White Nile signals that Mr Edmonds and Mr Groves are handing over the daily running of the company to someone with more experience in the oil industry, leaving them more time for deal-making. While this should please investors, questions remain over White Nile’s ownership of Block Ba and the political stability of Sudan. The stock is still a gamble.