Who we are

We enhance mature oil and gas fields to make them safer, cleaner, and more productive.

Our Vision

Be the worldwide preferred partner of mature oil and gas resources owners to maximize their asset’s potential and reduce their environmental footprint.

Our Mission

XP is an upstream oil and gas operating company.

We are managing and investing in mature assets using fit for purpose technologies to enhance production and reserves, to increase the fields efficiency and reduce their environmental footprint to make them more sustainable.

We are an effective, transparent, and reliable partner for assets holders, striving for the highest standards of excellence for our employees, our shareholders and for the communities living in the area of our operations.

Our Values

XP’s culture has been built over time by everyone embracing these values which are now an evidence.

People: At the core of our operations are women and men who every day strive to have a positive impact on their community, the environment, without injuries and without reliability and quality incidents.

Integrity: We do not compromise on ethical behavior and operational excellence. We always choose the right way, in a fair and transparent manner.

Sustainability: We transform mature oil and gas fields to make them safer and greener and therefore more sustainable for a longer time.

Results Oriented: We are an agile company, empowering workers on the front line to have initiatives and be more efficient.

Innovative: It’s in our nature and value added to learn from the past and proactively challenge convention by think creatively and differently. From commercial to technical, we seek out new ways to operate.

2005

The beginnings of XP

XP was founded by two Schlumberger managers, Michel Louboutin and David Martinon. Their aim: to grow, extend and improve on the success of the Production Enhancement Contract they implemented with Romgaz in Romania.

2010

Aquisition of eigth Relinquished fields

To build credential we decided to acquire first eight relinquished assets in Romania and with the financial support of private equity (Lime Rock Partners) to appraise and redevelop these assets. In 2010 we signed our first Production Enhancement Contract with MOL for the Sarkadkersztur gas field in Hungary.

2012

PEC Timiș awarded by OMV Petrom

In 2012, XP has been awarded by OMV Petrom, a large Production Enhancement Service Contract for 15 years for all the mature oil and gas fields in the Timisoara area in Romania (13 fields in total with more than 150 active wells).

2013

Lime Rock Partners exit

In 2013 the founders and GMS Holdings bought back Lime Rock Partners shares. The company is since then fully owned by the management and related parties.

2016

Acquisition of Petrofac Romanian entity

Three years later, in 2016, we acquired Petrofac’s Production Enhancement Contract with OMV Petrom. The PEC has a 15 years span and produces from seven mature oil and gas fields in Craiova county, Romania.

2020

Established Ukrainian Operations

Naftogaz Group and XP have signed the first ever full-scale PEC in the history of Ukraine’s oil and gas industry, to increase hydrocarbon production on fields of JSC Ukrgasvydobuvannya in Western Ukraine.

2022

Expert Petroleum becomes XP

Since its inception in 2005, for 18 years, Expert Petroleum has been focusing on redeveloping mature oil and gas fields to make them safer, greener, and more productive. Our expertise has supported not only these fields expansion but also our own. Based on this strong experience, we changed the name of the title of our company to XP to continue our journey and support our partners even further towards sustainable upstream operations.

1’000 Full time employees

+18.3 MM Boe of hydrocarbons produced since ‘13 (incl. MM 5.4 boe incremental)

460 Well workovers performed since ‘13 (incl. 15 new wells)

28 fields under management in 2 countries

1,300 Operated wells, 600+ producing

130+ MM USD XP funded investment in the assets’ development

-87% Green House Gas intensity (tCO2eq/toe) reduced by 87% since 2013

One thousand women and men who every day strive to have a positive impact on their community.

Board of Directors

Ghiath SUKHTIAN

Chairman

Ghiath M. Sukhtian is a leading entrepreneur who has been working in the MENA region’s telecommunications, pharmaceuticals and agricultural sectors for the past 48 years. He is a board member of Astra Industrial Group (AIG – Saudi Arabia), Palestine Telecommunications (Palestine), VTEL Holdings (Dubai), Ogier Electronics (UK), United Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Company (Jordan). He is Chairman & founder of MSPharma, Agri Sciences Izmir Turkey, as well as several other leading regional companies. Mr. Sukhtian is a member of the World President’s Organization (WPO), and serves on several non-profit boards including Georgetown University’s Center for Contemporary Arab Studies as well as Microfund for Women where he is Chairman. He has completed his studies at the American University of Beirut-Lebanon and University of Houston/Texas in Economics.

Jean CHEVALLIER

Independent Director

Expert Petroleum welcomes Jean Chevallier as an independent director of the company. During his diverse 38-years career with Schlumberger, Jean has held a variety of senior management and engineering positions in Schlumberger’s Oilfield Services Drilling business, and regional management positions with the Well Testing business unit. He was also Vice President Industry Affairs, the first Chief Information Officer at Schlumberger and President of Omnes a joint venture with Cable & Wireless. Jean retired from Schlumberger in 2009 and co-founded IDO, an NGO which is helping rural communities in less developed countries build sustainable drinking water supply systems. Jean holds an engineering degree from ENSTA in Paris.

Michel LOUBOUTIN

COO

Co-founder of Expert Petroleum in 2006, Michel has 39 years’ experience in Oil & gas industry, and spent 24 years with Schlumberger group. He has broad experience in production, development and mature asset rehabilitation management. He managed several large integrated production enhancement projects in Norway and Venezuela for Shell and in Romania with Romgaz and OMV Petrom. Michel worked 19 years in Romania and Central and eastern Europe region. He has a Petroleum Engineering Master degree from Herriot Watt, and Villanova University in Project Management.

David MARTINON

CEO

Before co-founding Expert Petroleum in 2006. David spent all of his career in Schlumberger where he started as a Well testing Field Engineer in South East Asia up to the position of Manager Mergers and Acquisitions at Schlumberger Limited in Paris. David has been involved in various production enhancement projects in particular in Indonesia. He has a broad understanding of the Oil & Gas industry from operational and strategic perspectives. He holds an engineering degree from INSA, France and an MBA from INSEAD.

Faisal SUKHTIAN

Director

Faisal Sukhtian is the Executive Director at GMS Holdings. In addition to managing the operations of GMS Holdings, Faisal oversees a number of investments within the GMS Holdings portfolio and serves as a director on the company’s board. Prior to joining GMS Holdings, Faisal worked at JP Morgan’s investment bank in New York where he worked on a number of M&A, debt and equity transactions serving clients in the industrials and transportation sector. Faisal holds a Bachelors of Science in International Economics from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and an MBA from Columbia Business School.

Bart WAUTERICKX

Non-Executive Director

Bart has 30+ years of professional C-level experience in different industries, including as CEO of The Sniffers for 7 years until 2022. At The Sniffers he advised and supported O&G companies around the world on emissions reduction and improvement of their pipeline integrity. In 30 years, The Sniffers has executed more than 9.000 emissions reduction projects, with a focus on VOC and Methane reduction. Bart holds a Master of Applied Mechanical Engineering from the University of Leuven Belgium and a Bachelor of Business Administration from the University of Louvain La Neuve Belgium. He is currently the Managing Director of Equans Industry North Division in Belgium.

Corporate Management Team

Rikhard BILYY

Ukraine Operations & Production Manager

Rikhard is a petroleum engineer, with more than 35 years of experience in the upstream industry in engineering and management positions. Before joining XP in 2020, Rikhard was an independent O&G advisor and worked for 23 years with Poltava Petroleum Company part of JKX Oil and Gas, managing all company activities related to fields development including geology, drilling, production and surface infrastructure. Rikhard has a Petroleum Engineering degree from Ivano-Frankivsk Oil and Gas University, Holding a Professional Certificate in Management from The Open University, UK and completed numerous high level specialized technical courses in UK and US. He is the past chairperson of SPE Ukraine.

Daniela BRICEAG

HR Manager

Senior HR Professional with more than 15 year experience in building and optimizing organizational processes for maximizing the business results. As an HR consultant, she has been involved in various M&A and privatization projects by implementing key actions that ensured full people support thus making the difference for success. Before joining Expert Petroleum team in January 2013, Daniela worked for a number of big international organizations such as KPMG and ABN AMRO Bank. Daniela has master degree in Applied Electronics, an MBA from University of Bristol and she is an active member of CIPD (Certified Institute of Professional Development).

Askhat DUISALIYEV

General Director, XP Kazakhstan

With over 20 years of experience in the oil & gas industry, before joining XP, Askhat has spent three years as the Director of the Oilfield Services and Crude Hydrocarbon Disposal Projects Department at KazMunaiGaz (the largest Kazakhstan National Oil Company). During this time, he played a pivotal role in ensuring the efficiency and uninterrupted production of major oil-producing assets. His contributions led to the enhancement of production, operations optimizations and successful implementation of new technologies. He has also held leadership positions in various oilfield services companies, including the position of the President of KazPetroDrilling, the largest private oilfield services company in Kazakhstan. Under his guidance, the Group of ten oilfield services companies experienced remarkable growth and expanded their service offerings, establishing themselves as industry leaders. Askhat holds a Master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering of oilfield equipment, and MBA from ALMA University.

Florian GROSU

Romania Country Manager

Florian Grosu has 34 years of O&G international experience. He has a strong background in geology, petrophysics, geophysics and reservoir engineering including considerable experience in the rehabilitation of mature fields in Romania. Florian worked 21 years for OMV/Petrom in Romania and in Kazakhstan in various technical and management position. Then he joined Schlumberger for the production enhancement project of the Hassi Messaoud giant oil field in Algeria. There he was responsible for the R2T (Reservoir to Tank) team, which covered all activities from reservoir, drilling and production to transportation. He worked as lead geologist for the development phase of the giant gas-condensate field Karachaganak from Kazakhstan. In 2010 he joined Expert Petroleum in Romania as Assets Director Romania. Florian graduated the Executive Master Program from ESCP Europe.

Cristian ITU

Business Services Manager

Cristian has over 18 years of experience in Business Advisory and Auditing, Project Management, Business Process Improvement, IT Governance and ERP systems implementation. Before joining our team, Cristian worked for 12 years in KPMG Romania – Management Consulting. Within Expert Petroleum, Cristian coordinates the Internal Audit, he is also in-charge with IT Governance and Process Improvement. Cristian is Project Management Professional (PMP), Certified Chartered Accountant (ACCA), Certified Information System Auditor (CISA), Certified in the Governance of Enterprise IT (CGEIT) and has M.Sc. in Financial Analysis.

Lavinia PREDESCU

CFO

Lavinia previously worked for KPMG Romania where she started as Audit Assistant up to the position of Audit Manager. She is a member of ACCA and CAFR, she holds a master degree in Financial and Stock Exchange Management (ASE) and a master in management from ESC Paris.

Ciprian RUS

HSSE and Operations Decarbonization Manager

Ciprian has a law degree from Tibiscus University, Timisoara. Ciprian has more than 10 years of QHSE experience first with Schlumberger for a large gas field production enhancement project in Romania, then with Expert Petroleum for the last 4 years. Ciprian leadership in QHSE has been demonstrated by the excellent QHSE track record of the company and its various ISO certification.

Alex ȘERBAN

Subsurface New Ventures Manager

Alex is a geoscientist with 15 years of O&G international experience. He has a background in geology and geophysics and has worked on various projects from from appraisal stage, to field development and mature asset rehabilitation. Before joining Expert Petroleum in 2013 he spent 8 years working for Schlumberger as a consulting geologist in various projects/environments from Romania, North Africa and Gulf of Mexico area. Alex holds a B.Sc. degree in geophysics and a M.Sc. degree in geology from University from Bucharest.

Victoria SERGEEVA

Ukraine Deputy Country Manager

Victoria is external affairs, business development and international trade professional skilled in communications, negotiations, contracts, due diligence, international financing, international trade, market promotion, management of targeted projects and ad-hoc teams. She counseled Black Sea Oil & Gas SRL, worked for 8 years for DEA Deutsche Erdoel AG as deputy director in Ukraine, before for Marathon Oil as GR manager in Ukraine, for U.S. Embassy in Ukraine as commercial specialist handling the energy sector. Victoria holds a degree in computer system engineering from National Technical University “Kyiv Polytechnic Institute”, Ukraine, and a professional diploma in management from The Open University, Milton Keynes, UK.

Octavian VASILE

Chief Procurement Officer

Certified procurement professional (CPP), Certified QA/QC professional and EU Public Procurement Professional, Octavian has more than 14 years of experience in Business Support area covering quality, purchasing and commercial side. Commercial and Procurement Manager experienced with a good knowledge of E&P in O&G Industry and strong leadership skills he coordinated during the time complex teams covering all Supply Chain and Commercial Area in domestic and international projects implementing and applying global procurement and commercial best practice with proved results. He is member of APICS since 2012. With a proactive attitude he is always open for new challenges in his professional life.

The board is constituted of five directors, of which four represent the shareholders, one is an independent director and three of them are non-executives. They meet at least twice a year and receive monthly a detailed management report. Board meeting information is sent a week before the meeting.

Advice is addressed to the management in the development of strategic priorities and plans that align with the mission of the organization and the best interests of stakeholders, priorities that have an appropriate short-, mid- and long-range focus. The directors also actively monitor management’s execution of approved strategic plans, as well as the transparency and adequacy of internal and external communication of strategic plans.

The BOD reviews and approves company strategy, annual operating plans and financial plans. It also monitors management execution against established budgets as well as alignment with strategic objectives of the organization.

The directors also set the ethical tenor for the company, while management adopts and implements policies and procedures designed to promote both legal compliance and appropriate standards of honesty, integrity and ethics throughout the organization.

They understand and appropriately monitor the company’s strategic, operational, financial and compliance risk exposures, and collaborate with management in setting risk appetite, tolerances and alignment with strategic priorities.

XP prepares and presents all financial statements and reporting in accordance with IFRS. Our financial statements are audited in accordance with International Standards on Auditing. We comply with all disclosure requirements under applicable law, regulations and listing rules (fair disclosure).

Shareholders are provided with information and documentation upon their request and as specified by applicable law. We also have an internal audit function.

XP has a significant workforce, the company takes all measures to ensure that employees work in a supportive environment, focusing on safe working conditions and aiming for fair treatment.

There are a number of internal procedures and regulations dealing with different aspects of the social field and they present in detail processes such as staff recruitment, training, rights and obligations, work conduct and other relevant aspects of working in a social environment. The Internal Regulation and the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) are conceived in accordance with the legislation in force.

Their aim, to create a work environment focused on equal opportunities and mutual respect, as well as promoting transparency, where anyone can express their ideas freely without fear of reprisal.

Being a responsible organization, XP is concerned with the well-being of its employees and has taken all necessary measures to protect their health and safety, including the prevention and mitigation of professional risks.

In return, employees comply with these measures and are being encouraged to inform the management of any proposal of improvement considered necessary.

XP is an oil and gas operator with a strong track-record in production enhancement and operations decarbonization, which strives to make a positive impact. You can learn more about XP, our value proposition, and our business model by following the link

Our identity

Since 2005, we have kept our same mission and vision but continuously improving our corporate governance as our stakeholders base continue to grow internationally.