Adrian Jones has 24 years’ of broad petroleum experience with both operators and contractors including Marathon, Baker Hughes INTEQ, Transocean and Oilexco North Sea Limited. Between 2005 and 2009, Adrian was the Drilling and Completion Manager for Oilexco North Sea Limited which during this period was the most active operator of exploration and appraisal wells in the UK sector of the North Sea.

Adrian is an experienced professional with over 24 years within the industry including design and supervision of drilling, completions, workovers and well testing operations. Adrian has an MSc in Petroleum Engineering from Imperial College, London.


Mike Coulthard | Vice President Engineering

Mike Coulthard has over 30 years experience in the petroleum industry, predominantly offshore UK. He has worked in most areas of the upstream business in drilling, completion, conceptual field design, project management and execution through to Operations.

He has won a number of awards for bringing innovation to the North Sea through the application of new technology. He holds a Bachelor of Science Honours Degree in Petroleum Engineering from Imperial College London.



Mike Cooper | Vice President Exploration & Subsurface

Mike has 31 years experience in exploration and subsurface predominantly gained in the North Sea, West Africa & Australasia. Formerly Exploration & Subsurface Manager for EnQuest plc from inception to end of first year’s (£1 billion market cap) launch. Worked in frontier exploration through late life mature developments including the Dumbarton, Affleck, Broom, Gryphon, Ninian, Thistle & Murchison oilfields. Worked for oil & gas companies including BP, Lundin, Amoco, Kerr-McGee, Maersk, Oryx & DECC. Experienced IPO launches, A&D experience, reserves auditing and exploration & appraisal programmes. Subsea & fixed platform operations experience in a range of offshore regions.

Mike has a Masters Degree in Petroleum Geochemistry from Newcastle University and a Bachelors Degree (Hons) in Geological Sciences from the University of Leeds. Former director of the Petroleum Exploration Society of Great Britain and founder of DEVEX and PROSPEX industry conference forums.

Jon Ashdown | Principal Reservoir Engineer

Jon Ashdown has over 23 years varied operations and subsurface experience working with companies such as Petro-Canada, Agip UK, ARCO, Amerada Hess and BP predominantly in the North Sea. He has extensive field development and reservoir management experience, with a strong ethos of delivery and quality of insight. Jon also has strong subsurface technical and reservoir engineering skills. Jon also has experience of interface with non-subsurface disciplines: well operations and facilities engineering and commercial. He retains very strong hands-on technical skills and in recent years Jon has led teams helping to rejuvenate and bring fields onto production, as well as undertaking reservoir simulation and other technical work and the evaluation of reserves. He has a B.Sc in Mechanical Engineering from University of Birmingham and an M.Eng Petroleum Engineering from Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh.