Boss of North Sea oil and gas producer Ithaca quits

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The chief executive of Ithaca Energy has quit the North Sea oil and gas producer, exiting as the group tries to rebound from a lacklustre first year as a public company.

The group said on Friday that Alan Bruce had agreed with the board that he would “pursue new opportunities”. Iain Lewis, finance chief, has stepped in as interim chief executive.

Bruce joined Ithaca, one of the UK’s largest producers, in 2021, and was promoted to the top job in March 2022 following the death of his predecessor, Bill Dunnett.

In one of his first moves, Ithaca agreed in April 2022 to pay up to $1.5bn for North Sea rival Siccar Point. The deal included stakes in two of the UK’s largest producing fields, Schiehallion and Mariner, and in the undeveloped Cambo and Rosebank fields. 

Bruce described the deal as “transformational” for the company as its owners, Tel-Aviv-listed Delek Group, prepared to float 12 per cent of its shares in London in November 2022. 

The IPO was one of the year’s largest in Europe and one of the first to take advantage of new UK listing rules allowing companies to list a lower proportion of their shares.

However, shares sank below their 250p issue price on the first day of trading and are now down 40 per cent since the IPO, valuing the company at about £1.4bn. 

Ithaca has publicly complained about the damaging effect of the windfall tax the UK government introduced on the sector in 2022 in response to soaring oil and gas prices.

Last August it said the tax, which is due to run until March 2028 unless oil and gas prices fall, meant it had to defer or cancel investment and it expected to produce less in 2024 than last year.  

In its latest results for the nine months to the end of September, Ithaca reported production of 71,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day and post-tax profits of $238.5mn.

In a statement on Friday, Bruce said he was “extremely proud of what Ithaca Energy has accomplished over the past several years” and was leaving it in a “strong financial and strategic position”.

Gilad Myerson, Ithaca Energy’s executive chair, thanked Bruce for his “hard work and strategic insight”. 

Ithaca shares were down 2 per cent on Friday.