Predator Oil & Gas today announced the appointment of Mr. Lonny Baumgardner as Chief Operating Officer with immediate effect.

Lonny is a petroleum engineer by training and has 30 years of experience within oil and gas operations, over 25 years of which has been internationally across all aspects of upstream operations in numerous  locations including several years based in Morocco, Egypt, Tanzania, Australia, Saudi Arabia (with Saudi Aramco), Canada, and the USA (with ExxonMobil).

Lonny has a proven track record in managing multifaceted operations across joint ventures, government agencies, geographic challenges and multicultural differences, to ensure business needs are achieved.

He has been highly successful operating within small to medium-sized exploration and production companies at Board level delivering value to shareholders by applying a dynamic and effective management style to daily and longer-term strategic requirements. Lonny will have a strong focus on delivering business goals for Predator capable of creating long-term value.

Most recently, since 2015, Lonny has been Country Manager and General Director for SDX Energy Inc, Morocco and London. He is highly experienced in the upstream and downstream gas sector in the Rharb Basin and is therefore in a position to apply his experience to further develop from the positive results achieved through the drilling of the MOU-1 well in the Guercif Basin.

Paul Griffiths, Chief Executive of Predator, commented:
"Today's appointment is significant and reinforces the Company's position and commitment to developing gas in Morocco. The first step was achieved by successfully finding gas in the MOU-1 well some 49 years after the last exploration well was drilled in this part of the Guercif Basin. MOU-1 established the pre-drill geological comparison with the Hoot and Guebbas gas-producing sequences of the Rharb Basin and most importantly de-risked the pathway required for dry gas from a thermogenic origin to charge the primary targets in a prospective area of over 100 km². MOU-1 therefore further enhanced the CPR prospective gas resources assigned to the proposed MOU-2 and MOU-4 drilling targets whilst adding some additional potential shallow targets that had previously not been considered. MOU-1 was left in a condition to facilitate rigless testing. In common with best practice in the Rharb Basin this will be considered as part of the proposed programme for follow-up drilling that will be building on the success of MOU-1 in order to reduce mobilisation cost of equipment and well services. The latter was only achievable for the drilling of MOU-1 because of the ability to "piggy-back" an existing multi-well drilling programme by SDX Energy Morocco. Success is not final : it is the courage to continue that counts."

Lonny Baumgardner, Chief Operating Officer of Predator, commented:
"I am excited to be joining Predator today. The success of MOU-1 in finding gas is, in my extensive experience of management of drilling operations and a downstream gas business in Morocco, the beginning of the journey to appraise and develop gas for early monetisation. I very much look forward to being part of a successful team and to contribute to growing the Company's business to the next level."

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