Directors and Management

Richard Gazal, Chairman

Mr Gazal is executive director of 3C Capital private family office, until late 2016 he was also executive director of Gazal Corporation a post he held for over 15 years.

Richard is an entrepreneur with extensive experience running Company’s across a wide range of sectors. Through his family office he has a presence in Europe the UK and Australia where his team maintains a specific focus on the oil & gas sector.

He is a major shareholder of Larus Energy.

John Chambers, Managing Director

John is an energy executive with 38 years of global experience across exploration, development and production activity in technical, commercial and senior management roles. John retired from Santos at end 2022 where he had been Vice President for Offshore Upstream, Northern Australia, Timor Leste and Papua New Guinea and was involved in developing the framework for the repurposing of the Bayu Undan Development to a Carbon Capture and Sequestration Project.

Since joining Santos in 2003 John has variously held roles in Santos as Vice President Santos PNG, Asia Pacific Exploration Manager, President Santos Bangladesh, Country Manager Santos Vietnam, Country Manager Santos India and Exploration Manager Onshore Australia.

Ric Malcom, Non-Executive Director

Mr Malcolm is a professional geoscientist with 34 years of varied oil and gas experience within seven international markets. He began his career as a Petroleum Geologist with Woodside Petroleum in Perth exploring for oil and gas on the Northwest Shelf. He spent ten years with Ampolex Limited (Perth and Sydney) as a Senior Explorationist and then Exploration Manager in Western Australia and Asset Manager in Northern & Eastern Australia. Following Mobil’s takeover of Ampolex, Mr Malcolm was appointed manager of Mobil’s assets in Papua New Guinea. Three years later he joined OMV, initially as Exploration Manager for Australia & New Zealand and later as Exploration & Reservoir Manager for OMV Libya, General Manager Norway and in 2006, Managing Director of OMV UK. Between 2008 and 2013, Mr Malcolm was CEO of Gulfsands Petroleum plc, an AIM listed production, exploration and development company with operations in Syria, Tunisia, Morocco, USA and Colombia. He is currently a Non-executive Director of Pura Vida Energy NL.

Jon Adgemis, Director

Jon was previously a partner at KPMG spanning 12 years with over 16 years’ experience specialising in Mergers and Acquisitions across a range of sectors including retail, property, technology and media.

Following KPMG, Jon assumed the role of founder and principal of the JAGA Group, a property development group with an extensive commercial property portfolio. He is a Shareholder at Skyfii, a software technology company and a Shareholder at Larus Energy, an Australian public unlisted petroleum exploration company.

Jon has significant experience in dealing with public company boards and the governance associated with this, as well as sitting on a number of advisory boards directly.

Joe Holloway, Director

Mr Holloway is a prominent businessman and managing director of a number of companies consisting of hotels, retail, property development and manufacturing in PNG, he is also a director of National Finance PNG and PNG Ports Limited.

Joe has strong ties to the PNG business community plus access to government networks and will play a key role in representing Larus in country.

Alaister Shakerley, Exploration Manager

Alaister is a petroleum geoscientist by background with 17-years of global professional experience, including both exploration & production with: Eni, DNO, Maersk Oil, Total & Structural Geoscience Services.
Alaister has technical expertise with interpretation in geologically complex areas & structural geological analysis. He is experienced in both clastic & carbonate systems; and with numerous petroliferous fold and thrust belts & rifted margins worldwide.

Between 2017 & 2020 Alaister worked on PNG Exploration & New Ventures at Total. He possesses in-depth knowledge of the offshore Papuan Plateau, Gulf of Papua and the onshore Aure - Port Moresby fold and thrust belts.

Matthew Azar, Company Secretary

Mr Azar has been in business and company secretarial consulting for several years and prior to that operated a successful business for 7 years following 10 years in management at the Australian Jockey Club.