LONDON, June 16 (Reuters) – UK-based oil explorer Cairn Energy (CNE.L: Quote, Profile, Research), battling challenges to two major projects in Greenland and India, announced its chief executive would step up into the chairman role amid a sweeping board shake-up.

The company said on Thursday that Bill Gammell, who founded the company, would move into the chairman role, leaving the CEO post to be filled by Simon Thomson, the current legal and commercial director.

Corporate governance code frowns upon the practice of chief executives stepping into chairman jobs, which can make it hard for new CEOs to challenge their predecessors’ decisions.

Cairn said it had consulted major shareholders and said they were comfortable with the decision.

Cairn is currently battling to complete two major undertakings. Its exploration plan in Greenland, aimed at opening up a new oil province with potentially billions of barrels, has been interrupted repeatedly by environmental campaigners.

In addition Cairn’s planned sale of most of its stake in its Indian subsidiary, Cairn India (CAIL.NS: Quote, Profile, Research), to Vedanta Resources (VED.L: Quote, Profile, Research) has also been delayed due to challenges from the government, which wants to extract higher taxes in return for approving the sale.

A spokesman said Gammell had been mulling an end to his long tenure for some time and that the move was unrelated to any other issues.

LONDON (Reuters) – Western oil firms are unlikely to face widespread asset seizures or contract revisions as a result of Arab uprisings, thanks to deft diplomacy, legal protections and efforts to depict themselves as partners of the local citizenry.

In the past, big political shifts in the Middle East have often been followed by the eviction of foreign oil producers — Muammar Gaddafi in Libya, Saddam Hussein in Iraq and Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran to cite a few examples.

This time around, upheaval has hit Libya, Egypt, Yemen, Tunisia and Syria — not the biggest oil producers in the Arab world but among the most open to foreign investment. Companies including BP Plc, Exxon Mobil and Royal Dutch Shell have spent billions there.

“I wouldn’t describe us as worried. We’re being vigilant,” said Bob Dudley, chief executive of BP, echoing comments from other companies.

The new governments that have emerged, or may emerge, are expected by and large to remain supportive of foreign investment, because they will wish to maintain output and government revenues.

“I don’t see there being a large nationalistic wave,” said Richard Quin, Middle East analyst at Wood Mackenzie.

In the past popular anger toward a regime has spilled over to the companies that supported it, but oil companies say that over the past two decades, they have positioned themselves on the side of communities, rather than as agents of government.

LONDON, June 13 (Reuters) – Vallares, the soon-to-be-listed acquisition vehicle established by former BP (BP.L: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) boss Tony Hayward and financier Nat Rothschild, has defended the payout its founders will receive if the project is successful.

“Some very large numbers have been used for the conversion value of the B-Shares in press reports over the past couple of days, and in practice such a value is highly unlikely,” said Rodney Chase, chairman of Vallares. Vallares plans to raise 1 billion pounds ($1.6 billion) in a flotation on the London Stock Exchange in the coming weeks and to then engineer a reverse takeover of a yet-to-be-identified emerging market oil and gas company.

The founders are investing 100 million pounds in the venture, including 15 million in “B” shares that will convert to 6.67 percent of the entire group, providing the founders manage to seal an acquisition within two years.

Hayward said he planned to create a company big enough to be in the FTSE 100 index of the biggest companies, suggesting a market capital of at least 3 billion pounds.

This would suggest the founders would receive a stake worth 200 million pounds ($326 million) in return for their B shares. But the payout could be much higher.

Vallares said it would seek out targets worth 3 billion to 8 billion pounds, suggesting, in the absence of the target having debt, that the listed group could be worth up to 9 billion pounds.

In this scenario, the founders would net a stake worth up to 600 million pounds ($977 million).

LONDON (Reuters) – Former BP (BP.L: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) boss Tony Hayward and financier Nathaniel Rothschild aim to raise around 1 billion pounds ($1.6 billion) with a June listing of an acquisition vehicle that will target oil assets.

Hayward told Reuters the venture, named Vallares, would target an unlisted group in an emerging market which needs capital and expertise to develop its fields.

However, rather than buy the assets for cash, Vallares will offer resource holders shares in itself, some cash for field development and the ability to raise more cash via further Vallares share issues.

“If you are an owner of quality resources in an emerging market and you’re limited by capital and capability, but you don’t wish to sell for cash … then this is a very good vehicle,” he said in a telephone interview.

“You can merge with us, (and) you retain your ownership in the asset.”

Hayward said the structure gave potential partners the advantages of a London listing, something he said would take them at least three years to secure themselves.

The model is also intended to help Vallares avoid the intense competition, and high prices, usually seen when oil assets come up for sale.

LONDON (Reuters) – BP’s (BP.L: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) chief executive gave a cool assessment of the company’s chances of reviving a $16 billion share swap and Arctic exploration deal with Russia’s Rosneft (ROSN.MM: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), saying talks on the tie-up had faded.

“Whether that project goes forward or not, it’s very quiet. This is part of a big portfolio of exploration pursuit. Sometimes it’s successful, sometimes it’s not,” Bob Dudley said on Wednesday, speaking at the launch of the company’s annual statistical review of world energy markets in London.

The British oil major’s chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg was clinging to hopes that the deal could be revived in one form or another even though he conceded that negotiations were “silent” at the moment.

Rosneft has many Arctic blocks which BP could help it explore, Svanberg told reporters.

“It will come back … We are obviously a favored partner for Rosneft,” he said.

Shares in BP traded down 1.6 percent to 441.4 pence at 1214 GMT, in line with the European index of oil and gas companies

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LONDON/MOSCOW, June 7 (Reuters) – BP Plc (BP.L: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) said it had no plans to sell down its half-share in Russia’s third-largest oil producer TNK-BP (TNBP.MM: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) and that its focus in Russia remained on developing TNK-BP.

Sources close to AAR, BP’s co-owners in TNK-BP, said BP executives had indicated on Monday that the company was ready to sell down its stake.

AAR, a group of Soviet-born billionaires, interpreted the comments as a possible negotiating tactic to advance BP’s hopes for a tie-up with Kremlin-controlled Rosneft (ROSN.MM: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), the sources said.

But BP said no decision had been made to sell down the stake and denied preparations were being made to allow this.

“BP has taken no decision to sell any of its shareholding in TNK-BP, and there is no current intention to do so,” a spokesman said.

BP signed a $16 billion share swap and Arctic exploration deal with Rosneft in January, but AAR blocked the deal in the courts on the basis that the TNK-BP shareholder agreement obliged BP to use TNK-BP as its primary vehicle for its investment in Russia.

The deal was supposed to mark a turning point for BP after the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

LONDON (Reuters) – Safety experts Friday launched an investigation into an explosion that killed four people and seriously injured a fifth worker at a Chevron Corp oil refinery in southwest Wales.

Britain’s Health and Safety Executive (HSE) said it was launching a joint probe with police while Chevron started an investigation whose results it said were unlikely to be made public.

“We have immediately launched our own investigation which will run in tandem with the HSE’s own investigation,” a Chevron spokeswoman said in a statement read out at the plant.

“One storage tank is out of action and another is damaged but other than that the plant remains fully operational. However, given the circumstances, non-essential work has been suspended today.”

Concerns over refining safety have reverberated through the U.S. oil industry since an explosion at a BP refinery in Texas City in 2005, after which BP released an internal probe which said safety shortcomings were common across the sector.

Chevron said it did not anticipate the blast would have an impact on the planned $730 million sale of the facility to U.S. independent refiner Valero, but Valero said it was too early to tell if the sale would be impacted.

Chevron shares shrugged off the disaster, trading down 0.4 percent at 1415 GMT, in line with rivals.

LONDON, June 3 (Reuters) – Four people were killed and one was seriously injured in an explosion at an oil refinery in southwest Wales, the plant’s owner Chevron Corp (CVX.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) said on Friday.

The blast occurred at the 220,000 barrel per day Pembroke refinery on Thursday. Chevron did not provide any details on the operational status of the refinery.

Police said a fire had broken out after an explosion in a storage tank during maintenance. An adjacent storage tank was also damaged.

“I was in the back garden and I just heard a large explosion, looked around and I could see a fireball rising up into the sky,” local resident Phil Horne told the BBC, adding that smoke billowed out for between 30 and 45 minutes.

The fire service said it sent 10 emergency vehicles to the scene and the ambulance service said it responded with three ambulances and an air ambulance.

“We will take every step possible to determine the series of events that led to this tragic incident,” U.S.-based Chevron said.

Staff at the refinery will not be attending work on Friday, the BBC reported, without citing a source for the information, suggesting output at the plant will come to a halt.

LONDON, June 2 (Reuters) – UK-based Cairn Energy (CNE.L: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) has filed a legal action in the Netherlands, seeking fines of up to 2 million euros a day ($2.9 million) if Greenpeace protesters again disrupt the explorer’s drilling plans offshore Greenland.

A Cairn spokesman said on Thursday the action was intended as a deterrent after Greenpeace ended a four-day protest which involved protesters hanging suspended from a drilling rig in a plastic pod.

It was also intended “to ensure the safety of those involved in its operations,” Cairn said in a statement.

Last year, Greenpeace activists also launched similar action against a Cairn rig offshore Greenland.

Cairn is leading a charge into offshore Greenland, which explorers believe could hold billions of barrels of oil. Exxon Mobil (XOM.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), Husky Energy (HSE.TO: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) and others also plan to drill there.

Earlier on Thursday, the Danish navy removed the Greenpeace protesters from the semi-submersible drilling vessel, the Leiv Eiriksson, owned by Ocean Rig OCRG.NFF.

Greenpeace said in a Web posting that it had delayed drilling, which must occur within a narrow window due to harsh weather in the Arctic region, but Cairn denied this.

LONDON (Reuters) – Top Libyan oil official Shokri Ghanem has not defected, contrary to widespread reports, and is secretly working for Muammar Gaddafi to maintain ties with big oil companies, sources at western firms said.

A Libyan opposition source and a source at a major international oil company said Ghanem, one of the most senior figures in Gaddafi’s government, had invited representatives of oil companies to meet him last week in Tunisia, to discuss oil contracts.

“There were some invitations or advances but we did not accept,” said the source at a western oil company. “He was holding court in some form.”

A third source, at another western oil company, with operations in Libya, said the reports that Ghanem had deserted were incorrect.

“It is completely false that Shokri Ghanem is no longer working for Gaddafi’s government,” the source said.

Ghanem himself could not be contacted to comment.

A Libyan official representing Gaddafi’s government is attending a meeting of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries’ governing board in Vienna this week, an OPEC delegate said on Tuesday.