By Sully Manope, Lagos
Colin Klappa moved to the corner office of Addax Petroleum in Nigeria with a message to the employees that can be summarised in 19 words: “I believe in the future of Addax Petroleum Nigeria and look forward to leading a transformation of this company”.
The new CEO’s upbeat note to colleagues on January 9, 2018, contradicts the widely reported talks of an impending sale of Addax Petroleum assets in Nigeria. He talked of firm focus on safety, but also “the need to improve our operating results, reduce costs, and deliver faster and superior performance compared with our peers”.
A career earth scientist who worked for Chevron Nigeria in the late 1980s and was part of the group that left Chevron with Jim Pearce to take charge of Addax Petroleum in the mid noughties, Klappa enthused: “We definitely have something to build on – our collective capabilities, our skill-sets, our knowledge, our history, our assets. We also have something to build for – our future and the unlocking of our significant, untapped resources and unrealized potential”.
Klappa is a Senior Vice President in the Addax system worldwide and was a former Managing Director of Addax Cameroon. In his note, he sounded bullish about the Nigerian operations.
“I see nothing but upside at APN”, he declared. “Will it be smooth sailing and easy to revive the company and realize material growth aspirations? Of course not. But that is what we are here for and what makes the significant challenges that lie ahead of us ever more exciting – to overcome seemingly impossible obstacles to progress and achieve something truly worthwhile”.It is a new year and a new chapter, he concluded. “I am ready to get started, I trust you are too”.
