Andrew Bartlett, Non-Executive Director, Energean plc.
Andy Bartlett is currently Senior Independent Director and Chair of the Audit & Risk Committee at Energean plc, alongside leading his own advisory firm, Bartlett Energy Advisers.
Across his board portfolio, including roles as Audit & Risk Chair at Prime Oil & Gas B.V., Impact Oil & Gas, and Meren Energy (formerly Africa Oil), Andy has played a central role in overseeing new country entries. His responsibilities have included board-level scrutiny of risk management frameworks, due diligence processes, and investment decision-making in complex and emerging jurisdictions.
Earlier in his career, Andy led Helios Investment Partners’ private equity investments in African oil and gas, gaining extensive experience in frontier and growth markets. He also served as Head of Oil & Gas M&A and Project Financing at Standard Chartered Bank, where he advised on cross-border transactions and capital structuring. Andy began his career as a petroleum engineer with Shell International and was a founding member of Shell Capital, with multiple international assignments
Andy brings direct experience of new country entry from both operator and investor perspectives. At Energean, this includes recent expansion into Angola (Block 14), as well as entries into Egypt, Italy, Croatia, and Morocco through both organic growth and acquisition. Through Helios and his broader investment work, he has been involved in transactions across Senegal, Gabon, Namibia, Kenya, South Africa, Angola, and both onshore and offshore Nigeria.
This combination of operational, financial, and governance experience provides Andy with a comprehensive perspective on the risks, opportunities, and execution challenges associated with entering new oil and gas jurisdictions.
Stephen Highfield, Head of Commercial & Negotiations, ENI Bacton CCS (part of ENI group)
Steve is a global commercial negotiator within ENI CCS, based in London. He has been working on a number of CCS projects over the last few years, including Bacton in the UK and the L10 CCS project in the Netherlands. Bacton CCS is repurposing the depleted Hewett gas field for storage of CO2 from emitters based in UK and Europe. The L10 area will also store CO2 in depleted gas reservoirs and will tie in to the complex Aramis value chain.
Prior to his current CCS focus, Steve worked for a number of E&P companies negotiating upstream and midstream agreements, primarily in Europe, Asia and Asia Pacific, including expat postings in Singapore. Successful asset and corporate acquisitions and divestments included Neptune’s acquisition of the UK Seagull field, from due diligence, S&PA, ETAP tie-back and export via FPS and CATS culminating in FID and development consent, all within around 12 months. His international work included BG Group’s exit from the Kashagan field in Kazakhstan and its acquisition of Enron Oil & Gas India, just as Enron imploded into Chapter 11!
Steve has also worked on a number of country exits and new country entries into China, Australia and Romania and bid rounds in Egypt, amongst others, often working with government bodies such as the UK’s NSTA and Singapore’s EDB and MAS.
Oliver Stern is a Managing Director in the Investigations, Diligence and Compliance practice and the Head of the Business Intelligence team and Africa Practice, based in London. Oliver specializes in sub-Saharan Africa. He leads a wide range of investigations for corporations and financial institutions and their advisers, supporting them as they consider investment decisions and respond to challenges. His work focuses on detailed pre-transactional due diligence, market entry strategy, competitor intelligence, dispute advisory, and internal corruption and bribery investigations and asset traces.
He also works with clients to identify, mitigate and prevent adverse human rights impacts for companies and investors.
Oliver joined Kroll in February 2016 after working for the multinational mining company Anglo American for over three years on its London-based Strategy and Business Development team. He is a country risk and business environment specialist with extensive international experience, including three years living and working in Mozambique.
Ben Sulaiman, Partner - Corporate & Finance, Hogan Lovells
Ben is the global head of our Oil, Gas & LNG group and is a member of our Tier 1 (Legal 500 UK, 2025) Infrastructure and Projects group in London. He is a go-to expert in the energy sector and operates both in the UK and internationally on projects, transactions and regulatory matters.
Ranked by Chambers and Legal 500 for Oil & Gas, he regularly advises energy companies, investors and governments on upstream and pipeline projects, LNG projects, oil & gas M&A, financing arrangements, and sales and trading.
Ben leads the firm's work advising the bp and SOCAR led consortium on all aspects of the US$45bn Shah Deniz 2 gas project and 3,500km Southern Gas Corridor, described by bp as “the world’s single largest non-military infrastructure project”.