Circle Oil Plc Regulatory News (COP)

26 Jan 2007 07:01

Circle Oil PLC26 January 2007 Circle Oil plc ("Circle" or the "Company") BOARD APPOINTMENT Circle Oil plc, the international oil & gas exploration and development companywith a growing portfolio of assets in Morocco, Namibia, Oman and Panama, istoday pleased to announce the appointment of Mr. Rafat A. Rizvi (age 46) as anon executive Director. Mr. Rizvi is co-founder and Managing Director of First Capital ManagementLimited, a Mauritius-based asset manager, where he is primarily responsible forthe management of the 'First Global Funds' family of funds. Mr. Rizvi is alsothe CEO and Chairman of Boston Holdings and Finance a diversified holdingcompany through which he manages his personal investments. In December 2006, Mr.Rizvi was appointed to the Board of the Dubai headquartered Signature Group, afinancial and investment company operating in the Middle East, South Asia andSub Continent in the fields of real estate, energy, infrastructure and media. Before establishing First Capital Management, Mr. Rizvi spent several years inLondon and Singapore with PaineWebber where he was Managing Director and Head ofnon-Japan Asia Fixed Income business where he established a significant Asiafixed-income franchise. Prior to that Mr. Rizvi was a senior executive in thetreasury Division of Saudi American Bank (Citibank) in Riyadh. Mr. Rizvi has a B.Sc.(Hons) Chemistry from the University of Essex and is a UKnational. He is a member of the Singapore YPO chapter. Speaking on the appointment of Mr. Rizvi to the Board, Mr. Thomas Anderson,Chairman of Circle, said; "I am delighted to welcome Rafat to the Board and I am confident that with hisextensive international financial and banking expertise, including financing ofmajor oil and gas projects, he will considerably enhance our ability to completethe acquisition of some of the interesting projects that Circle is currentlyevaluating." Disclosures Mr. Rizvi has a beneficial interest in 250,000 Circle Oil ordinary shares. Save as mentioned above, Mr Rizvi, is currently, or has been in the past fiveyears, a director of the following companies: First Gulf Asia Holdings October 1999 - December 2004 Chinkara Capital Markets Limited June 2000 - January 2005 PT Bank Century tbk June 2000 - December 2001 The contents of this announcement include the full disclosures required underSchedule 2, Para (g) of the AIM Rules. Enquiries (+44 20 7638 9571): Circle Oil plc (+44 20 7638 9571) David Hough, CEO Citigate Dewe Rogerson (+44 20 7638 9571) Media enquiries: Martin Jackson Analyst enquiries: Nina Soon Also www.circleoil.com Note to Editors Circle Oil is an international oil and gas exploration and development companywith existing licence operations in Oman, Namibia, Morocco and Panama. Itsstrategy is to locate and secure licences and through targeted investmentprogrammes, monetise the value in those assets for the benefit of shareholders.This will be achieved through farm-outs to selected partners who can then investin and continue the development of the asset into production. In low risk,near-term projects Circle may itself opt to use its own expertise to appraisereserves and bring assets into production, generating long term cash flow forfurther investment. This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock Exchange