Senior Management

Eytan Uliel

Chief Executive Officer

Eytan has assumed the position as Chief Executive Officer from 27 May 2021, having previously served as the Company’s Commercial Director since 2014. Eytan is a finance executive with significant oil and gas industry experience. He has significant experience in mergers and acquisitions, capital raisings, general corporate advisory work, oil and gas industry-specific experience in public market takeovers and transactions, private treaty acquisitions and farm-in / farm-out transactions. He has held executive roles in various ASX and SGX listed companies.

Prior to working with Challenger Energy, from 2009 – 2014 Eytan was Chief Financial Officer and Chief Commercial Officer of Dart Energy Limited, an ASX listed company that had unconventional gas assets (coal bed methane and shale gas) in Australia, Asia and Europe, and Chief Commercial Officer of its predecessor company, Arrow International Ltd, a Singapore based company that had unconventional gas asset primarily in Asia and Australia. He holds a Bachelor of Arts (Political Science) and Bachelor of Laws (LLB) degree from the University of New South Wales, and was admitted as a solicitor in the Supreme Court of New South Wales in 1997.

Gagan Khurana

Chief Commercial Officer, Chief Financial Officer

Gagan is a corporate adviser with over 20 years of experience in M&A, Corporate Finance, Origination and Executive Management, including over 10 years in the oil and gas industry in executive management, deal origination and advisory capacity. Gagan has been the Commercial Manager since May 2020 and assumed the role of Chief Commercial Officer from 1 February 2022. Prior to this Gagan was running his own consultancy from 2015 focusing on origination and advising clients on mergers & acquisitions and other corporate and commercial matters. He was previously VP – Corporate & Commercial at Dart Energy from 2010 to 2015. From 1999 – 2010 Gagan worked in corporate advisory role with PricewaterhouseCoopers and as an investment professional with prominent private equity firms.

He holds an MBA from the National University of Singapore and is a fellow member (FCCA) of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants, UK, and CA (Singapore).

Dr. Parbodh Gogna

Regional Director Caribbean

Dr. Gogna is a skilled doctor with 30 years of active medical practice. He has provided senior leadership across military, civilian and federal government environments. His experience in trauma/emergency, communicable disease management, cross border and multicultural affairs have complemented his senior leadership roles across government central agencies, public health and private sectors.

Most recently at the Australian Department of Home Affairs, he was Chief Medical Officer to 14,000 employees. This role was central to strategic planning and coordination on repatriation, immigration, border protection, domestic security and law enforcement issues for the initial and build-up periods of the Covid-19 pandemic.  Prior to this Parbodh was Director of Medical Services at a domestic Queensland hospital leading a team of over 100 multi-disciplinary healthcare providers. He has served in Afghanistan as a Regimental Medical Officer – Special Air Service Regiment (rank of Captain).

Sohan Ojah-Maharaj

Managing Director - Trinidad & Tobago

Sohan is a senior petroleum engineer with over 20 years of industry expertise specialising in reservoir engineering and operations. Sohan is a Trinidadian national and has worked extensively in in Trinidad and Tobago and broader Caribbean region during his tenure at leading global petroleum consultancy firms including Gaffney Cline & Associates and ERCE Equipoise. Previously, Sohan has held senior management and operational roles at a number of companies with assets Asia, Europe and Trinidad. He is a graduate of Imperial College, London, with a Masters in Petroleum Production Management

Kirk Baksh

Head of Subsurface

Kirk has 25+ years’ experience and extensive subsurface and engineering expertise across reservoir engineering and reservoir management, mud logging and drilling fluids disciplines. Prior to CEG, Kirk was the Head of Subsurface at Heritage Petroleum and Reservoir Engineering lead at BP Trinidad.

Owen Baboolal

Operations Manager

Owen is the Company’s Operations Manager in Trinidad and Tobago responsible for overseeing all of Challenger’s field operations. Owen has more than 10 years of operations and project management within the Oil and Gas, and Civil Engineering Sector. Owen’s current role covers all operational disciplines in the oil & gas industry including HSSE, Drilling, ICP and Well Interventions. Previously, Owen has held roles such as Senior Rig Manager, Rig Coordinator, Logistics Lead, Operations Manager, Project Lead both onshore and offshore Trinidad and Suriname.

Vishan Beharry

Drilling & Completions Manager

Vishan Beharry is the Company’s Drilling & Completions in Trinidad & Tobago and has worked on the Company’s Trinidad and Suriname assets over the past 8 years. He has filled various roles in the company, to note including Operations Manager, Drilling Engineer and Acting Field Manager. Previously, he has worked as part of the team that drilled the first ever deviated well in Suriname and also worked as a directional driller offshore Trinidad drilling deviated side track wells using a slant mast rig.

Vishan holds a BSc degree in Physics and a Master’s degree in Petroleum Engineering with over 13 years of experience in the oil and gas industry.

Benjamin Proffitt

Company Secretary

With a physics degree from Imperial College London, Ben Proffitt qualified as a Chartered Accountant in 2007 with BDO, working in their audit team with a focus on AIM-listed resource clients.  In 2008 Ben joined Renewable Energy Holdings plc to manage their wave energy intellectual property development in Australia before joining BPC plc in 2010.