Peter Michael Levine, Executive Chairman

Peter Levine, aged 52, founded Imperial in 2004 and is the largest individual shareholder of the group. He was appointed chief executive officer and chairman on the formation of the company in 2004. He relinquished the role of chief executive officer in April 2007. He graduated in jurisprudence from Trinity College, Oxford in 1977 and qualified as a solicitor in 1980 and specialised in international/corporate law. He was formerly the Honorary Consul for the Republic of Kazakhstan in the United Kingdom and joint chairman of the British-Kazakh Society.

Simon Christopher Hopkinson, Chief Executive Officer

Christopher Hopkinson, aged 41, was appointed to the board in December 2006 and appointed group chief executive officer in April 2007. He graduated from St Andrews University, with honours in Applied Physics. Following this he trained at Shell where he spent 13 years leading a team dedicated to optimising drilling and production performance. In the last four years he worked for Yukos EP, where he was head of development on new wells and most recently Lukoil Overseas where he was director of global projects and asset management. Christopher is originally from the UK, is a Russian speaker and is also a member of the Society of Petroleum Engineers.

John Hamilton, Group Finance Director

John Hamilton, aged 42, was appointed to the board in December 2007. John has over 15 years of international banking experience with ABN AMRO. For the past 7 years he has worked in the oil and gas team within ABN AMRO’s corporate and investment bank in London, most recently as executive director where he specialised in upstream E&P. Mr Hamilton has been integrally involved in a variety of upstream oil and gas transactions including structured debt, bonds, convertible bonds, equity and acquisitions. John Hamilton holds a BA from Hamilton College, New York and a MBA from Rotterdam School of Management and New York University.

Denis Victorovich Kurochkin, Chief Financial Officer, CIS

Denis Kurochkin, aged 36, was appointed to the board in December 2006. He graduated from
Far Eastern State University, Vladivostok, and is a qualified accountant who trained and spent the first eight years of his professional career at PricewaterhouseCoopers in Russia, latterly as a manager working for major Russian oil and mineral companies. Subsequently he worked in key executive financial roles in leading Russian and international businesses including two years with Sidanco, subsequently TNK-BP, and with ALCOA in Russia. He is a Russian national and is a member of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants.

Ekaterina Evgenievna Kirsanova, Executive Director,
Head of Moscow Office

Ekaterina Kirsanova, aged 32, was appointed to the board in January 2008. Ekaterina was one of the first employees of Imperial, having joined the company in 2004. Since Imperial’s inception, as head of the Moscow office Ekaterina has been responsible for strategic co-ordination with ministries and other Russian governmental bodies. Ekaterina has university degrees in linguistics and law. From 2000 to 2004 she worked for the international law firm PLLG as head of the Moscow office.

Kenneth Peat Forrest CBE, Non-Executive Director

Kenneth Forrest, aged 66, was appointed a non-executive director in 2004. He graduated in chemistry from Strathclyde University in 1965, gaining a PhD from the same university in 1968. In 1974 he joined the Department of Energy becoming director of the university’s China and Russian unit in 1984. In 1995 he was appointed director of export (oil and gas) to the DTI and from May 2000 until he retired in 2002 was the director of the oil and gas business directorate at Trade Partners UK. He is the co-chairman, with the Azeri Deputy Minister for Economic Development, of the Azerbaijan British Trade and Investment Council. Kenneth was appointed CBE in 2002.

Pierre Erwin Godec, Chevalier de l’Ordre National de la Legion d’ Honneur, Non-Executive Director

Pierre Godec, aged 63, was appointed a non-executive director in 2004. He graduated from Ecole des Hautes Etudes Commerciales in Paris in 1968. In 1968 he jointed Groupe ELF Aquitaine where he held various positions at their Paris headquarters. In 1974, he became vice president and treasurer for Elf North America and from 1979 he was chief executive officer and managing director of various ELF international subsidiaries, including between 1990 and 1993 ELF Neftegaz, which operated in Russia and Kazakhstan. From 1995 to 2000 he was chief executive officer of ELF Petroleum and ELF Exploration in the UK and since 2000 he has been an international consultant to the oil industry.

Rob Shepherd, Non-Executive Director

Rob Shepherd, aged 41, is finance director of Dominion Petroleum Limited, an AIM-listed exploration company focused primarily on East Africa. He graduated in Mechanical Engineering from Sheffield University and thereafter spent five years working for Shell in the Netherlands. After completing an MBA at the INSEAD Business School, he joined ABN AMRO Bank, where he worked for almost ten years until the end of May 2007 during which he advised on and arranged financing for both national and multi-national oil and gas companies, primarily in the CIS.