Consultant Profiles

The Energy Contract Company is headed by Niall Trimble, Anthony Way, David McGough and Nick Stranks who have all spent extensive careers in the energy industry. Please select a profile from the list below to read more about our team:

  • Lynn Nahmani
  • John Richards
  • Bill Bloking
  • Dr Noel Fabri
  • Greg Miles
  • Sean Long
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    John Richards is a Consultant with The Energy Contract Company with substantial commercial development experience and a good chemical engineering and technical background. His experience includes commercial project development, production and marketing of crude oil and gas, in-and-out-bound logistics, refining and project marketing. He has successfully closed significant oil and gas SPAs and has launched three new crude oils onto the market in Asia, Australasia and West Africa. He has established industry relationships stretching back over 25 years. John has a proven track record of managing multi-million Dollar oil and gas businesses, international business development and commercial negotiation. As an MBA-qualified senior energy marketer (oil and gas), John has worked across most of the hydrocarbon value chain. Experience includes:

    • Working as Gas Manager for ACM Shipping PLC from February 2007 to February 2008, establishing their gas department. This involved developing opportunities arising from the integration of ACM's close relationships with ship owners and his own relationships developed over 25 years in the oil and gas industry, to create a viable gas shipping business.
    • General Manager: Marketing in London for Woodside Energy (UK) Ltd. (July 2005 - December 2006). John established and managed Woodside's commercial oil function (in upstream and downstream commercial issues) in the Atlantic basin.
    • Seconded as General Manager/CEO to North West Shelf Gas Pty Ltd (NWSG), where he led a team of 14 in a special purpose company charged with managing all aspects of the North West Shelf Venture's Domestic Gas (Domgas) business. In this role John concluded an SPA with the State-owned power generator and renegotiated a SPA with a methanol manufacturer, each worth in excess of US$1bn revenue over a 20 year term, as well as winning approval for expansion of a Domgas plant at a time when several NWSV JVs resisted investing in Domgas business. John also worked closely with the State gas regulator (ERA) and led work resulting in a change in the DBNG Pipeline gas specification worth tens of millions of Dollars in capex avoidance for the NWSV.

    From June 2000 to May 2002, John was Marketing & Commercial Services Manager for Woodside and led a team of 15 within the Australian Oil Division. From 1996 to 2000, he was Oil Marketing & Shipping Manager with Woodside, and prior to this, was Manager for Crude Trading (Australia) at Mobil Sales & Supply (Asia Pacific) Corporation (1994 to 1996).

    John has a strong background in trading, economics and analysis, having worked with Shell in various trading, analytical and economic roles, and also has a good technical background, gained from his degree in Chemical Engineering and later work in the 1980's with Shell & BP S.A. Petroleum Refineries.