London: 29 April 2025
Impact Oil & Gas Limited (“Impact” or the “Company”), a privately-owned, Africa-focused, exploration company, announces the retirement of Robert Wilde from his position as Executive Director and Chief Financial Officer, effective 30 April 2025. Robert will continue to serve on the Board of Impact as a Non-Executive Director, providing ongoing support to the business. Following an extensive search process the Board is pleased to announce the appointment of Samitan Sharma, who will succeed Robert as Chief Financial Officer and Executive Director, effective 14 July 2025.
In addition, Aldo Perracini, Chief Financial Officer of Africa Oil Corp, will join the Board of Impact effective 1 May 2025 as a Non-Executive Director. Aldo replaces Pascal Nicodeme as Africa Oil’s representative, who steps down after four years, having joined in April 2021.
Robert Wilde joined Impact in 2012 as Chief Financial Officer and has now worked in the sector for almost 40 years. He played a key role in the growth and success of the Company, from the first farmout to ExxonMobil in 2012 and, in the subsequent years, the Company’s structuring and securing of significant amounts of capital to fund the business through the exploration phase and into the appraisal campaign on the giant Venus discovery, offshore Namibia.
Samitan Sharma joins Impact with over 22 years of experience spanning banking, investments, and the upstream oil and gas sector. He has worked extensively with Africa- and Asia-focused independents, particularly in business development and production asset financing. Most recently, he served as Commercial Manager, Business Development at Tullow Oil (2021-2025). Prior to that, he spent over eight years (2013–2021) as Commercial Manager at Delonex Energy Ltd. He began his career as a banker with HSBC and then as a buy-side analyst with Fidelity, before transitioning to the oil and gas industry as a Senior Manager at Cairn (2008-2013). Samitan holds a Bachelor’s degree, an Instrumentation Engineering qualification, and an MBA in Finance and Marketing.
Aldo Perracini is currently Chief Financial Officer at Africa Oil Corp and was previously the Chief Executive Officer and a member of the Managing Board of Prime. Prior to joining Prime in 2014 he worked in the investment banking industry in Brazil for six years mostly in the Private Equity division of BTG Pactual, and participated in several investment processes and had roles on the advisory boards of the investee companies.
Siraj Ahmed, Chief Executive Officer of Impact, commented:
“Rob and his financial expertise has been instrumental to Impact’s success over the past 13 years, helping to shape it into the company it is today. He played a pivotal role in Impact’s inaugural farm-out of its South African portfolio to ExxonMobil, and since then has provided a strong, guiding hand as the Company navigated the challenges of a volatile and bearish market for exploration, against the need for significant capital, to drive growth in the portfolio and fund exploration and appraisal drilling in Namibia. It has been a pleasure working alongside Rob, and on behalf of the Impact Board, I would like to thank him for his invaluable contributions and wish him the very best in his retirement.
“We are delighted to welcome Samitan to Impact as Chief Financial Officer. With 2025 shaping up to be an active year for the Company, we are confident that Samitan’s strong upstream oil and gas, financial and African expertise will greatly benefit Impact’s continued growth and development. Samitan brings with him extensive experience in the commercial, financial and asset evaluation domains. As Impact’s Namibian assets mature towards development, Samitan’s expertise will help Impact to position itself to optimise value to our shareholders. We look forward to working with him.
“We are pleased to welcome Aldo to the Board of Impact and look forward to working with him. On behalf of the Board, I would like to thank Pascal for his support and contribution over the last four years and wish him all the best in the future.”
Enquiries:
Impact Oil and Gas +44 1483 750 588
Siraj Ahmed, CEO
PR & Media: Camarco +44 20 3757 4980
Georgia Edmonds, Kirsty Duff
About Impact Oil & Gas
Impact is a UK-based, privately owned, independent exploration company with a focus on finding large scale, deep water plays offshore Western and Southern Africa. These plays must be of sufficient materiality to attract partnership by industry majors with the expertise to subsequently drill.
Impact acquired its first asset offshore South Africa over a decade ago and over that period having expanded its asset base across the offshore margins of Southern and West Africa, it is now focused offshore Namibia and South Africa. Amongst its portfolio, Impact has interests in the Venus oil discovery offshore Namibia and an indirect interest in the Brulpadda and Luiperd gas condensate discoveries offshore South Africa. The Company’s current portfolio covers a combined area of over 170,000 km² (gross) (including an indirect interest in Block 11b/12b, South Africa), and is partnered with Shell, TotalEnergies and QatarEnergy.
Impact has matured a number of significant prospects across a portfolio that has, for the most part, been grown organically. The Venus discovery was made from Impact’s home-gown portfolio, whilst Impact indirectly participated in the Brulpadda-1X and Luiperd-1X gas condensate discoveries on Block 11b/12b in South Africa in 2019 and 2020, respectively. These discoveries, and the remaining exploration opportunities in Impact’s portfolio, target a deep-water Cretaceous play, which extends from southernmost Namibia, around South Africa as far as the Durban Basin, and is the focus of Impact’s exploration strategy. Impact holds a material acreage position across this entire play fairway.
Forward-Looking Statements
This press release may contain certain statements that are, or may be deemed to be, “forward-looking statements”. Forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology, including, for example, the words “believes”, “estimates”, “plans”, “projects”, “anticipates”, “expects”, “intends”, “may”, “will”, or “should” and similar expressions and statements relating to matters that are not historical facts, and may include statements regarding the Company’s current intentions, beliefs or expectations. By their nature, forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties because they relate to future events and circumstances and are based on certain assumptions and factors, which are based on information currently available to the Company, and which may prove to be incorrect. Undue reliance should not be placed on forward looking statements. The Company is not under any obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements contained in this announcement.