Connacher Announces Management and Board Changes

CALGARY, June 3, 2015 /CNW/ - Connacher Oil and Gas Ltd. (CLC - TSX; "Connacher" or the "Company") today announced that Brent de Jong, currently Chairman and a director of Connacher, has been appointed Interim Chief Executive Officer, replacing Christopher Bloomer who resigned as Chief Executive Officer and a director of Connacher. Connacher wishes to thank Mr. Bloomer for his significant contributions to the Company and wishes him the very best in his future endeavours.

Mr. de Jong has extensive leadership and strategic advisory experience, which he carries out through De Jong Capital.  He is currently on the board of RA Holdco, f.k.a. Arcapita, a Middle Eastern investment manager with holdings throughout Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and the United States and GB Minerals Ltd., a phosphate mine in West Africa.  Mr. de Jong founded De Jong Capital after leaving Ashmore Investment Management Ltd., an emerging market fund manager with $65.0 billion of assets under management in 2011. While at Ashmore (2002-2011) where he was head of special situations and infrastructure investments and served on the firm's five person investment committee. Mr. de Jong was seconded to AEI in 2006 where he served as Chief Executive Officer and Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors. Mr. de Jong led the consortium of shareholders that founded AEI in 2005 and negotiated the break up and sale of AEI's assets in 2011 for an aggregate price of $4.8 billion. Previously, Mr. de Jong worked at JPMorgan in its financial institutions group in London, where he focused on mergers and acquisitions in the emerging markets of Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and in the structured finance group in New York. He has been a board member of several companies, including ETH, a Brazilian ethanol production company of 1.8 billion liters per annum; Asia Genco, a 3,000 MW independent power producer in India; and Largo, a Vanadium mining company in the Americas. Mr. de Jong holds a bachelor's degree in economics from Georgetown University.

Mr. de Jong joins the current management team of Connacher which includes Gregory Pollard, Chief Financial Officer, Merle Johnson, Chief Operating Officer, Jesse Beaudry, Vice President Marketing and Transportation Logistics and Suzanne Loov, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary. Mr. de Jong will be leading the Board in a process to select a new Chief Executive Officer for Connacher.

In addition, Doug Dreisinger has been appointed as a director of Connacher.  Mr. Dreisinger is a global energy and chemical industry executive with over 30 years of experience and is currently a member of the Board of Alberta Petroleum Marketing Commission, a Crown agency of the Government of Alberta responsible for marketing all of Alberta's royalty oil and gas entitlements, along with leading key strategic initiatives. Mr. Dreisinger previously held the position of President, Energy Marketing for Nexen Inc. where he was responsible for several key initiatives including the restructuring of Nexen's Energy Marketing & Trading business to deliver an oil equivalent volume of approximately 1 million barrels of oil equivalent per day.  He also lead Nexen's shale gas monetization efforts by securing exclusive rights to a multi-billion dollar LNG project site on the West Coast of Canada with Japanese partners.  Mr. Dreisinger has a Bachelor of Science (Honours) in Chemical Engineering from Queen's University.

About Connacher

Connacher is a Calgary-based in situ oil sands developer, producer, and marketer of bitumen. The Company holds a 100 per cent interest in approximately 440 million barrels of proved and probable bitumen reserves and operates two steam-assisted gravity drainage facilities located on the Company's Great Divide oil sands leases near Fort McMurray, Alberta.

SOURCE Connacher Oil and Gas Ltd.