Songa Offshore Appoints New CEO

Songa Offshore SE, a Cyprus-headquartered offshore drilling contractor, has appointed Bjørnar Iversen as new CEO of Songa Offshore SE, effective as of June 1st. Iversen will relocate to Limassol and take up the position only weeks after he joined the company as president of Songa Rig AS.

“Sometimes you are simply lucky enough to find gold in your own pocket. After a long search process and assessment of numerous candidates, we increasingly realised that we already had the ideal candidate within our own company. Bjørnar understands the industry after 17 years with Odfjell Drilling; he has extensive international and operational management experience and, importantly, a unique knowledge of the Category D project. My key task as interim CEO was to steer the company through a few critical short-term challenges and find a permanent successor. I am happy to now step down, knowing that both tasks have been successfully accomplished”, says interim CEO and chairman of the board, Jens A Wilhelmsen.

Before signing with Songa in February this year, Bjørnar Iversen held a number of senior management positions and been member of the executive leadership team at Odfjell Drilling AS for the last 12 years. His latest position was President and CEO of Odfjell Galvao Ltda in Brazil. During his 17 year’s tenure at Odfjell Drilling, he has been executive vice president for Corporate Business Development, Odfjell Drilling Technology and Odfjell Well Services.

Iversen holds a Master of Science in Business (siviløkonom) from the Norwegian School of Business and Economics (NHH), and various management courses from Harvard Business School.

“I am very excited to get this opportunity. Songa is uniquely placed to take a leadership position within the mid water segment in the North Sea. The company enjoys an excellent relationship with Statoil and is in the process of building four new Category D rigs, all with long term contracts to Statoil. Yes, there are short-term financing challenges but none that can’t be satisfactory resolved,” says Bjørnar Iversen.

[mappress]
Press Release, May 13, 2013