Gulf Keystone hires Joh Harris as CEO

Gulf Keystone Petroleum has appointed former BG Group executive Jon Harris as the oil company's new boss.

Harris will become Gulf Keystone's chief executive on 18 January, taking over from Jón Ferrier who announced his retirement in June after five years in the job. Ferrier will leave on 31 January.

He joins from Sasol, the South African energy and chemicals company where he was executive vice president for upstream. Before joining Sasol Harris worked for BG, now part of Royal Dutch Shell, for 25 years.

At BG Harris's jobs included executive vice president technical and general manager for production operations, as well as senior management roles in the US, Trinidad and Tobago and Egypt.

Gulf Keystone operates the Shaikan oilfield in Iraq's Kurdistan region. The company's shares rose 5.2% to 128.8p at 09:43 GMT.

Gulf Keystone Chairman Jaap Huijskes said: "Jon is an experienced executive who brings a wealth of highly relevant project delivery, asset management, production operations and technical experience within the sector to the management team and to the board."