Board Members
Peter Dolan
Peter is an explorer and geologist. In addition to technical consulting for oil company clients of all sizes, he has advised a large number of financial institutions on mergers and acquisition activities, governments on the development of appropriate legislation as well as co-ordinated multi-disciplinary exploration teams. His geographic experience spans the Americas, Europe, Africa, Australia and Far East. Peter has lived and worked in Canada, Libya, Indonesia and the UK.
After 25 years of consulting, Peter reverted to a role in active exploration and became a foundation shareholder and the Chairman of Fusion Oil & Gas plc. He resigned from Fusion in March 2004 after it was taken over by Sterling Energy plc. He then collaborated with ex-Fusion colleagues to establish a new UK-registered company, Ophir Energy Company Limited which has successfully raised start-up capital and which is building a significant portfolio of assets principally in Africa.
Martyn Millwood Hargrave
Prior to IKON Science, Martyn was Managing Director of IKODA Ltd and built the company from a start up to one of the largest independent upstream consulting groups dealing with some of the highest profile upstream deals over the past decade including the North Caspian PSA negotiations and awards to the OKIOC consortium and related deals including a half billion dollar disposal of these assets. Martyn negotiated the subsequent merger of IKODA with Petroleum Engineering consultants Troy Petroleum to form TROY-IKODA in January 2001. Martyn was Joint Managing director of the merged company with special responsibility for both Technology and Business development. In this capacity he led the de-merger the technology assets and team from TI to form IKON Science in April 2001and sold the TI business to the RPS Group.
He has a long term interest in the public role of Geoscience Technology and has provided this expertise on the board of a number of Industry R&D "think tanks" such as the Petroleum Science and Technology institute (PSTI) and Centre for Marine and Petroleum Technology (CMPT). He is currently a member of the Industry advisory board to Durham University Earth Sciences department. He has been a founding shareholder or director of a number of oil companies including the Africa focused AIM listed Fusion Oil and Gas plc and Virgo Energy plc a private oil and gas explorer sold to Encore oil plc in 2006.
Martyn has published many papers and articles and has been interviewed by publications such as the First Break, World Oil, and by major daily newspapers including the Financial Times and Scotland on Sunday. Martyn earned an Honours degree in Geology from Durham University UK and a post graduate certificate in Geophysics from Queen Mary College University of London. He is an active member of the Society of Exploration Geophysicists, Institute of Petroleum, and the Petroleum Exploration Society of Great Britain.
Tom Hickey
Prior to joining Tullow, Tom was an associate director of ABN AMRO Corporate Finance in Dublin where he worked on a wide range of public and private fundraisings and provided mergers and acquisitions advice to a wide range of natural resource, technology and financial service companies. Tom qualified as a Chartered Accountant with Arthur Andersen in Dublin and holds an Honours Commerce Degree from University College Dublin.
Tony Alves
Andrew Armour
Alan Walmsley
and Elf UK.
Alan has been involved in the management of oil exploration information companies in the UK, and helped set up similar companies in Spain and Ireland, releasing Well Log data to the oil and gas industry on behalf of their respective governments. During part of his time at Elf he was involved in onshore and offshore exploration joint ventures including financial control of Elf operated drilling programmes.
Paul O'Brien
Paul has always retained his strong technical background and in addition to being in a sales role for many years has been able to provide technical support and training courses over the years when the need arose.
Paul worked for some of the key players in the software business including Advance Geophysical, Landmark, CogniSeis, Paradigm and Schlumberger before joining Ikon Science in November 2005 as Sales Director EAME. Paul was promoted to the board as Executive Director, Sales & Marketing in October 2006.
Nick Pillar
Nick has over 25 year of experience in the oil industry. He started his career with Geophysical Services International (GSI) as a seismic data acquisition geophysicist through data processing as a Party Chief to Manager of GSI’s seismic interpretation systems. He joined Enterprise Oil in 1990 and became Chief Geophysicist in 2000. After the Shell take over in 2002 he left to take up a role as a senior geophysical advisor with Petronas Carigali in Malaysia. In 2005 he joined Ikonscience as Chief Geophysicist and manager of the Quantitative Interpretation Team. As Operations Director he is responsible for the future development and expansion of the Software Development and Quantitative Interpretation Teams. His degree is in Applied Geology from the University of Strathclyde.
Charles Hue Williams
Nick has over 25 year of experience in the oil industry. He started his career with Geophysical Services International (GSI) as a seismic data acquisition geophysicist through data processing as a Party Chief to Manager of GSI’s seismic interpretation systems. He joined Enterprise Oil in 1990 and became Chief Geophysicist in 2000. After the Shell take over in 2002 he left to take up a role as a senior geophysical advisor with Petronas Carigali in Malaysia. In 2005 he joined Ikonscience as Chief Geophysicist and manager of the Quantitative Interpretation Team. As Operations Director he is responsible for the future development and expansion of the Software Development and Quantitative Interpretation Teams. His degree is in Applied Geology from the University of Strathclyde.
Andrew Paxton
After a period in the energy group at Chemical Bank he joined Intrepid Energy as Finance Director and Company Secretary in 1996. Intrepid was a private company, funded by US institutions to participate in the UK sector of the North Sea. The company grew from its equity funding of $250 million through acquisitions and its interest in the Buzzard Field discovery, culminating in a successful sales process in 2004/5 which generated over $1.1 billion after tax for its stakeholders.
Since over-seeing the wind-up of Intrepid, Andrew has run his own consultancy company with a range of clients requiring assistance on corporate and tax matters. He has worked with Ikon for some months before accepting the role of Finance Director in April 2008 and continues to help Benfield, the insurance group, on specific energy-related projects.
Andrew has a degree in Business Administration from the University of Strathclyde and trained as a Chartered Accountant with Ernst & Young in Glasgow, qualifying in 1976.
Mick Lambert
Senior Management Team
Martyn Millwood Hargrave
Prior to IKON Science, Martyn was Managing Director of IKODA Ltd and built the company from a start up to one of the largest independent upstream consulting groups dealing with some of the highest profile upstream deals over the past decade including the North Caspian PSA negotiations and awards to the OKIOC consortium and related deals including a half billion dollar disposal of these assets. Martyn negotiated the subsequent merger of IKODA with Petroleum Engineering consultants Troy Petroleum to form TROY-IKODA in January 2001. Martyn was Joint Managing director of the merged company with special responsibility for both Technology and Business development. In this capacity he led the de-merger the technology assets and team from TI to form IKON Science in April 2001and sold the TI business to the RPS Group.
He has a long term interest in the public role of Geoscience Technology and has provided this expertise on the board of a number of Industry R&D "think tanks" such as the Petroleum Science and Technology institute (PSTI) and Centre for Marine and Petroleum Technology (CMPT). He is currently a member of the Industry advisory board to Durham University Earth Sciences department. He has been a founding shareholder or director of a number of oil companies including the Africa focused AIM listed Fusion Oil and Gas plc and Virgo Energy plc a private oil and gas explorer sold to Encore oil plc in 2006.
Martyn has published many papers and articles and has been interviewed by publications such as the First Break, World Oil, and by major daily newspapers including the Financial Times and Scotland on Sunday. Martyn earned an Honours degree in Geology from Durham University UK and a post graduate certificate in Geophysics from Queen Mary College University of London. He is an active member of the Society of Exploration Geophysicists, Institute of Petroleum, and the Petroleum Exploration Society of Great Britain.
Alan Walmsley
Alan has been involved in the management of oil exploration information companies in the UK, and helped set up similar companies in Spain and Ireland, releasing Well Log data to the oil and gas industry on behalf of their respective governments. During part of his time at Elf he was involved in onshore and offshore exploration joint ventures including financial control of Elf operated drilling programmes.
Paul O'Brien
Paul has always retained his strong technical background and in addition to being in a sales role for many years has been able to provide technical support and training courses over the years when the need arose.
Paul worked for some of the key players in the software business including Advance Geophysical, Landmark, CogniSeis, Paradigm and Schlumberger before joining Ikon Science in November 2005 as Sales Director EAME. Paul was promoted to the board as Executive Director, Sales & Marketing in October 2006.
Nick Pillar
Andrew Paxton
After a period in the energy group at Chemical Bank he joined Intrepid Energy as Finance Director and Company Secretary in 1996. Intrepid was a private company, funded by US institutions to participate in the UK sector of the North Sea. The company grew from its equity funding of $250 million through acquisitions and its interest in the Buzzard Field discovery, culminating in a successful sales process in 2004/5 which generated over $1.1 billion after tax for its stakeholders.
Since over-seeing the wind-up of Intrepid, Andrew has run his own consultancy company with a range of clients requiring assistance on corporate and tax matters. He has worked with Ikon for some months before accepting the role of Finance Director in April 2008 and continues to help Benfield, the insurance group, on specific energy-related projects.
Andrew has a degree in Business Administration from the University of Strathclyde and trained as a Chartered Accountant with Ernst & Young in Glasgow, qualifying in 1976.
Mick Lambert
Michel Kemper
Richard Swarbrick
In 1989 he began teaching petroleum geology and related courses at the University of Durham where he continues to be involved in research and teaching.
Between 1994 and 2001, Dr Richard Swarbrick was also the principal investigator of GeoPOP (GEOsciences Project into OverPressure), a multi-disciplinary research group funded by 16 oil/gas companies.
Richard has taught courses in many of oil centres around the world, either as open courses or in-house training companies. He consults widely and continues to present conference papers and publish articles relating to sub-surface pressures.

