Ron Bain is CFO of Vaalco Energy, a Houston-based upstream oil and fuel firm with a robust presence in Africa and Canada. Based in 1985, Vaalco is dual-listed on the New York and London inventory exchanges.
World Finance: You could have been CFO for nearly 4 years. How has Vaalco’s aggressive place modified throughout your tenure?
Ron Bain: It’s been an energetic interval throughout which we have now delivered a number of transformative transactions that elevated scale and diversified the asset portfolio. We accomplished a value-accretive company merger with Transglobe in 2022 that noticed us purchase working belongings in Egypt and Canada. Extra not too long ago, we acquired a non-operating curiosity in a producing discipline in Cote d’Ivoire by the acquisition of Svenska AB.
“As well as, we proceed to drive natural progress throughout the portfolio with drilling campaigns, whereas increasing our footprint by including new licenses that present long-term upside potential. All of this leaves Vaalco effectively positioned to consolidate its place as a number one unbiased exploration and manufacturing firm.”
GF: What makes this enterprise and business a particular problem for a CFO?
Bain: It’s a really thrilling, fluid, and cyclical sector in which there’s quite a lot of deal-making, quite a lot of funding, and the requirement to deploy materials capital throughout the portfolio to ship progress. The function of the CFO is to make sure entry to capital to assist progress targets in addition to work with the finance staff and govt to mitigate danger: for instance, by implementation of hedging devices to guard the corporate in opposition to commodity draw back.
GF: What absorbs most of your vitality and time?
Bain: Most of my time is spent guaranteeing we keep a sturdy steadiness sheet that balances natural and inorganic progress alongside our dedication to shareholder return. Vaalco is dual-listed in London and New York, so I additionally spend quite a lot of time participating with our traders and wider stakeholders, overseeing our regulatory commitments to these listings, and taking part in an enormous function within the growth of our technique and our ESG agenda.
GF: What makes for a terrific finance staff?
Bain: It’s essential to have good communication inside the staff, so everyone is aware of the targets and their respective roles in reaching these targets. I’m lucky to have a terrific finance staff throughout all our areas. I even have a detailed working relationship with our CEO, George Maxwell, having labored alongside him at our earlier firm, Eland Oil & Fuel, which achieved a very good exit for all stakeholders a number of years in the past.
GF: What’s the function of AI within the finance perform? How do you see it evolving at Vaalco?
Bain: AI is already in use in finance at Vaalco. We use AI-powered software program to deal with information entry in addition to bill processing with optical character recognition that extracts course of information from receipts and paperwork with minimal human intervention. We carried out a worldwide ERP system in 2024 and are gathering large quantities of datasets by it. With the web of issues and the power to combine meter readings and monitoring gauges, we see machine studying fashions studying and studying from these massive datasets to enhance our decision-making.
GF: What retains you up at night time?
Bain: Financial and market uncertainty, along with an elevated administrative burden through better authorities regulation. My duty is, first, to make sure the corporate is performing for the good thing about all of our stakeholders. We’ve quite a lot of workers, so we should exhibit that we’re good company residents and oversee a protected working atmosphere.
We see ourselves as companions to the host governments within the international locations the place we function, so we have now a duty to the folks of these international locations to ship a constructive affect by our actions. As an operator of material-producing belongings, we should at all times exhibit operational excellence and environmental stewardship.
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