Leadership
The principals of Gazelle each have in excess of 30 years of experience and have successfully started multiple exploration and production in Canada, Middle East and worldwide, including the Central Asian Republics of the Former Soviet Union. Gazelle is actively seeking additional investment projects to build its portfolio in Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Oman, Uzbekistan, Ghana, Nigeria, Egypt, Congo, Algeria and other countries.
Ken McNeill
Chairman of the Board of Directors
Ken McNeill is a successful entrepreneur and petroleum landman with 40 years of oil industry experience. As a senior officer and/or director, he has been involved in the early start-up and growth phases of twelve oil and gas companies (nine in Western Canada and three internationally).
Through his executive and board-level roles, he has dealt with all aspects of oil and gas corporate development. Mr. McNeill was a founding Director of Altius Energy Corporation. In 2015, Beaumont Energy Inc., a company he co-founded and helped lead as Executive VP Corporate Development, sold to Whitecap Resources for C$535 million. Mr. McNeill is currently Executive Vice President, Corporate Development, for Karve Energy.
Michael Volcko
President & CEO, Director
Michael Volcko was recently the CEO and director of Allied Petroleum Exploration Inc., a private company which operated a large exploration block in Oman. Mr. Volcko is also a partner in Anadime Energy LLP, which has drilled and operates horizontal multi-stage fractured (HMF) wells in the prolific, world-class Cardium formation of Alberta.
He was founder and President of Altius Energy Corporation, a private Canadian oil company which acquired, developed and operated oil production in Kazakhstan. Under Mr. Volcko’s leadership, Altius grew to nearly 2000 bbl/d prior to being acquired by Arawak Energy Corporation. He subsequently served as Vice President, Business Development and Executive Director of Arawak Energy.
David Kisilevsky, P.Geol.
Executive Vice President - Exploration & COO, Director
David Kisilevsky is a structural geologist and petrophysicist with 26 years’ experience in the petroleum industry, and related geosciences. For the past 8 years he has operated his own consultancy, providing services to a variety of companies. For most of 2014 and 2015 he managed exploration and geoscience for a company with production in Egypt and an exploration concession in Cameroon, and has been actively involved with clients operating in Turkey, New Zealand, Chile, Ukraine, Germany and Kurdistan.
Before striking out on his own, Mr. Kisilevsky spent 12 years with Petrel Robertson Consulting, where in addition to his technical role he simultaneously held managerial and Executive-level positions of increasing influence and responsibility. At the time of his departure, he had served as Vice President, was a corporate Director, and a Principal Shareholder. Previously, he worked as a wireline engineer for Halliburton, and mapped in the field for the Geological Survey of Canada.
Graeme Bate
Vice-President, Corporate Development
Mr. Bate is an experienced petroleum executive, with 35 years of varied industry experience around the world. For many years, he has been one of the industry’s leading petroleum economists, advising governments across Africa, the Middle East and Asia as well as companies investing in opportunities in these regions. He has led the design and negotiation of Production Sharing Contracts and/or Service Contracts in many countries, in particular in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Mexico, Pakistan and Gabon. He is a petrophysicist and reservoir engineer by training and worked in several African and European countries as a field engineer and manager with Schlumberger.
For many years he was a Partner and a leader of the Canadian oil and gas industry consulting business of PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP. Mr. Bate holds a M.Sc. in Engineering Physics from Queen’s University and a Diploma in International Relations from the London School of Economics.