Bula Resources board survives heated meeting

Shareholders' calls for resignations from the board were rejected at an e.g.m of Bula Resources yesterday.

Details of the directors' remuneration were given during the sometimes heated meeting. The chairman, Mr Tom Fitzpatrick, responding to questions, said the managing director, Mr Pat Mahony, was paid £75,000 per annum, while the financial director, Mr Ivan Walpole, was paid £50,000 per annum. Pension benefits were also paid for the two executives.

Non-executive members of the board were paid £12,000 per annum and executive directors were paid £6,000, he added. He said the remuneration levels were "very much within the norm". After the meeting he told The Irish Times that the former chairman and chief executive, Mr Jim Stanley, had been paid "about £175,000 per annum".

The e.g.m was held to allow shareholders discuss the report of the Government-appointed inspector, Mr Lyndon MacCann, published in July. The inspector found that Mr Stanley was the beneficial owner of a British Virgin Islands company, Mir Oil Development Ltd, which benefited from a deal negotiated by Mr Stanley between Bula and Mir. Mr Fitzpatrick told The Irish Times that a formal complaint to the Garda Bureau of Fraud Investigations was being prepared and would be ready before the end of the year.

"Someone has to take responsibility for this. Some of the directors should have resigned," one shareholder said to applause. Another, Ms Gloria McKeogh, said to Mr Fitzpatrick, and Mr Mahony: "The only decent thing you can do now for the shareholders is for you to resign."

However, another shareholder said that if the board resigned the company could be suspended. A technical adviser to Bula, Mr Billy Griffin, said any criticism of Mr Mahony was "totally invalid". Mr Mahony "was the one who exposed Mr Stanley," he said.

Another shareholder, Mr Angus Duncan, said Mr Stanley, who lives in Moscow, had called him on the telephone and given him material which he, Mr Stanley, had hoped he would use against the board. Mr Duncan, who was very critical of the board, said he would not repeat what Mr Stanley had said.

Responding directly to one shareholder's call for his resignation, Mr Mahony said he had "done nothing wrong or illegal. I've worked diligently for this company for 19 years. I've never done a thing dishonest. I've never done a thing dishonest in my whole life".

Mr Mahony said one of the company's main institutional investors, Capital International, had insisted just last week that he remain as managing director.

Mr Griffin revealed he had written to the board at the time of the Mir Oil deal, advising it against it. Drilling in the Siberian oil field at the centre of the deal was "like putting a pin into a pin cushion, hoping to find something inside". Only two of 37 wells drilled in the field had produced oil, he said.

He appealed to the shareholders to put the Russian disaster behind them and concentrate on the company's efforts in Libya, Yemen and Iraq. "Ladies and gentlemen, would you wake up. Give us a chance. We are going somewhere."

Shareholders were told the company had been invited to Tripoli to "finalise matters" in relation to an application for licences in Libya. The meeting heard that £965,000 had been spent pursuing this and other matters in the first six months of this year.