Oil & Gas Industry

Portrait of Phil Kirk from THE OIL MACHINE

Phil Kirk

  • Phil Kirk was President and CEO Europe of Harbour Energy from March 2021 to February 2022. He helped turn Harbour Energy into the largest UK-listed independent oil and gas group using private equity. 
  • Phil owns a 1.4 per cent stake in Harbour, which has a market capitalisation of £3.36bn. 
  • “The oil industry has traditionally been full of people who love solving problems.”

Emeka Emembolu

  • Emeka Emembolu is chief of staff to BP chief executive Bernard Looney, having previously served as the company’s senior vice president North Sea.
  • He compares the transition to net-zero to “replacing all the veins in the human body. You can’t pull them out all at once.”

Portrait of Deirdre Michie

Deirdre Michie OBE

  • Deirdre was appointed CEO of Oil & Gas UK in May 2015. She has an LLB Hons in Scots Law and has extensive experience as a senior business leader in the oil and gas industry. The organisation rebranded itself as Offshore Energies UK in 2022.
  • Calls for a balanced approach to transition and believes the North Sea Transition Deal is unique and will deliver 40,000 new jobs. 
  • “If we knee jerk one way or the other, I think what will happen is we will see people losing their jobs, we will see communities being left behind. And that's not what we think we should be working towards as a sector.”