The Team Building
Catoxy Energy.
Catoxy Energy is built by an experienced international team spanning energy development and operations, infrastructure investment, corporate finance and applied technology.
Our team
Dr. Markus Harting
Chief Executive OfficerSubsurface · Corporate Strategy
Steinar Svalesen
Chief Financial OfficerFinance · Capital Markets
Per-Arne Solberg
Chief Strategy & Business Development OfficerStrategy · Business Development
Till Huesecken
Chief Technical Officer – Drilling & EngineeringDrilling · Well Engineering
Peder Chr. Ursin-Smith
Chief Commercial OfficerCommercial · Finance
Mats Hagen
Chief Digital & AI OfficerDigital · AI
Hugh Mapplebeck
Company SecretaryGovernance · Company Secretarial
Advisory & Partner Network.
Catoxy Energy is supported by a distinguished international network of senior advisers, strategic partners and specialist service providers with deep expertise across subsurface science, technology, engineering, project delivery, finance, legal affairs, commercial strategy, human capital and digital innovation. This network brings together internationally recognised specialists with decades of leadership, technical, operational and transaction experience across the global energy, infrastructure and investment sectors.
Catoxy’s senior advisers contribute, on average, more than 30 years of relevant industry experience, providing the Company with access to an exceptional depth of knowledge, independent judgement and proven execution capability. Through its strategic relationships, specialist collaborations and selected equity interests, Catoxy can rapidly assemble highly experienced, multidisciplinary teams matched to the specific technical, commercial and geographic requirements of each opportunity.
This experience is directly relevant to deep geothermal development, which depends on many of the same disciplines required for complex subsurface projects, including geology, geophysics, reservoir evaluation, well engineering, drilling, project execution, asset management and long-term operational control.
The Company also works with established corporate finance and capital-markets advisers to support selected financing, investment, acquisition and strategic transaction activities. Together, this network significantly strengthens Catoxy’s ability to identify and evaluate complex opportunities, manage technical and commercial risk, mobilise specialist resources and deliver major energy and infrastructure projects to the standards expected by governments, institutional investors, industrial partners, utilities and major energy consumers.
Through its international network, Catoxy Energy is represented across four continents and 14 countries, providing local expertise, market intelligence and access to strategic markets and established industry relationships.
The Advisory Board
Clinton Elgar is a seasoned business growth specialist with over 40 years of experience in the energy industry. He has a proven track record of driving business development in frontier markets across Southeast Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and the FSU. Clinton excels in aligning global strategies with regional goals, leveraging his deep understanding of client needs and decision-making processes. As the former CEO and Founder of Global Process Systems Group (1999–2010), he transformed the company from a startup to a leading service provider in the Eastern Hemisphere. Earlier, as President of Kvaerner Process Systems Asia Pacific (1992–1999), he spearheaded organic and acquisition-driven growth, establishing it as a top performer in the Kvaerner Oil and Gas Group. With extensive expertise in floating and mobile offshore production systems, Clinton combines technical mastery as a Chartered Chemical Engineer with strategic leadership, currently serving as a director in several upstream-focused companies, including Inter Consulting and Engineering DMCC. His career exemplifies innovation, growth, and excellence in the oil and gas industry.
Greg Szutiak is a drilling, completions and energy-technology professional with more than two decades of leadership experience across complex well construction, operational optimisation and the commercialisation of advanced drilling and completion technologies. His career reflects international engineering and management experience across North America and other international operating environments. His background includes drilling-management and drilling-and-completions leadership for operators including EOG Resources Canada and Arawak Energy. His career includes extensive international technology, engineering and management experience across major energy projects and organisations. He has worked on demanding well types ranging from high-pressure, high-temperature horizontal wells and critical sour wells to directional drilling programmes in Canada, Azerbaijan, the Caspian region and the United States. Greg has also contributed to next-generation geothermal initiatives, including work associated with GeoX Energy, GreenFire Energy and advanced geothermal drilling concepts. He combines well-engineering fundamentals, operational safety, cost discipline and technology assessment, helping determine where new drilling methods can add genuine value without displacing proven practices unnecessarily.
Mark Doherty brings more than 40 years of international experience across exploration and development geophysics, petroleum-systems analysis, prospect generation, asset evaluation and technical risk assessment. His career spans the United Kingdom, Europe, the Middle East, North Africa and Australia. He currently serves as SVP at Oryx Global Advisors LLC, connecting buyers and sellers of energy assets while providing technical evaluation and advice on subsurface risks and opportunities. Mark has held senior geoscience positions with DNO Oman, GDF SUEZ Energy UK, JKX Oil & Gas, CCED, Verenex, Valiant Petroleum, Nexen, Santos, Anadarko and AGIP. His work has contributed to material reserve and resource additions, including the remapping of the Jackdaw and Buzzard fields, successful exploration plays in Oman and Libya, and development projects across the UK Continental Shelf and other international petroleum provinces.
Philippe Baffray brings more than 40 years of international experience in petroleum geoscience, exploration, business development and asset evaluation. His career spans Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Russia, Kazakhstan and Australia. He currently serves as Geosciences Manager at DNO ASA, supporting exploration, new-ventures and business-development activities across the Middle East and Africa. He previously held the same position with RAK Petroleum in Dubai. Earlier in his career, Philippe spent more than 20 years with Elf Aquitaine and Total, including international assignments in Scotland, Norway, the Netherlands, Congo, Nigeria and Australia. He subsequently worked as an international consultant, reviewing licence portfolios and evaluating oil and gas fields, with particular expertise in the Middle East, Russia and Kazakhstan.
Sam Guy brings more than 40 years of business experience, including over 30 years in senior contract and commercial management roles across complex energy, infrastructure and federally regulated project environments. His expertise spans the full contract lifecycle, from pre-award strategy, tender governance and commercial structuring through post-award administration, change management, claims avoidance, risk mitigation and closeout. He has led multi-jurisdictional contract portfolios across civil, mechanical, electrical and industrial scopes, while advising senior leadership on contract health, commercial exposure and execution risk. Sam also brings extensive experience in pre-commitment transaction assessment, helping sponsors, investors and counterparties evaluate contractual integrity, counterparty substance, financing structures and execution feasibility. Internationally experienced across North America, Europe, the Middle East and Asia-Pacific, he is recognised for a pragmatic, execution-focused approach that strengthens delivery certainty and reduces commercial and financial risk.
Rob Elder is a drilling-fluids, cementing and well-integrity specialist with more than 40 years of international experience across complex onshore and offshore operations. His career covers the design, implementation and troubleshooting of fluid and cement systems for high-pressure, high-temperature, deepwater, and other technically demanding well environments.
Berd-Jan “BJ” Staal is an international wells and drilling professional with more than 30 years of experience across oil and gas, geothermal energy, workovers, well intervention and abandonment. His career includes worldwide operating experience, with a current focus on the development and delivery of geothermal projects in the Netherlands. He is the founder and Managing Director of ZEDs, established to provide project management, engineering and supervision for drilling, workover, rigless intervention and plug-and-abandonment activities. Through these roles, he supports geothermal site selection, well planning, contracting, execution readiness and field delivery, while applying established oilfield disciplines to renewable heat and power projects. Earlier experience includes senior drilling responsibilities with organisations such as Shell, Schlumberger and Tiway Oil.
Rupert Mapplebeck is a qualified Treasurer (FCT) with more than 25 years of industry experience. Through Treasury Matters Limited, which he founded in 2008, he has advised public, private equity-backed and employee-owned companies on treasury strategy, funding, financial risk management, debt arrangements and acquisition-related matters.
Blair Stevens is a drilling and well-operations professional with more than 20 years of experience leading complex international programmes. His background covers drilling, workovers, well integrity, plug and abandonment, decommissioning and the delivery of deep, high-pressure and technically demanding wells under strict safety, cost and regulatory requirements.
David Ramsey brings over 30 years of experience across the energy industry with offshore and onshore oil and gas developments, energy trading and considerable A&D exposure internationally. David has worked with power generation (CCGT’s, OCGT,s and gas engines) including an internship commissioning a scanner on the Joint European Nuclear Fusion project near Oxford. David’s specific skills includes drilling operations, reservoir engineering, petroleum engineering / operations, gas to power project development, energy trading and risk management. David brings strength to the team with his experience and exposure from reservoir to wires and an ability to see the broad picture with qualified insight and experience.
Bjørn Ursin-Holm is a Senior Energy Executive. He brings more than 40 years of international experience across exploration and production, geoscience, seismic services, field development and corporate leadership. His career spans senior executive, founder and board positions across Europe, the CIS, Africa and the Middle East. He is Founder and Chairman of Irbis Energy Group Ltd, Chairman of Advanced Energy Equity Ventures Ltd, and Founder, Chairman and CEO of Vision of Energy AS. He also serves as Chairman of Global Geo Services AS and is Co-Founder of GGS International AS. Earlier in his career, Bjørn held senior leadership positions with Fugro, Aker Geo, Petroleum Geo-Services and Saga Petroleum. He has also founded and led several E&P and energy companies, including Vega Resources AS.
Raffik Lazar is a geologist with more than 20 years of hands-on experience, a geomodelling specialist and field-development advisor with extensive international experience in reservoir characterisation, static modelling and the technical evaluation of energy assets. He has particular expertise in complex carbonate reservoirs, horizontal-well development and the integration of geological uncertainty into practical development decisions.
Patrick Sheridan has over 40 years’ experience and serves as a Senior Advisor to Catoxy Energy with a remit covering seismic interpretation, exploration and asset evaluation. In this capacity, he supports the technical review of subsurface data, exploration opportunities, prospects and energy assets, with particular emphasis on the interpretation of seismic evidence and the identification of geological risk and uncertainty.
Delband Rastgou is a business-support, organisational-development and human-resources professional with more than 20 years of international experience, much of it within the energy sector. Her background spans business control, stakeholder coordination and the establishment of practical operating structures for growing organisations, together with organisational design, workforce planning, HR systems and project support.
Jeff Thompson is a highly experienced energy-sector engineer with more than 35 years of international industry experience. Throughout his career, he has worked on complex energy projects across the world, developing substantial technical, operational and project-delivery expertise. He brings particularly strong regional knowledge of the Middle East, Australia and New Zealand. His broad international perspective and practical, execution-focused approach strengthen Catoxy Energy’s ability to evaluate, develop and deliver technically robust energy and geothermal projects.
Tor Erling Aanerud is an experienced IT manager with over 30 years of experience in software development. In recent years he has focused on the energy industry, where he has gained deep experience in how technology can shape his clients’ business development. As CEO and founder of Green Digital, he has built a company focused on the development and monitoring of new forms of renewable energy. Central to that work has been the application of AI to the company’s own datasets, together with the capture of operational-technology (OT) data from sensors and live data streams. Tor Erling combines a deep understanding of business with a practical grasp of how it translates into technology, favouring creative and unconventional approaches to problem-solving.
Emilian Clipea is a reservoir engineer with experience in the evaluation, development and management of hydrocarbon resources, combining technical subsurface expertise with corporate development and fundraising activities. He is the Founder and Reservoir Engineer of KAREDA, where he supports resource evaluation, field-development planning and the advancement of energy opportunities. He also serves as an Advisor to Oryx Global Advisors LLC. In addition, Emilian is a Founding Partner and Chief Investment Officer of ALVERADA. Earlier in his career, he gained operational and petroleum-engineering experience with XP and Danubian Energy Consulting in Romania.
Our Partner Network
Strategic Partners and Technology Companies
Cyrus Corporate Finance AS is an independent corporate finance advisory firm based in Oslo, Norway. Founded in 2019 and regulated by the Norwegian Financial Supervisory Authority, the company provides strategic and transaction-related financial advice to businesses, shareholders and investors.
Its services include mergers and acquisitions, fundraising, secondary transactions, business valuations, transaction readiness, restructuring, strategic development and go-to-market advisory. Cyrus supports both buyers and sellers throughout the transaction process, including target identification, financial analysis, valuation, process management, capital-partner selection and commercial negotiations.
The firm has particular experience working with technology and technology-enabled companies. Its team combines financial expertise, transaction experience and hands-on commercial understanding to structure and execute solutions tailored to each client’s objectives and stage of development.
Cyrus Corporate Finance works with Catoxy Energy in support of selected financing, corporate-development and capital-markets activities, providing strategic financial expertise as Catoxy develops and expands its international energy platform.
Catoxy Energy’s Chief Financial Officer, Steinar Svalesen, is also a Partner at Cyrus Corporate Finance AS.
BEINIT Energy is an international energy consultancy, engineering and project delivery company headquartered in Dubai, providing multidisciplinary expertise across oil and gas, renewable energy, and marine and subsea infrastructure.
Its capabilities span strategic and programme management, engineering, project and construction management, procurement, commissioning, operations and asset management, supported by specialist expertise in geotechnical, technical safety, environmental, seismic and marine disciplines. BEINIT Energy is also a prominent and highly experienced EPC partner, with extensive capabilities in the engineering, procurement and construction of complex energy and infrastructure projects.
As a strategic partner to Catoxy Energy, BEINIT Energy provides complementary engineering, project management and execution capabilities supporting the development and delivery of complex energy and infrastructure projects. Its combination of technical expertise, practical project delivery experience and international energy-sector capabilities strengthens Catoxy’s ability to progress projects from concept through engineering, construction, commissioning and operations.
KAREDA S.A., formerly Karpathian Energy Development Agency S.A., is a privately held Romanian energy company and technical consultancy specialising in geoscience, reservoir engineering, field-development planning and integrated asset evaluation.
The company brings together experienced subsurface and energy professionals with capabilities covering the full project lifecycle, from exploration and resource assessment through development planning, production optimisation and eventual decommissioning. Its services include integrated reservoir studies, geological and geophysical interpretation, petrophysical analysis, static and dynamic reservoir modelling, reserves evaluation, field-development planning, asset management and exploration-project sourcing.
KAREDA also supports investors and project owners through technical due diligence, feasibility assessment, project structuring, financing preparation and the evaluation of acquisition and development opportunities. Its integrated approach connects subsurface understanding with commercial, investment and operational considerations.
The company is developing its own exploration and asset portfolio while continuing to make its specialist technical expertise available to clients and strategic partners internationally.
Catoxy Energy has secured a strategic equity interest in KAREDA S.A., strengthening the companies’ long-term alignment and supporting closer cooperation across energy development, subsurface evaluation and strategic project execution.
Catoxy Energy’s Chief Executive Officer, Dr. Markus Harting, is a member of the Board of Directors of KAREDA S.A.
Green Digital AS is a Norwegian technology and consulting company specialising in digital transformation, systems development, cloud infrastructure and project management. Based in Oslo, the company combines more than 20 years of industry experience across technology development, consulting and the delivery of complex digitalisation programmes for public- and private-sector organisations. It was founded by Tor Erling Aanerud, who serves as its Chief Executive Officer.
Its capabilities include secure and scalable cloud environments, infrastructure-as-code, application hosting, containerised solutions, microservices architecture and technology integration. Green Digital also provides structured project and change management, supported by established methodologies including PRINCE2, Scrum and PROSCI.
The company’s combination of technical implementation, commercial assessment and project leadership makes it a valuable partner for organisations seeking to convert digital strategies into secure, scalable and operational solutions.
ZEDs B.V., operating under the name Zero Energy Designs, is a Netherlands-based specialist providing project-management and advisory services for drilling, workover, well intervention and well decommissioning activities.
Founded by experienced drilling professional Berd-Jan Staal, the company supports conventional energy, geothermal, underground gas storage and salt-mining projects. Its services cover the planning and management of drilling programmes, rigless interventions, workovers, extended-reach wells and plug-and-abandonment operations.
ZEDs also provides advisory support for geothermal and other alternative-energy developments, together with specialist services relating to waste reduction, material recovery, recycling and zero-discharge operating concepts.
The company’s practical well-delivery experience provides project owners with independent operational oversight and support throughout the well lifecycle — from early planning and contractor coordination through execution, testing, intervention and final abandonment. Its focus is on safe, technically disciplined and cost-conscious project delivery using proven drilling and well-management practices.
GeoModL LLC is a UAE-based geoscience and subsurface consultancy providing integrated technical services across the energy-project lifecycle. The company’s mission is to improve the speed, quality and commercial relevance of subsurface prediction, helping clients make better-informed exploration, development and investment decisions.
Its capabilities include geology, geophysics, petrophysics, reservoir modelling, reservoir engineering, operations geology, field-development planning and subsurface due diligence. GeoModL also provides fast-track workflows for prospect evaluation, seismic geomodelling, static reservoir modelling, volumetric uncertainty analysis, mature-field opportunity identification, carbon-storage feasibility and subsurface digitalisation.
GeoModL combines established geoscience principles with proprietary workflows, rapid modelling approaches and digital visualisation tools. Its experience spans projects in the Middle East, Asia and Europe, including field-development studies, reservoir reviews, drilling support, acquisition assessments and the evaluation of exploration and redevelopment opportunities.
By translating complex subsurface information into practical technical and commercial insights, GeoModL supports faster project screening, improved risk identification and more disciplined investment decisions.
SPD Group is an independent well engineering and subsurface consultancy providing specialist expertise across geothermal, conventional energy and emerging energy technologies.
Its capabilities span geothermal well design and drilling, well integrity, engineering studies, project management, due diligence, independent technical assurance and operational supervision. SPD also brings experience in CCUS, hydrogen storage and complex well environments.
Through its partnership with Catoxy Energy, SPD strengthens our ability to plan, engineer and deliver technically robust geothermal well programmes from early-stage evaluation through drilling and operations.
Well Engineering Partners (WEP) is a specialist provider of integrated well engineering, drilling management and field supervision services across the geothermal, oil and gas, and salt-mining sectors.
Its capabilities span the full well lifecycle — from feasibility studies, design and project execution through intervention, production support and well abandonment.
Through its collaboration with Catoxy Energy, WEP strengthens the safe, efficient and disciplined delivery of geothermal well programmes.
Experience Is Our Competitive Advantage
Catoxy is proud to have assembled an exceptional network of senior technical, commercial, financial and legal advisers — highly respected professionals who have built their reputations over decades of successful work in their respective fields.
Each brings more than theoretical knowledge. They bring judgement formed through real projects, difficult decisions, changing market cycles and direct responsibility for outcomes. Collectively, they provide Catoxy with a depth of practical experience, professional credibility and institutional knowledge that few emerging companies can replicate.
We believe there is a fundamental difference between having studied a problem and having solved it repeatedly in the real world.
For Catoxy, experience is not a reference to the past. It is a strategic asset that materially improves decision quality, reduces avoidable risk, strengthens execution and increases the probability of successful outcomes. Our leadership team has therefore deliberately chosen to work with proven, hands-on professionals rather than building an organisation primarily around the lowest available cost base.
Success, safety, reliability, technical integrity, capital discipline and certainty of execution are among Catoxy’s highest operating principles. These values require people who understand not only what should work in theory, but what has worked in practice — and, equally importantly, what has failed, why it failed and how those failures can be avoided.
Catoxy does not seek to reinvent proven principles merely for the sake of appearing disruptive. Nor do we believe that every newly presented technology is automatically transformational. The energy industry has repeatedly seen supposedly “game-changing” solutions fail to deliver once confronted with geological complexity, engineering reality, commercial constraints and operating conditions.
Our approach is more disciplined.
We build upon established technologies, proven workflows, recognised engineering practices and the experience of professionals who have successfully executed comparable work many times before. We apply innovation selectively, where it can demonstrably improve technical performance, reduce risk, accelerate decisions, strengthen economics or create a genuine competitive advantage.
At the same time, Catoxy recognises that the operating environment is changing rapidly and that artificial intelligence can significantly enhance the way knowledge, data and professional judgement are applied. This is why we have developed SERIO, our proprietary AI-enabled intelligence and decision-support system.
SERIO is built to give Catoxy an integrated interface to public-domain information, external datasets, Catoxy’s internal databases, proprietary data, established workflows and the accumulated knowledge of our leadership team, advisers and technical specialists.
Its distinguishing strength is not simply its ability to access information. It is its ability to combine structured data with human experience.
Through SERIO, the knowledge of our professionals can be captured, challenged, compared, applied and continuously strengthened across the organisation. Opportunities can be screened more efficiently, assumptions tested more rigorously, risks identified earlier and decisions evaluated against both data-driven analysis and decades of real-world experience.
Artificial intelligence does not replace Catoxy’s experts. It makes their expertise more accessible, more consistent and more powerful.
For the foreseeable future, we believe the strongest results will come neither from human experience alone nor from artificial intelligence in isolation. They will come from the disciplined integration of both.
Catoxy combines proven people, established technologies, proprietary intelligence and AI-enabled analysis within a single operating model. Our experts provide judgement; SERIO is built to provide scale, structure and analytical reach. Together they are designed to let Catoxy validate, evaluate, challenge and continuously improve its decisions.
This combination forms one of Catoxy’s most important competitive advantages: the ability to preserve what has been proven, recognise what is changing and apply both with greater speed, discipline and certainty.
We do not confuse novelty with progress. We combine proven experience with intelligent innovation to deliver outcomes that are safer, stronger and built to last.