Ex-BP Boss Browne Quits Riverstone Board

Lord Browne, the former BP chief executive, will on Tuesday resign from his only directorship of a UK public company as he focuses on turning a Russian-backed vehicle into a global energy giant.

Sky News understands that Riverstone Energy, which is listed on the London Stock Exchange (Other OTC: LDNXF - news) , is planning to announce Lord Browne’s departure from its board.

His exit will come weeks after he agreed to become executive chairman of L1 Energy, a $10bn venture established by Mikhail Fridman and German Khan, two of the billionaire businessmen with whom BP went into partnership while Lord Browne ran Britain’s second-biggest oil company.

Lord Browne’s reshuffling of his business portfolio comes as capital-rich global investors target an array of opportunities thrown up by the slump in oil prices.

Since Riverstone Energy listed in London, raising hundreds of millions of pounds, it has bought stakes in nearly a dozen businesses, including the Calgary-based Canadian International Oil Corporation, Castex Energy, which explores for oil in the Gulf of Mexico, and Sierra Oil and Gas, which is focused on Mexico.

Lord Browne’s connections across the international energy sector are designed to assist L1 Energy at a time of acute political sensitivity, highlighted when the UK Government indicated in February its intention to block the fund’s purchase of a number of North Sea gasfields.

In addition to his role at the listed Riverstone vehicle and its private equity firm, Lord Browne has also relinquished the chairmanship of Cuadrilla Resources, the privately-owned fracking company which has faced opposition to its efforts to extract gas in parts of the UK.

He recently stepped down as the Government's lead non-executive director, a post that involved co-ordinating the appointment of dozens of private sector figures to the boards of Whitehall departments.

Handing over to Sir Ian Cheshire, the former Kingfisher (LSE: KGF.L - news) boss, Lord Browne conceded that the initiative had achieved mixed results.

The former BP boss’s other roles have included advising the Coalition on higher education, chairing boards of trustees at the Tate and the Queen Elizabeth II Prize for Engineering, and chairing the international advisory board of the Blavatnik School of Government at Oxford University.

Lord Browne has been close to taking the helm of other London-listed companies since leaving BP, holding detailed talks about becoming chairman of both Glencore (Xetra: A1JAGV - news) , the commodities trading group, and National Grid (LSE: NG.L - news) .

His BP successor, Tony Hayward, now chairs Glencore.

The public Riverstone Energy vehicle is chaired by Sir Robert Wilson, the former chairman of BG Group (LSE: BG.L - news) , while BG’s current chairman, Andrew Gould, serves on the advisory board of L1 Energy.

Lord Browne could not be reached for comment on Monday.