JATOIL LIMITED
Jatoil Strengthens Board With Appointment of Phil Hodgson
JAT - Business Update And New Board Appointment - Dr Michael Taverner, Executive Chairman
Tue, 23 Sep 2008 03:30PM
Click to listen to audio on your default player or
Download the latest version of the Flash Player
Dr Michael Taverner
Tue, 23 Sep 2008
03:30PM Australia/NSW
Select a tab above to display more information
JATOIL LIMITED (JAT)
ASX code: JAT
Website: http://www.jatoil.net
Industry: Energy
Principal Activities:
Jatoil is a renewables energy company focussed on second generation feed stocks and other alternative energies.
Address:
, 56 Pitt Street, Level 5,
SYDNEY
NSW
Phone: 02 9571 8300
Fax: 02 9571 8200
Executives & Directors
Dr Michael Taverner , Chairman
Dr Phil Hodgson , Managing Director, CEO
Mr Tom Hancock , Non Exec. Director
Mr Ross Kestel , Non Exec. Director
Mr Emmanuel Correia , Company Secretary
Company Podcasts
Company ASX Announcements
Company ASX announcements can be viewed on the ASX website.
Announcements from the preceding six months are shown below.
Please refer to the relevant stock exchange if any of the above information is incorrect
JATOIL LIMITED (JAT) Events
JATOIL LIMITED (JAT)
| Appendix 3B | Thu, 25 Jun 2009 |
| Appendix 3Y - Change of Directors Interest | Thu, 25 Jun 2009 |
| Results of General Meeting | Tue, 23 Jun 2009 |
| Jatoil Forms Philippines Expansion Alliance | Thu, 28 May 2009 |
| App 3Y Change in Directors Interest | Wed, 27 May 2009 |
| Notice of General Meeting | Fri, 22 May 2009 |
| JAT Newsletter May 2009 | Mon, 18 May 2009 |
| Jatoil to Unwind Indonesian Joint Venture | Tue, 12 May 2009 |
| Appendix 4C Qtr Ended 31 March 2009 | Mon, 27 Apr 2009 |
| Appendix 3Y - Change in Director Interest | Wed, 18 Mar 2009 |
Please note: This company appears on this website as a result of its listing on the Australian Securities Exchange. Boardroom Radio does not claim any association with any company listed on this site.
INTERVIEW WITH MICHAEL TAVERNER, EXECUTIVE CHAIRMAN OF JATOIL LIMITED (JAT)
“Business Update and New Board Appointment”
http://www.brr.com.au/event/51680
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 2008, 3:30 PM.
BRR Good afternoon and welcome to Boardroomradio. Today, we’re speaking with Michael Taverner, Executive Chairman of Jatoil and also Phil Hodgson, Non-
10 Executive Director of Jatoil. Thanks for joining us today, gentlemen.
JAT Thanks, Eddie.
JAT Thank you.
BRR Now, recently Jatoil has made some changes to its Board and also Michael
15 has visited Vietnam for business purposes. First, we started off with the visit to Vietnam. Michael, we see that you visited your joint venture partners in Vietnam. What was the purpose of this visit?
JAT Eddie, we, as you know, our joint venture over there was with GreenEnergy Vietnam and the purpose of the visit was multi-purpose really, one of the
20 main purposes was to participate in the Board meeting of our joint venture. You know, we take a pretty active interest in our joint venture partnership over there. We have monthly Board meetings, not all those Board meetings are face-to-face. We inject probably every second or third, we make sure that we have a face-to-face meeting so that we are in a position to make some of
25 the best decisions there for the joint venture operation in Vietnam. So this was one of those opportunities where we had a face-to-face Board meeting in Vietnam with our joint venture.
Secondly, it was an opportunity to review some of the field of operations in
30 Vietnam and so we incorporated this visit with another field trip. This time, our field trip included one of the international experts that we’re bringing into our team. This person is an agricultural expert who operates internationally with jatropha businesses and we took the opportunity to visit our field site in Central Vietnam to review our agronomy program there. Throughout Vietnam,
35 we now have about eight field trials and several contract growers that are now establishing their small jatropha plantation to begin with. The purpose of this visit was to visit those to ensure that we have an understanding of the design of the trials and to continually monitor our agricultural practices and particularly we’re looking at developing a manual, if you like, of best
40 agriculture practice for our operations in different parts of Vietnam. So this was an important visit to review the, sort of, the crop development that we’ve brought there, and you know, we store a whole variety of activity. Some of the crops which have been in the ground for a short time was looking very strong vegetative growth and some of the areas there have very promising growth
45 with intercropping with things like peanuts and green beans, so it was looking very promising. Other areas were in more marginal drier sandy areas where again, even though the conditions were so tough, we’re working at how to get the most out of the plant under very tough condition. So you know, we’re developing and compiling our management expertise at an agricultural level and you know, initially that’s really going to be a very important focus for the company to ensure that we have crops that are yielding to their potential. The purpose of the field trials is both to improve agricultural practice and to help us with selecting the best jatropha types or varieties for each of the different
5 localities we’ve got in Vietnam. So the result of this business, we’ve got some survey expert opinion to support the already existing material over there to improve our agricultural practice in Vietnam. It was a third, greater in terms of going over there and that was to prepare for a meeting that GreenEnergy Vietnam had with senior people from provincial and national government in
10 Vietnam. We convened at the conference of about 30 people from across the various ministries, oil zones, industry trade, plan and investment natural resources as well as from provincial government as well as from universities and different research institutes. The purpose was to ensure that we understand and to ensure that we are part of the national jatropha policy in
15 Vietnam. So that was a very significant meeting for GreenEnergy Vietnam to, first of all, talk about the work and they also visited some our fields site in Vietnam to actually view first hand what we’re doing and there was a great deal of excitement about our activities and considerable recognition at GreenEnergy Vietnam is definitely a first mover in this area. So that was the
20 purpose of the meeting and that was some of the outcome of the meeting.
BRR Okay, Michael, and we also mentioned that Jatoil had some changes to its Board. Could you take us through the reasons behind this?
JAT Yes, Eddie. When we listed the company, we had a reasonably small Board.
25 There were three directors on the Board of Jatoil and clearly there are room for increasing the numbers and broadening the expertise. We believe that we were in a position now to make that decision to broaden the expertise and fortunately, we came across to Phil, who has expertise in a downstream part of the biodiesel market that’s very significant going forward for Jatoil and Phil,
30 we saw as an excellent complement to the existing directors on Jatoil.
BRR We are fortunate, like we said, to have Phil with us. Phil, first we would like to say, congratulations on your appointment to the Board of Jatoil.
JAT Thanks very much, Eddie. I look forward to contributing and working with
35 Jatoil, and it’s a very exciting time for the company. So it’s going to be an interesting few years.
BRR Phil, Michael mentioned your extensive experience in biodiesel fuel.
JAT Eddie, I think this might relates to Jatoil and helping them on to identify
40 opportunities moving forward.
JAT Well, I guess, we go back to my experience. I was with the Shell Company for over 14 years and that’s started off in the refinery itself. So I’ve been responsible as a process engineer for making fuel, diesel, kerosene, amongst others, and very familiar with one of the issues associated with getting those
45 fuels out into the market place from the refinery and through the distribution chain. Later on in my career with Shell I spend a bit of time at the commercial end of the business, so I work in sales and also in strategy and portfolio, merges, acquisitions, etc. All of it in what you might term, the downstream part of Shell’s business. So I guess, to sum of all those experiences leads me knowing pretty well that downstream market with respect to fuels. Since leaving Shell over a year ago now, I’ve been working as an independent consultant and a lot of the work I’ve done is being in the energy sector and some of that works also being in biodiesel particularly. One of the things that
5 attracted me to the opportunity at Jatoil was the opportunity to use that knowledge and help Jatoil overcome some of the challenges that the biodiesel industry will face and has faced over the last short time period.
If you look at those challenges that we’ve seen in the Australian industry, for
10 example, you would note that a lot of the biodiesel producers that set up under government incentives over the last few years had found it tough. Now those guys have faced bearing quality constraints, they’ve faced in excise regime that’s been confusing, and they’ve faced distribution channels for their product that has and always been over than flowing. They’ve also faced quite
15 substantial increases in the cost of their raw material inputs and they face these challenges, I think, largely because they haven’t looked across the whole value chain when putting their business strategies together. One of the things that I’m very encouraged with Jatoil and one of the areas that I hope to add some value is to make sure that they do look across that whole value
20 chain. Jatoil is obviously very strong, in what you might term that upstream part, that raw oil production piece, and all of there have so far has centred around that piece whereas a significant value can be captured in my mind down the trail. The other area, where I guess, I hope I can add some value is having had that experience, in what you might term, the downstream, from
25 processing that oil to distributing it. That’s the piece that Jatoil is certainly aware of and it’s one of those pieces that will form a key part of their strategy moving forward is to make sure that their product gets out to market, in a sense, Jatoil if you like, almost creating a marketing and so one of the things that where we would be conscious of is that they do their best to influence the
30 way it should unfold in these countries and get the basics right so that there’s a viable business there.
So, yes, that pretty much sums up my experience and where I see Jatoil will developing, and as I said before, I think they’re in a fairly unique position right
35 now, time wise and experience wise, and strategy wise to take advantage of it and to make a great business.
BRR Michael and Phil, we thank you for taking the time out today to inform us of the developments at Jatoil and we look forward to speaking to you soon.
40 JAT Thanks, Eddie.
JAT Thank you, Eddie.
BRR That was Michael Taverner, Executive Chairman of Jatoil and also Phil Hodgson, Non-Executive Director of Jatoil. If you have any questions about
45 this broadcast or any other broadcast, please feel free to contact us on brr@brr.com.au. I’m Eddie Saade and thank you for listening to Boardroomradio.
INTERVIEW CONCLUDED
Contact brr@brr.com.au for more information
DISCLAIMER: Transcripts made available by Boardroomradio.com is a free service whereby the transcripts are created by one or more third party contractors without any involvement or oversight by Boardroomradio.com or the respective company, firm, partnership or individual that is being transcribed. Boardroomradio.com and its contractors, client companies, firms, partnerships and guest speakers (paid or otherwise) do not invite reliance upon, nor accept responsibility for, the information they provide. Boardroomradio.com makes every effort to provide a high quality service. However, neither Boardroomradio.com, its transcript providers, nor the providers of any other written or oral data made available on the Boardoomradio.com site (and its partner sites) give any guarantees, undertakings or warranties concerning the accuracy, completeness or up-to-date nature of the information provided. Users should confirm information from another source if it is of sufficient importance for them to do so. Boardroomradio.com, its directors and employees do not accept any liability for the results of any actions taken or not taken on the basis of information in this site, or for any negligent misstatements, errors or omissions.






















