About Us
We are a London based exploration and appraisal business focused on identifying undeveloped commercial gas resources offshore in the UK.
Contact us and learn more about the opportunities that we are developing.
Our Story So Far...
Andy believed that 2019 offered a unique opportunity to begin building a substantial natural gas business because: the UK Committee on Climate Change confirmed that the UK will require natural gas to meet its climate change commitments; the OGA was holding the 32nd Offshore Licensing Round; and there was a cohort of like-minded experienced and successful sub-surface experts available.
In Summer 2019, Andy invested in exploration company Actis Oil & Gas and began its transformation to Painted Wolf Resources as Chief Executive. By building a pack of highly experienced and successful professionals (we believe that we are the largest and most experienced team working in the basin) we have created a sub-surface tour de force with the potential of outperforming significantly larger players.
Painted Wolf has seen Andy re-join forces with co-founders of Wham Energy and Volantis Exploration. WHAM Energy and Volantis Exploration were Southern North Sea focussed, with each company building a portfolio of licences with multiple prospects. They drilled a total of seven wells on these prospects resulting in four gas discoveries
Building Our Business
Our approach is very targeted: understanding how to commercialise unexploited discoveries; revisiting and analysing “undrained” fields; and expanding play concepts from established fields into unexplored areas.
The foundation of Painted Wolf’s portfolio is the four licences held by Actis Oil & Gas. These licences hold high quality opportunities and are adjacent to available infrastructure. We submitted an ambitious range of bids in the 32nd Offshore Licensing Round which closed on 12th November 2019. In September 2020 we were offered sixteen blocks and part blocks, in six licences, including two of our top three targets.
We are also interested in farming-in to held acreage, exchanging our expertise for a share of the opportunity. Beyond the UK, we could extend our interests into the Dutch sector with the same hydrocarbon systems.
We are building a portfolio of highly prospective gas opportunities in the Southern North Sea basin
Business Growth
Our Business Model
We are a collaboration of oil and gas professionals with a history of working together, in different companies across a wide range of oil and gas provinces, but with standout knowledge of the Southern North Sea province. Together, we are an exceptional combination of technical and commercial experts that collectively have a track record of exploration and commercial success.
Our Positioning
What makes us stand out from other Promote type exploration companies is our ambition and the size and combined expertise of our technical team – over 250 years of sub-surface experience.
Future Growth and Development
Painted Wolf Expertise
Our Identity
The Painted Wolf is the most successful hunter on the African planes with a hunting strike rate of 80%, significantly ahead of cheetahs at 55%, leopards 35% and far better than lions at 25%. It is the perfect icon for our company.
Painted Wolves’ success is down to how they operate as a pack. Team work, communication and co-operation by the group, rather than individuals, deliver this high success rate. And it is these same attributes that underpin the work environment at Painted Wolf Resources.
Our team of highly experienced and successful sub-surface professionals form a very efficient pack, focused on hunting down commercial quantities of natural gas, principally in the highly prolific Southern North Sea hydrocarbon province.

Directors
Chief Executive Officer
Dr Mortimer spent fifteen years with Lasmo and ENI internationally, before growing and successfully monetising small companies. Andy was Exploration Manager for Wham Energy before its sale to Venture Production; a co-founder and Director of Volantis Exploration which sold to Atlantic Petroleum; Exploration Director of Dominion Petroleum which sold to Ophir Energy; and recently the Subsurface Director of Third Energy, which has just completed asset sales to HALO and York Energy.
Chief Financial Officer
Tom Cairns joined Painted Wolf Resources in January 2020 as CFO. He is a chartered accountant and has over sixteen years of success as a private equity investor. Tom co-founded Barclays Natural Resource Investments in 2006, a private equity group within Barclays focusing on oil & gas, mining, power and renewables. Tom was a member of BNRI’s investment committee and his deals included BNRI’s investments in Chrysaor, Third Energy and Natural Gas Partners. After leaving BNRI in 2015, Tom spent three years with SUEK and EuroChem, initially as adviser to the Chairman and subsequently as non-executive director of SUEK and joint-MD of the group’s holding company.
Director
During a successful career at Amoco, Dave Marsden developed the company’s first interactive mapping software. His work led to the discovery of the Scott and Everest fields and development of the CATS pipeline system, enabling monetisation of the East Central Graben gas fields. He was a founding director of WHAM Energy, bought by Venture Production; co-founder of Volantis Exploration which was sold to Atlantic Petroleum; and subsequently co-founder of Actis Oil & Gas Ltd.
Director
Derek Fairhead is Professor Emeritus at Leeds University in Exploration Geophysics and founder of AIM listed geophysical consultancy GETECH GROUP Ltd that specialises in non-seismic exploration methods.
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