Houston-based offshore rig operator Paragon Offshore announced on Thursday two sudden changes at the top, naming a new president/chief executive officer and a new chief financial officer.
In two promotions from within, Dean E. Taylor became president and CEO while Lee Ahlstrom became CFO.
They replace, respectively, Randall Stilley and Steven Manz who both have left the company. The move was so sudden that as recently as Monday both Stilley and Manz had performed their duties at an earnings call.
The news came soon after Paragon received an early termination notice for its jackup rig M1162 which had been on charter to Abu Dhabi National Oil Company’s (ADNOC) National Drilling Company. The contract was cut short in late October.
Also in late October a US bankruptcy court refused to confirm Paragon’s plan for reorganization to enable it to exit Chapter 11 bankruptcy, which it entered in February with $2.6bn in long-term debts.
Paragon has suffered from the plunge in oil prices which saw many of its clients cut back their drilling operations.
