Irish oil and gas explorer Providence Resources has appointed James Menton as a senior independent non-executive director with immediate effect.

Mr Menton was a partner with KPMG Ireland, following its merger with Andersen in 2002 where he had been a partner since 1986. During this time, he provided advice to some of Ireland’s listed oil and gas companies among other Plc clients.

More recently Mr Menton has served as chair of the board of St. Vincent’s Healthcare Group (SVHG), in Dublin, for the past six years.

During his tenure as chair of SVHG he has led stakeholder engagement with State agencies, Ireland’s healthcare community, and the investment community, according to a statement from Providence Resources.

Commenting on the appointment, Pat Plunkett, chairman of Providence, said: "We are strengthening our board at a crucial time for our business.”

“Developing the Barryroe Discovery will require a multi-disciplinary team with experience in delivering major projects and investment. James has that experience in addition to considerable understanding of Ireland’s offshore exploration sector. I look forward to working with him as we drive forward with this crucial project for Ireland.”

Mr Menton is also chair of Lisney, one of Ireland’s biggest real estate agencies.

In addition, he is chair of CWSI Security, an enterprise mobility and cyber security consultancy business.

Last week Providence raised a further £690,536.76 (€797,000) from shareholders, exercising warrants issued a year ago to buy in at three pence a share just ahead of a cut-off date.

The latest purchases take the total raised from the exercise of the three-pence warrants to just over £4m (€4.6m).

The warrants were issued last year to shareholders who contributed to a €3m capital raise. Each investor received a mix of ordinary shares and the same number of so-called 3p and 9p warrants that give them a right to buy additional shares at those pre-set prices.

The 9p warrants, also issued last year, have another year to run, but Providence shares would have to almost triple in value before they came into play.

Last month the Irish oil and gas explorer told shareholders it had terminated an important farm-out agreement with Norway’s SpotOn Energy, which was to have taken over the costs of pressing ahead with exploration in the Barryroe licence area off the coast of Cork.

The farm-out was conditional on SpotOn confirming that a minimum of $166m (€137m) in funding was in place for the early development programme.

The agreement was terminated because “key financing conditions were not met”, according to a statement from Providence at the time.

Providence will now lead the project development and funding arrangements for the license as it looks to raise $5m.

Providence has said it is working on a number of options to further the development of the Barryroe site including payment deferrals by individual service providers and a Nordic bond issue of around $80m.