J. M. (Joe) Bruso, Jr. is an upstream executive with thirty years of petroleum industry experience in a career characterized initially by a focus on exploration geophysics and, for the past fifteen years, on managing international exploration and development projects in West Africa and South Asia. Aside from a brief stint with Arco Oil & Gas in 1975, and an eight year term with United Meridian Corporation (subsequently Ocean Energy) from 1990-1998 where he served as Senior Vice President International Exploration and Development, Joe has spent his entire career as an independent explorer and upstream project developer. On the domestic side, he played a principal part in the discovery of the Neuhoff Field in Wood County, Texas in 1978, an onshore salt dome flank field that recovered over eight million barrels of sweet Woodbine crude from nineteen wells. He also had a role in a number of oil and gas discoveries in the U.S. Gulf Coast onshore and state waters, including some of the early key wells in the Calcasieu Parish Yegua Trend in Louisiana. During the past fifteen years, Joe has caused more than eighty wells to be drilled and over 4 billion dollars to be invested in international projects he has managed. He has operated exploration, appraisal and development projects onshore, offshore, and in deep water in Africa and Asia for partner groups including Shell, ExxonMobil, BP/Statoil, Conoco, and numerous others. Joe is recognized as the discoverer of the Lion, Panthere and Zafiro Fields in West Africa. These oil and gas fields are largely responsible for making Equatorial Guinea a significant oil-exporting nation and for making Côte d’Ivoire energy independent and a net exporter of electricity through natural-gas-fired power generation. These fields achieved aggregate peak production of 350,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day with gross recoverable reserves of more than 1.3 billion barrels of oil. In March of 2000, Joe founded Houston-based Sovereign Oil & Gas Company. Sovereign has focused its project development activity in the Gulf of Guinea in West Africa, mainly in Equatorial Guinea and Nigeria. To date Sovereign has put together eight major upstream projects encompassing 13 drilled or committed wells and $450 million in capital investment. Sovereign is presently participating in the appraisal and development of three proven oil fields in Nigeria, and is anticipating its first commercial oil production in 2008. Key Skills: Joe is an expert geophysicist and oil finder, and a consummate negotiator and communicator. He takes a keen interest in people and seeks to provide motivational incentives to maximize team harmony and performance at all levels in the company. He is a graduate of the University of Houston, Texas, where he earned a BSc. In Geology and attended the graduate school of geophysics. He has been honored with the orders of Chevalier (Knight) of the Order of Mines in Côte d’Ivoire and Caballero (Knight) of the Order of Independence in Equatorial Guinea for his contributions to their energy sectors.