HURRICANE Energy, which plans to develop a huge oil field West of Shetland, has announced plans to beef up its board following unrest about its corporate governance arrangements.

Led by chief executive Robert Trice, Surrey-based Hurricane provided a boost to the hard-pressed North Sea oil and gas industry in September when it approved a plan to bring the Lancaster onstream.

It lost its chairman in November when Robert Arnott resigned with immediate effect. The company said Mr Arnott decided to resign after it became apparent there wasn’t an alignment of views between him and the rest of the board on certain aspects of its processes.

Announcing Mr Arnott’s resignation, Hurricane said it had formed a board committee to evaluate its organisation and governance structure, and to provide recommendations for changes that would better suit the ongoing requirements of a firm of its scale and growth profile.

Yesterday Hurricane said it had appointed a leading executive search firm, Spencer Stuart, to source a non-executive chairman. David Jenkins is interim chairman.

Once a new chairman has been appointed, Hurricane will seek to appoint additional independent non-executive directors, such that the board becomes compliant with the Corporate Governance Code requirement that at least half its members should be independent.

Hurricane has also appointed Boudicca Proxy, a shareholder engagement and corporate governance consultancy, to help in evaluating and transitioning its corporate governance policies and procedures towards best practice, benchmarked against those of a premium listed business.