THE founding chief executive of Bowleven, Terry Heneaghan, has said the current boss Kevin Hart should be sacked and called for the oil and gas company to consider merging with another firm.

Mr Heneaghan wants a boardroom cull at Edinburgh-based Bowleven, which he accuses of performing terribly over the eight years since Mr Hart and chairman Ronnie Hanna took charge in 2006.

Mr Heneaghan, who left Bowleven in 2006, said non-executive director Caroline Cook should also be removed from the board.

He told the company's general meeting yesterday: "I ask the non-executive directors to do whatever is necessary to ensure that Ronnie Hanna, Kevin Hart and Carline cook leave this board at the soonest and are replaced by people with proven knowledge of the business, especially gas marketing, and in managing oil and gas assets."

He added: "A merger may also be attractive to shareholders."

The oil and gas veteran is unhappy that Bowleven has still not finalised a plan to bring any of the finds on its acreage off Cameroon into production, in spite of the company spending $500m (£320m) on the asset base under the current leadership.

He said with shares in Bowleven trading at around 25p currently they have fallen by around 90 per cent since December 2006. The Aim-listed company's market capitalisation is around £80m.

Noting that a series of fund-raisings has left many investors who held shares in 2006 with much reduced shares of the business, Mr Heneaghan reckoned: "By any measure of value creation this is terrible."

Mr Heneaghan stressed he was not criticising the technical staff at Bowleven and praised their successful efforts over the period, during which the company has made finds off Cameroon.

Mr Hart defended the management team's record saying the company had enjoyed a good exploration record and was poised to create significant value for shareholders.

He said: "I first and foremost fully understand the pain on the share price. I've spent most of my pennies since I came in the door buying shares."

He added: "I think we're in as good a position today, ignoring the share price, as we've ever been to monetise the value of what we have discovered."

Mr Hart said after spending years grappling with the problem of how to find a market for the gas on the company's finds, Bowleven had made good progress towards a solution in recent years.

The company expects to sell gas to a new fertiliser plant planned for Cameroon. It is exploring the possibility of selling gas from any further discoveries on the Etinde permit to a Liquefied Natural Gas plant that GDF Suez plans to develop.

Mr Hart said Bowleven had lined up the resources required to participate in the development of finds already made on the Etinde permit and future exploration activity in Africa by agreeing to sell a total 50 per cent holding in the Etinde permit for $250m. It will be left with 25 per cent of Etinde following completion of the deal with New Age of Cameroon and Russia's Lukoil.

The deal was agreed in June but is still awaiting approval from Cameroon's President Biya.

Mr Hanna said: "We set out a programme way, way back, we've followed that, we've had some, I think, significant success on the technical front. We've been hampered by the conditions we have found ourselves in to monetise the resources but we are set for a further development programme which we think can add value for shareholders."

He added: "We have a strong board, a very independent-minded board and we do stick to the rules."

Mr Hanna said the board will be refreshed in coming months. He had planned to stand down after the general meeting but was asked to stay on, for an unspecified period.

Mr Hanna said he was in almost hourly telephone contact with Chief Tabetando, a lawyer from Cameroon who has been on Bowleven's board since 2001, about the approval process for the stake sale.

The company has been planning how to respond if President Biya does not approve the sale by the year end. It recently extended the long stop deadline for completion of the farm-out a second time, to December 31 from October 31 while awaiting the decree.

Mr Heneaghan became chief executive of Bowleven in 1998, months after leaving Edinburgh-based oil and gas minnow Pittencrieff Resources. Philip Rhind became chief executive of Bowleven in 2004 and left in February 2006.

Mr Heneaghan stood down as executive chairman in December 2006, when Mr Hanna became chairman. Mr Hart became chief executive in November 2006.

Ms Cook joined the board in 2006.

The four directors up for re-election at yesterday's meeting, including Chief Tabetando, received support from around 99 per cent of proxy votes cast.