John Roberts joins Halite

HALITE Energy, the company behind plans for an underground gas storage facility near Fleetwood, Lancashire, has appointed John Roberts, a former United Utilities chief executive, as chairman.

Roberts, a prominent figure in the UK’s energy sector, is a graduate of Liverpool University and a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering.

He spent 30 years with Manweb, joining as a graduate trainee and working his way up through the organisation to become its chief executive in 1992. He then spent three years as chief executive at Hyder Utilities, before taking up the position of chief executive at United Utilities, which he held for seven years.

Roberts currently holds non-executive board positions with a number of organisations that are developing significant energy projects across the UK including International Power, Royal Bank of Canada (Europe), and BlackRock New Energy Investment Trust.

Originally from Wallasey, he has previously been chairman of the Manchester Inward Development Agency Service (MIDAS) and a non-executive director of The Mersey Partnership. He is also a Fellow of Liverpool John Moores University.

He said: “I’m delighted to be working alongside the Halite Energy team to drive this important project forward. Gas storage is critical to the future security of energy supplies in the UK and this project will be nationally significant in terms of meeting our future needs.”

Halite Energy is preparing plans for submission to the Infrastructure Planning Commission (IPC), or the body that replaces it, in 2011 following an extensive local consultation process this autumn.

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