Biggs follows a string of men named Bruce: founding managing director and current chairman Bruce Phillips, ex-managing director Bruce Wood and the departing MD Bruce Clement. AWE's founding chairman was also a Bruce: Bruce McKay.
This morning AWE announced Biggs will take over from Clement.
Biggs has spent three years at the helm of Cue, a company focused on Indonesia, New Zealand and Australia, the three jurisdictions that AWE focuses on.
Prior to Biggs' three-year stint with Cue he spent almost 20 years with BHP Billiton Petroleum, staring managing existing gas contracts for the production of Bass Strait gas, taking on responsibility for managing all aspects of BHP's gas in Australia and Asia, including initiating BHP's initial interest in Queensland CSG extraction, and the North West Shelf Venture, before rising to the positions of vice president, commercial and vice president, land and upstream agreements, based in Texas.
Prior to BHP, he worked with the Natural Gas Corporation and the Petroleum Corporation of New Zealand, where the trained lawyer was heavily involved in the renegotiation of the Maui gas contract.
"David is a proven CEO with a good track record of delivering profitable outcomes for his companies," Phillips said in a statement this morning.
"The AWE board believes his leadership skills, very strong gas marketing background, and deep knowledge of the energy industry in Australia, New Zealand and Indonesia will be beneficial in delivering AWE's future strategy.
"David brings extensive experience in leadership, strategy and planning, business improvement, P&L [profit and loss] management and commercial transactions, particularly M&A and gas marketing. He holds a tertiary qualification in law from Victoria University in Wellington."
Biggs said he was "delighted" to take up the "exciting" opportunity at AWE, which is embarking on the development of the significant Waitsia gas field in the Perth Basin of Western Australia, and potentially the Ande Ande Lumut oil field, offshore Indonesia with Santos, assuming a final investment decision is taken later this year.
"AWE has a quality, robust suite of assets, and there are significant opportunities to enhance and add further value to those assets going forward for the benefit of shareholders," Biggs said in a statement.
Biggs will serve an initial three-year contract, expiring in July 1, unless the employment is terminated earlier, with the option of two additional one-year terms.
He will be paid a base salary of $800,000 inclusive of superannuation, reviewed annually, and up to 50% on top of that if he meets annual key performance indicators, set from time to time.
His salary at AWE is almost twice his $450,000 base at Cue.
In addition his long-term incentive is 100% of his base salary under AWE's cash share plan.
At Cue, Biggs refocused the business away from a heavy focus on deep water offshore exploration to onshore activities and saw Cue's exit from Papua New Guinea.
Clement will leave AWE after almost six years in September, after a period of transition, with a golden handshake.
"Bruce Clement continues to do an excellent job for AWE in what is an extraordinarily difficult business environment for upstream energy companies. These modest incentives are in line with our previous practice and are designed to ensure a smooth transition to the new CEO," Phillips said.
Clement, who joined AWE in late 2010 from ROC Oil Company, where he had been managing director since 2008, having replaced founder Dr John Doran, who had died of a heart attack some weeks earlier.
At the time ROC was involved in the takeover of UK-listed Anzon Energy and ASX-listed Anzon Australia.
He had been one of ROC's longest serving employees, and was its chief operating officer.
Clement is a 35-year veteran of the oil patch, aside from a two-year stint as a resources banker with AIDC, the Australian Resource Bank.
He cut his teeth as an engineer with Esso in the 1980s, initially working in the Gippsland Basin oil and gas fields before moving to Ampolex, where he was involved in the Wandoo development, and later AIDC and ROC, where he was the fifth employee hired by Doran.
He served as the general manager of finance and company secretary on the $150 million initial public offer of the company in 1999, moved to the chief financial officer's role in 2001 and COO in 2003.
He joined AWE at the start of 2011, and is believed to be considering a sabbatical, but is considering all future options.
This morning Cue, which is now some 40%-owned by AWE's partner in the Tui Area fields, NZ, New Zealand Oil & Gas, said it would look for a replacement.
The junior's board was recently reconstituted to better reflect NZOG's level of control and to cut costs.
