The former stockbroker's resignation, effective as of last Friday, has left a void in the company, which will be filled by new chairman Chris Tonkin.

A CEO will be appointed at a later date.

Lakes thanked Annells for his "guidance and exemplary service to the company and the gas industry over manty years".

A qualified accountant, Annells had more than 40 years' experience in the securities industry, and he remains non-executive director of spin-out firm Greenearth Energy.

Over the past four years he has raged against the Victorian government's ban on onshore exploration, and his departure leaves that battle unfinished just weeks out from a government report that could see the ban extended or lifted.

Tonkin, his replacement, started his career as a metallurgist and environmental specialist, before moving into finance, where he was head of natural resources at ANZ Bank.

He was appointed in September in the lead up to a stoush with one of Lakes' major shareholders, Armour Energy as a nominee of other major shareholder, Hancock Prospecting.

At the time Annells painted himself as the steady hand in control of Lakes, who had successfully negotiated two letters of intent for gas contracts and defined the company's main projects.

Armour said Lakes had lacked transparency and had an unsustainable capital burn.

He helped identify the Wombat gas field, found the first very oil in the onshore Gippsland Basin, and managed exploration almost like a science project, with one eye on the commercial potential of the company's tight gas discoveries, while working up the longer-term potential of the Baragwanath Anticline, which he often described as a "sleeping giant".

Lakes successfully fracced multiple wells years before Lock The Gate came into existence, but was never quite able to work out how best to produce the Wombat field before the Victorian moratorium came in.

In recent months Annells has enthused about the potential for basin-centred gas in the Otway Basin.

Lakes is the oldest oil and gas company in Australia, and was all but a shell until Annells took it over, paying just $10 for its initial lease in the Gippsland Basin from Roma Petroleum

Lakes and Annells have been contacted for comment.