Struggling independent Canadian Overseas Petroleum (COPL) has lost its latest chief executive after less than four months in the role.

Dual-listed COPL on Wednesday confirmed that John Cowan had resigned as the company’s chief executive, adding that he would remain on the board of directors for the time being while a replacement is found. No reason was given for his departure.

At the time of his appointment in early September, Cowan, a COPL director since 2015, with more than 40 years’ experience as a founder, chief executive and director of multiple private and publicly traded upstream corporations, said: “Following a challenging period for the company both financially and operationally, I am committed to delivering on the potential of our increasingly well invested assets.

“It is my simple aim to drive maximum value from them, while also ensuring that if the interest being shown by certain third parties in joint venturing with us matches our own views on value, we will seek to further scale through partnership.”

Cowan had replaced Art Millholland as chief executive of COPL, which is in serious financial difficulties.

Millholland had helmed the London and Toronto-listed junior for 14 years after a similar length stint at UK-focused player Oilexco, which entered administration in 2008 with liabilities of US$1.8 billion.

COPL describes itself as “an international oil and gas exploration, development and production company that is actively pursuing opportunities in the United States”. The company had earlier planned to acquire UK upstream assets, but these plans failed to materialise.