Cardinal Energy Ltd. announced the retirement of David Johnson from its board of directors. Johnson has been with Cardinal since inception and has provided constant guidance and input in helping to build the business, stated the company. The company appointed John Festival to the board.

Festival has had a 35+ year career of discovering and developing heavy oil and thermal projects. He started at Home Oil Company and worked in Lloydminster as an engineer at the Kitscoty Cyclic Steam Project. He then joined Koch Exploration Canada Corporation and alongside a technical team established operations across all the heavy oil regions of Western Canada.

At the time, Koch was the largest leaseholder in the Alberta oilsands, including operatorship of the Fort Hills mine asset. Festival and the senior technical team from Koch moved on to BlackRock Ventures Inc. where they discovered primary heavy oil in the Seal area of Alberta. They also piloted and initiated the Orion SAGD Project, one of the first SAGD projects in the Clearwater zone which continues to operate now.

In 2019, Festival was appointed CEO of Broadview, a Saskatchewan thermal development company. Cardinal acquired the Broadview assets in April 2023. As well as becoming a board member, Festival will be representing the shareholders on the reserves, audit and environment, social and governance (ESG) committees.