The IPE will test members' opinion and then come up with a new proposal after two or three months, Reid currently chairman of British Borneo Oil and Gas said in an interview with Reuters.

He is seeking to end uncertainty surrounding the IPE since members late last month voted down a management plan to end its mutual ownership structure, forcing both the chief executive and chairman to resign. "We have to see what the members want to do. We're going to see what common ground we can find and formulate a proposal," Reid said.

Reid was appointed on Tuesday in place of Lord Fraser. He said acting CEO Richard Ward was competing with several external candidates to fill the chief executive position vacated by Lynton Jones.

Reid was low-key about the prospects for a takeover by larger US ExchangeNYMEX, which earlier this month finalised its takeover bid for the IPE -- Europe's largest energy market and home to the benchmark Brent futures contract.

"If NYMEX ring then I will not be discourteous, I'll take the telephone call," he said. "But I don't think this is going to be fixed by upping the price."

NYMEX raised its valuation of the London exchange to 35.7 million pounds to match a IPE management-backed bid for 70 per cent of the exchange by five European investors.

That European proposal lapsed after failing to get required 75 per cent member approval in an IPE ballot. In an increasingly bad-tempered battle NYMEX had urged IPE members to throw out demutualisation so it could firm up its own bid.

Reid, a former top official at Royal Dutch/Shell, said the new management will seek to address members worries that demutualisation would dilute their trading rights.

He believes that was a key reason that they voted against the sell-off last month. "The main issue is that members don't want tosurrender long-term control," he said.

Yet these concerns had to be set against the need to put together an attractive package for potential investors, Reid added. "They've got to get something beneficial out of ownership," he said.

Reid backed this week's decision by the IPE to postpone the introduction of out of hours electronic trade for oil contracts until next year as the move needed more time for development.

He said it did not reflect opposition in principle to electronic trade -- a switch feared by traditional floor traders. "The modern methods are going to come, there's no doubt about it," he said.