Instructors
Dr. Andrew Ross
Dr. Andrew Ross has over 30 years of experience in seismology and geophysics in both industry and academia. He has worked with using seismic data to determine subsurface rock properties at all scales in the Earth, from the reservoir to whole mantle scales. Andrew has a Ph.D. in Geological Sciences from Cornell University and an M.Sc. in Exploration Geophysics from Imperial College, Bachelors (Hons.) in Physics from Hertford College, Oxford. He had a postdoctoral research position at the University of Copenhagen from 1999 to 2003. He has worked for Hess as a seismic interpreter, for Ødegaard supporting seismic inversion, and for Schlumberger supporting inversion and Petrel. Since 2015, he has been an independent consultant running training in seismic interpretation, inversion attributes, and quantitative interpretation.
Geophysics Expert
Arve Lønøy has 37 years of experience as a carbonate geologist within exploration, production/field development, and research. He also has 6 years of experience on siliciclastic North Sea reservoirs. His main specialty is carbonate sedimentology and diagenesis with special emphasis on reservoir characterization. He has developed several proprietary techniques for static reservoir modelling. Arve published (AAPG 2006) a new pore-type classification system that is applied in prediction of permeability, effective porosity, saturation heights and HC contacts. The predictions are further aided by the use of artificial intelligence, using a time- efficient methodology that he has developed. This new methodology for reservoir characterization, and how it is applied in reservoir modelling, was approved by Beicip-Franlab in 2012 audit.
Carbonate Geologist Expert
Dr. Afshin Fathi
Dr. Afshin Fathiis a petroleum engineer with expertise in basin modeler and organic geochemist. He has more than 15 years of experience in the petroleum industry exploring conventional and unconventional hydrocarbon resources. His educational background in petroleum engineering, petroleum exploration, and mining exploration provides him with great abilities to understand and solve HC exploration problems. He developed new ideas and technologies which led to publishing several papers and two patents. He has experience in basins located in North America, Europe and northern part of the Arabian plate. During his career, he instructed lectures, presentations and on job training for different geological communities, companies and universities, including Polytechnic University of Tehran, Tehran University, National Iranian Oil Company, RIPI, POGC, Canada’s Energy Geoscientists. His research interests are: Applications of Data science in petroleum exploration, organic geochemistry, basin modeling, software development, conventional and unconventional resources exploration. Afshin is a member of AAPG, HGC, HOGC, SPE, and APPIH.
Expert in Basin Geochemistry
Dr. Babak Jafarizadeh
Dr. Babak Jafarizadeh is an assistant professor of petroleum economics at Heriot-Watt University. With teaching and research interests in the oil and gas industry’s economics of decision making, he works towards combining academic practice with his experience from the oil and gas industry to create useful decision insights. Before joining academia, Babak was a senior economic analyst in Statoil (now Equinor), working on energy projects from all stages of the value chain and in a variety of geographic areas, yet mostly on the exploration of hydrocarbons. His interests in petroleum exploration inspired his research projects on topics such as economic decision analysis, real options, and valuations. He holds a Ph.D. degree in Petroleum Investment and Decision Analysis (University of Stavanger), as well as MSc and BSc degrees in industrial and financial engineering.
Petroleum Economist
David Garner
David Garner has more than 35 years of technical experience in the industry with 24 years in applied geostatistical studies in petroleum and mining. He has published and presented over 25 papers, many of which were peer-reviewed. Currently, he is a consulting geomodeling advisor and trainer and an associate of Geovariances in Fontainebleau, France and of BJT Geoscience Associates Ltd. In Canada. Previously he held positions in Halliburton as a Chief Scientist in R&D, as a Specialist in Equinor’s (Statoil’s) Heavy Oil Technology Centre -Unconventionals R&D, as Senior Advisor Geologic Modeling for Chevron Canada Resources, and Reservoir Characterization Specialist at ConocoPhillips Canada. He was president of TerraMod Consulting applying geostatistics and geomodeling techniques mainly for large international reservoir studies and mining resources. As a volunteer, Mr. Garner currently serves as a co-chair for the Canadian Society of Petroleum Geologists’ Geomodeling Technical Division committee. He was chairman for three Gussow research conferences, Closing the Gap I, II, and III: Advances in Geomodeling for Petroleum Reservoirs held in 2011, 2014, and 2018. He is a past Finance Chair for the CSPG Board of Directors.
Professional Geophysicist
Prof. Ezat Heydari
Dr. Ezat Heydari is a Professor of Geoscience at Jackson State University (JSU). He received his Ph.D. degree from Louisiana State University (LSU) in 1990. He specializes in sedimentology, stratigraphy, diagenesis, and low temperature geochemistry of carbonate rocks. Heydari has extensive experience in teaching, research, and reservoir characterization of carbonate rocks. He has investigated Mesozoic petroleum reservoirs of the U.S. Gulf Coast and the Upper Permian and Lower Triassic strata of the Middle East. His most recent endeavor is the Geology of the planet Mars. He is the author of over 50 published research papers and about 100 conference presentations. He has the honor of being a member of science team with NASA’s Curiosity Rover currently exploring Gale Crater, Mars.
Carbonate Geologist Expert
Fayez Makkar
Fayez Makkar is a well-qualified Drilling Engineer with over 40 years’ experience with Major Oil & Gas Companies. Experiences have been mostly in the drilling area, from contractor to operator; working on various operations, workover, completion logging interpretation and design the completion, and drilling projects. Extensive experiences in directional and horizontal wells. Experience in all types of drilling operations including deep wells in both offshore and onshore oil and gas wells, H2S wells. Fayez. Makkar gained these very experiences from working with different nationalities in different countries and fields. Fayez Makkar has long experience as a Drilling freelancer instructor & curriculum provider for many international companies especially in the middle east region.
Drilling Engineer Expert
Gas Lift Well optimization Expert
Dr. Florence Einaudi
Dr. Einaudi is a specialist in Geosciences with over 22 years of technical, scientific research and software development. She holds a Ph.D. in Geology and Petrophysics from the Aix-Marseille University. Her work experience includes 10 years as a research scientist in the frame of the International Ocean Discovery Program and was a teaching assistant at the University of Montpellier. during her 10 year tenure with Schlumberger, she was a petrophysicist domain champion for the Caspian region, a Global Training Manager for well-centric software and a domain champion for surface logging in Brazil. Her current role is with Antaeus Technologies as Senior Software Support for Geofit. Dr. Einaudi is a specialist in Geosciences with over 22 years of technical, scientific research and software development. She holds a Ph.D. in Geology and Petrophysics from the Aix-Marseille University. Her work experience includes 10 years as a research scientist in the frame of the International Ocean Discovery Program and was a teaching assistant at the University of Montpellier. during her 10 year tenure with Schlumberger, she was a petrophysicist domain champion for the Caspian region, a Global Training Manager for well-centric software and a domain champion for surface logging in Brazil. Her current role is with Antaeus Technologies as Senior Software Support for Geofit.
Professional Petrophysicist
Profile
Profile
Dr. Hassan Karimaie
Dr. Karimaie has more than 25 years of experience in the upstream oil and gas industry. In 2007 he received his Ph.D. in Reservoir Engineering from NTNU in Norway and currently holds the chair of the petroleum engineering in Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) in Ghana. Dr. Karimaie works as a research scientist in SINTEF in Norway on CCS projects. He has carried out numerous reservoir studies on various reservoirs in the Middle East, Europe and Africa and taught several courses at NTNU and other universities. Dr. Karimaie has worked as a consultant in Equinior for the field development and planning assets on the Norwegian Continental Shelf. He is an expert with vast industrial exposure on reservoir model building, laboratory data analysis, reservoir simulation, CO2 EOR and storage and enhanced oil recovery studies. His research interest includes Special Core Analysis (SCAL), CO2 EOR and storage as well as unconventional reservoirs.
Reservoir Engineer Expert
Imene Ferhat
Imene Ferhat accumulates over 10 years of borehole images interpretation, geomechanics, and geosciences experience. She joined Baker Hughes as a geoscientist and certified for advanced borehole images and awarded for the efforts and commitments. She became a team lead and contributed to several integration studies and geomechanics modelling delivered to different companies in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. Imene Joined to the Algerian institute of petroleum (IAP) as instructor, presenting seminars and workshops for engineers in borehole images and geomechanics, and published recently a study titled “Fractures Characterization of the Combro-Ordovician Reservoir of Hassi Messaoud”, where she addressed the compartmentalization issue related to fault sealing in the periphery of Hassi Messaoud field.
Carbonate Geologist Expert
Jean-Marie Questiaux
Mr. Questiaux has over 40 years’ experience in Oil and Gas Industry covering onshore and offshore Exploration and Production, specialized in the Integration of Geomodelling and Reservoir Engineering; Field Development, Project Economics and Risk Evaluation (Technical & Economics). He held positions include Exploration Manager in Libya & Angola (PetroFina) Exploration Manager in Bolivia (Total) and Subsurface Technical Director Nigeria (Addax), Teaching Fellow. Institute of Petroleum Engineering (Heriot-Watt University). Specialized in Integrated Studies associated with Field Developments (Green and Brown Fields) integrating G&G, Petrophysics, Reservoir Engineering, Production Technology; Resource Estimation & Project Economics. He is expert in Subsurface Project Set-up, Management, Review, and Sanctioning, Corporate Strategy, Short & Medium-Term Business Planning (Production & Reserves) and Integrated Technical Work Program (ITWP).
Reservoir Engineering Expert
Julian Coker
Julian Coker has over 30 years’ experience in oil and gas industry, specializes in petroleum geology. He accumulated over 20 years’ experience as wellsite geologist working in many international companies. He is author of several scientific paper.
Well-Site Geology Expert
Jerry Rusnak
Jerry Rusnak has more than 40 years of oilfield experience. He has worked in all phases of the industry including service, supply, operations, and academia. He began his career as a Wireline field engineer. Then he worked for an Independent Exploration and Production Company as a field engineer managing wellsite drilling, completion, and workover operations. Moving up he became the companies Drilling and Completion Manager in charge of multiple simultaneous drilling and completion operations across US land. At the end of his tenure (15 years), he was the company’s Exploration and Production Manager. This company grew rapidly during his career and the E&P part of the company was eventually sold to a major independent. Rusnak holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Ocean Engineering from Florida Atlantic University, is an active member and past section president of the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE), and holds or is eligible to hold most major certifications required for wellsite work both onshore and offshore.
Expert in Well Engineering
Dr. Johan Tronvoll
Johan Tronvoll holds M.Sc. in petroleum engineering and Ph.D. in geomechanics from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) and Master of Management from the Norwegian School of Management BI-Executive School. Johan has experience from North Sea drilling operations, and worked within subsurface R&D at SINTEF Petroleum Research in Norway as Senior Scientist later Research Director. He has several years experience working for operators through private companies ORMIS (as co-founder), Weatherford (former ResLab) and cofounded Kyaw Tin Htay International Energy Services in Myanmar. Johan has +30 years’ experience in the oil and gas industry and has experience in geomechanics, drilling, completion, production, reservoir management and P&A. Johan published about 50 technical articles and papers in international journals and conferences. He has performed numerous field studies within geomechanics, wellbore stability and sand production and has given several in-house training courses to E&P operators and service providers.
Geomechanics Expert
Dr. Jitendra S. Sangwai
Dr. Jitendra S. Sangwai is currently working as a Professor in the Petroleum Engineering Program, Department of Ocean Engineering at Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai, India. He has about 13 years of experience in academics and industry. He obtained M.Tech. and Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from IIT Kharagpur and IIT Kanpur, respectively. He gained industrial and research experience in an upstream oil and gas industry, Schlumberger dealing with flow assurances issues and on several commercial projects on reservoir fluid characterizations. He published over 80 peer reviewed journal papers and 70 papers in conferences of international repute. He filed/holds 13 patents in the field of gas hydrates, flow assurance and enhanced oil recovery.
Professor in the Petroleum
Dr. Luiz C. Amado
Dr. Amado is an expert in reservoir engineering (Modeling and Simulation) and Integrated Reservoir Modeling Author of the Book – Reservoir Exploration and Appraisa, published by Elsevier. Amado has over 20 years of oil and gas industry experience, working with Shell, Petrobras, and other major oil and service companies. During his 10-year career with Shell, as a Senior Reservoir Engineer, he worked on several projects in UK, Brazil and USA. In UK, he was involved in reservoir engineering and simulation studies, and operations, in the Southern North Sea. As a Senior Reservoir Engineer for Shell in Houston, he worked on deep-water reservoir engineering projects in GOM and at Exploration areas in Brazil (Santos, Campos and Espirito Santo basins), as well as on projects in other areas in South America and South Caribbean. As a Senior Reservoir Engineer for Petrobras America, Dr. Amado worked on reservoir engineering projects to evaluate prospect opportunities in Pliocene, Miocene and Lower Tertiary plays of GOM. Amado is a long-standing member of SPE, and has served on several SPE technical committees and conference boards. He is a co-instructor of two popular SPE training courses.
Reservoir Engineer Specialist
Dr. Mahmoud Khalifeh
Dr. Mahmoud Khalifeh is an Associate Professor at the University of Stavanger (UiS). He holds a Ph.D. in plug and abandonment of wells with a focus on materials optimized for permanent P&A. Dr. Khalifeh has developed the permanent P&A (Plug and Abandonment) subject (MSc level) at UiS. He has published several articles in scientific journals and conferences. Dr. Khalifeh represents UiS as an observer at the Norwegian Plug and Abandonment Forum (PAF) since 2012.
Plug & Abandonment Specialist
Mark Brinsden
Mark Brinsden is President and founder of Vektor Energy Inc., a technology consultancy. He has held several positions since he first joined Schlumberger 39 years ago, followed by Prodrill and Expro Group. After leaving Shell in 2018, where he was Principal Technical Expert in Perforating for 12 years, he founded Vektor Energy Inc. to progress his passion on the areas of energetics for enhanced production and well integrity. He has invented several perforating gun systems, and is currently working on applied energetics for well control, well stimulation, P&A and well integrity. He is also currently developing expert systems for a major NOC’s. He was elected Fellow of The Energy Institute in 2015 and Distinguished Member of the SPE in 2019. He is an SPE Technical Editor and Associate Editor of SPE Drilling & Completions Journal. Mark was Chair of the SPE Energy Information Committee and is a member of both the SPE Completions Advisory Committee and SPE Distinguished Lecturer. He was on the Aberdeen Section Board from 2013 to 2017. He also made an SPE Distinguished Lecturer tour in 2013/14. He is an active SPE Mentor for the last 5 years and has presented numerous papers at conferences. He also provides Perforating Training courses for SPE conferences.
Production Engineer Specialist
Dr. Mazda Irani
Dr. Irani is the director of Ashaw Energy Ltd. He holds a Ph.D. in petroleum engineering (U of C 2017) and geomechanics (U of A 2012) and three Masters degrees in petroleum engineering, geotechnical engineering, and structural engineering.He is currently engaged in the designing and optimization of Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage (SAGD) and proper near wellbore modeling for the SAGD wells. One of his main tasks is to help and develop a software that can help operators run their SAGD wells at optimum subcool, manage the hot spots, and modify their FCD design in heterogeneous reservoirs. He published a trilogy paper named “On Subcool Control in Steam-Assisted-Gravity-Drainage Producers” Dr. Irani was previously employed in technical and supervisory roles with Cenovus Energy, Suncor Energy, RPS Energy, and C-FER Technologies. He has published and presented more than 40 technical papers on different aspects of SAGD operation.
Heavy Oil Recovery Expert
Professor Majid Hassanizadeh
Professor Majid Hassanizadeh has accumulated 40 years of experience in the theoretical, experimental, and computational studies of flow and transport in porous media. After earning his PhD from Princeton University in 1979, he joined Abadan Institute of Petroleum Technology, Iran, as an assistant professor. Since 1984, he lives in the Netherlands and he has worked at RIVM Institute, Delft University of Technology, and Utrecht University, where he is currently emeritus professor of hydrogeology. He has more than 300 publications on theories of flow and transport in porous media, porenetwork modeling and experimental studies of two-phase flow (tube-scale, micro-model, and core experiments) including studies of low-salinity effect, pore-network modeling of adsorbing solutes in unsaturated soil, transport of colloids and micro-organisms in variably-saturated soil, and novel remediation methods for NAPL-polluted soils. He has been (associated) editor of major journals: Advances in Water Resources, Vadoze Zone Journal, Water Resources Research (2004-2009), and Transport in Porous Media. He is a co-founder and Managing Director of International Society for Porous Media (InterPore). He is elected Fellow of American Geophysical Union (2002) and American Association for Advancement of Science (2007). He was awarded honorary degree of Doctor-Ingenieur from Stuttgart University in 2008, received the von Humboldt prize in 2010 and Don and Betty Kirkham Soil Physics Award in 2011, was selected as 2012 Darcy Lecturer by the US National Groundwater Association. He received the Royal Medal of Honor, Knight in the Order of the Netherlands Lion, in 2015, and Robert Horton Medal of Amerian Geophysical Union in 2019. For more information, see https://www.uu.nl/staff/smhassanizadeh
Flow & Transport in Porous Media
Prof. Maria Mutti
Prof. Mutti has over 35 years of experience in the study of carbonate rocks. She holds degrees for the University of Bologna (Laurea in Geosciences 1987), University of Wisconsin-Madison (MSc Geology 1990), and University of Milan (Ph.D. 1992). Maria Mutti is Chair of Sedimentology at the University of Potsdam since 2002 and has previously held faculty appointments at the University of Southern California (Los Angeles) and research appointments at ETH Zürich and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, where she managed the research planning of the International Ocean Drilling Program. She has extensive experience in outcrop and subsurface studies and has worked on carbonate rocks and reservoirs in many basins worldwide, ranging in age from Paleozoic to Holocene. Maria Mutti is the recipient of the James Lee Wilson Award for Excellence in Sedimentary Geology (2001). Maria has served in many international committees and societies and has President of SEPM (Society for Sedimentary Geology). Maria Mutti has over three decades of experience in consulting, training and development of research programs in applied carbonate sedimentology.
Carbonate Deposition Expert
Dr. Mohammad Hajiarab
Dr. Mohammad Hajiarab received his BEng., MSc. degrees in Naval Architecture and PhD. in Hydrodynamics of Floating Structures from Newcastle University, UK. During his career he has held Lead Naval Architectural positions in Lloyds Register, BG, Premier Oil and Equinor (former Statoil). As the Floating Structures Team Leader for Lloyds Register in the UK, he was a contributing author to the “Lloyds Register Rules and Regulation for Floating Offshore Installations at a Fixed Location” and represented Lloyds Register in Joint Industry Projects (JIPs). During his professional career he has worked on several offshore oil and gas field developments, in UK, Norway, Brazil, Australia and Timor Sea. He has been lecturing about floating structures since obtaining his master’s degree in 2004 and has taught numerous courses at all levels including MSc students and developed training courses.
Marine & FPSO Expert
Dr. Mohammad Ghasemi
Dr. Mohammad Ghasemi is a senior reservoir engineer/researcher with ~15 years of experience in variety of petroleum reservoir engineering projects. His recent research at Kuwait University includes the development of the flow pattern map for two-phase flow in a heavy oil system, and the integrated modelling of asphaltene deposition in vertical wells. Dr. Ghasemi has worked for Petrostreamz as a senior reservoir engineer, and for NISOC and PERA as a reservoir engineer. Ghasemi was involved in vast range of reservoir engineering projects. His research interests include gas injection-EOR (enhanced oil recovery) for conventional and unconventional reservoirs, fluid characterization and EOS modelling, reservoir simulation, and integrated optimization. Dr. Ghasemi earned BS and MS degrees in petroleum engineering from the University of Petroleum Technology (PUT). He also holds master and PhD degrees from the University of Calgary and the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), both in petroleum reservoir engineering.
PVT & EOR Expert
Dr. Mohammadreza Kamali
Dr. Mohammadreza Kamali holds PhD degree in Petroleum Geology/Geochemistry from the University of Adelaide, Australia and has accumulated over 30 years of experience working for NIOC, Research Institute of Petroleum Oil Industry, South Australian Department of Mining and Energy, and The Universities of Tehran, AmirKabir, Sharif, Petroleum University of Technology. He is currently Adjunct professor at Curtin University, Australia. Mohammadreza is the principal author of several books published chiefly in petroleum geochemistry and over 85 research articles in international journals. He has many years international collabooration experience with companies including: SHELL; TOTAL and Schlumberger; Hydro and Statoil (Norway); Nippon Oil Exploration and JOGMEG (Japan) and universities: Queensland (Australia); Nancy (France); Leoben (Austria); Aachen (Germany) and TU Delft (the Netherlands). He is a member of AAPG, SPE, EAGE and ISPG.
Specialist in Geochemistry
Mostafa Haggag
Mostafa Haggag has over thirty-six years of experience in the oil industry,started with Gulf of Suez Petroleum Co. as well siite geologist and petrophysics for almost 15 years and further on at ADCO, UAEfor 20 years as Professional Petrophysicist. He successfully handle all Petrophysical activities during last 20 years in a professional manner; these activities include the operations and interpretation for open hole logging for +/- 200 wells and production logs.Mostafa was ADCO Petrophysics Subject Matter Expert (SME), Petrophysics Career Ladder Committee Chairman for 6 years, and Petrophysics coach, mentor, and verifier for CAMS for more than 15 years. Mr. Haggag was ADCO focal point to ADNOC for 2017 data gathering cost optimization and the ADCO focal point to arrange the finalization and complete the backlog well programs for drilling the new wells and some of the subsurface studies among the Team.
Specialist in Petrophysics
Nabi Mirzaee
Nabi Mirzaee is the upstream studies advisor providing consulting services in Petroleum/Reservoir ngineering with over 35 years of experience in reservoir engineering/simulation, field development planning, and training. He is experienced in various types of hydrocarbon accumulations including conventional oil, gas, gas-condensate, heavy oil, carbonate, and clastic reservoirs. Nabi is expert in reservoir engineering/ simulation, history matching, rock typing; wettability; well planning; preparing field development plans; and Training. Nabi served as technical advisor to exploration and production companies and he is conversant with peer review of field development studies and proposals.
Upstream Expert
Natalia Kukina
Dr. Natalia Kukina holds a PhD in geology and mineralogy science from the P. P. Shirshov Institute of Oceanology of the Russian Academy of Science. Dr. Natalia is internationally recognized as an energy expert with 30 years’ experience in worldwide hydrocarbon exploration and development, achieving a superior record of geological-geophysical success in the discovery of a several world-class oil & gas discoveries. She holds an associate professor position at the department of oil and gas affairs at Murmansk state Technical University, Geoscientist at research institutes of the Russian Academy of Sciences. She has published about 70 scientific papers. Dr. Kukina has participated in the international marine Arctic expeditions and has been academic and professional instruction in geology and geophysics with the direction and management of high visibility, industry-funded international research program in petroleum geology, sedimentology, basin analysis and sequence stratigraphy
Expert in Geology
Dr. Reza Azin
Dr. Reza Azin is a senior lecturer and researcher in Reservoir and Chemical Process Engineering having more than 20 years of teaching and consultation experience in the university and industry. He is an expert in oil and gas reservoir, underground gas storage, PVT analysis and modeling, surface facility design, carbon management, and process simulation. His current research and industrial activities include, among others, carbon capture and sequestration (CCS), energy and exergy analysis in process industries, developing novel biomaterials for enhanced oil recovery, the flow of fluids through porous media, and chemical process simulation and optimization. He is also focusing on entrepreneurship and start-up development, as well as business models, team development, and commercialization in the oil and gas sector. He has supervised more than 40 masters and Ph.D. theses and dissertations published more than 75 journal papers and presented more than 45 conference papers. His books include The Vapor Extraction (VAPEX) Process in Heavy Oil Fractured Systems and Simulation Study of Underground Gas Storage, both published by Lambert Academic Publishing (LAP), Germany.
Petroleum Engineering Specialist
Prof. Saleem Qadir Tunio
Dr. Tunio completed his graduation in Petroleum & Natural Gas Engineering from Mehran University of Engineering & Technology (Pakistan) in 2003. He completed his Masters in Petroleum Engineering from the University of Adelaide (Australia) in 2007 and Ph.D. in Petroleum Engineering from Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS (Malaysia) in 2014. Dr. Tunio started his career as an Academician from Mehran University of Engineering & Technology (MUET). He served MUET for five years and then, later on, joined Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS as a faculty member of the Petroleum Engineering Department, served the department for a couple of years. He was the also the Cluster leader of Formation Evaluation in Malaysia and also the PI of a couple of research projects. Lastly, he was the Chairman and Professor of Practice in the Petroleum & Gas Engineering of Dawood University of Engineering & Technology (Pakistan).
Petroleum Engineering Specialist
Dr. Shedid A. Shedid
Dr. Shedid is a senior consultant and professor in petroleum engineering for more than 25 years. He received his doctorate (Ph.D.) from the University of Oklahoma, USA, in Petroleum Engineering. He conducted several industry technical consultations and research projects in the USA, Australia, Egypt, Algeria, and the UAE. He authored two books and published numerous scientific papers at the US and Canadian international refereed journals and at international conferences about the development of new techniques/models for solving real industry problems. He is a technical editor and/or reviewer for the SPE Journal, SPE Journal of Reservoir Evaluation & Engineering, Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering, Journal of Petroleum Science and Technology, Journal of Engineering and Geophysics, and Middle-East Journal of Petroleum Technology. He is currently a technical consultant and certified instructor at SPE and NExT-Schlumberger, Texas, USA, plus his work as an Online instructor at the IBC Academy, London, United Kingdom.
Petroleum Engineer Expert
Dr. Sergey Ishutov
Dr. Sergey Ishutov is currently a researcher with [RG]2 – at the University of Alberta. Having work experience with ExxonMobil, Aramco, Shell, and Oxy, Dr. Ishutov is one of the world pioneers in integrating 3D printing for the reproduction of porous rock models and publishing this research in geoscience journals. He earned a Ph.D. in geology at Iowa State University, with a specialization in 3D printing geological models. He has received MSc in geology from California State University Long Beach and BSc in petroleum geology from the University of Aberdeen in Scotland. Dr. Ishutov received multiple awards and research grants from the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, Geological Society of America, the Society for Petroleum Engineers, Society of Petrophysicists and Well Log Analysts. He is the author of scientific papers on 3D printing in geosciences supported by industry grants and collaborators from the UK, USA, and Canada.
Geoscience Specialist
Steve Nas
Steve Nas holds master degree in drilling engineering from the Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen and has accumulated over 40 years of drilling engineering experience. Steve started in 1977 as a mud logger with Geoservices before becoming a wellsite drilling engineer in 1980. Initially working rigs as a wellsite drilling engineer around the Middle East and throughout Africa before working for Shell in the UK North Sea. In the mid 1990’s became heavily involved in coiled tubing and underbalanced drilling and later into managed pressure drilling. He has been teaching well engineering since obtaining his master’s degree in the late 1990’s and has taught numerous courses at all levels including MSc students and developed a large number of training courses. Now working as an independent consultant he provides a number of well engineering related courses and offshore coaching on challenging wells.
Expert in Drilling
Dr. Shahram Pourmohammadi
Dr. Pourmohammadi has over 15 years of experience in the upstream oil and gas sector. He received P.hD. in Reservoir Technology in 2009 from the University of Bergen in Norway. He is an expert in petroleum engineering with expertise in the oil and gas field development through a proven record of accomplishment subsurface multi-disciplinary projects. Dr. Pourmohamadi has worked on both operated and non-operated assets including 23 different reservoirs and subsurface projects from the Middle East, Algeria, Sudan, Mexico, Ukraine, and Norway. He has also a strong research background for R&D projects related to reservoir characterization and EOR techniques with professional membership in SPE, EAGE, and SCA. He has chaired technical sessions, published and presented technical papers in international conferences covering SCAL, reservoir characterization, and field development concepts. On behalf of Norsk Hydro (Equinor ASA), UNI CIPR (NORCE) selected he was selected as a top-candidate research fellow to perform the study on the waterflood efficiency from carbonates. Later, he joined Weatherford Norway as a senior reservoir engineer to accomplish diverse field development projects worldwide. He led the reservoir engineering team for one year. After that, he worked in Aker Solutions ASA on the field operation and production in NCS. Equinor ASA recruited him in PETEK as a consultant (via Aker Solutions & Weatherford) for field operation and asset development including Norne, Veslefrikk, and Gullfaks. He has mentored junior staff for E&P and service companies. Through Aker Geo AS (a part of AGR) for E&P companies in Norway, he petroleum engineering study for the concept development of Barents Sea discoveries.
Petroleum Engineer Expert
Prof. Stephen Tyson
Professor Tyson is the Chair Professor in Petroleum Engineering at Universiti Teknologi Brunei and is responsible for the development of teaching and research in this area. Previously he was the Chair of Subsurface Modeling at the Centre for Coal Seam Gas and Director of the Centre for Geoscience Computing in the School of Earth Sciences at The University of Queensland. He has worked in reservoir characterization and modeling in the oil industry for more than 30 years in both conventional and unconventional reservoirs. He has worked extensively in the Asia-Pacific and Australia. His current research interests are in model validation, verification and acceptance criteria for both static and dynamic models, upscaling, uncertainty modeling and non -linear geostatistics. He is also an honorary professor in Petroleum Engineering at the University of New South Wales and EAGE instructor.
Reservoir Characterization Expert
Dr. Tatyana Plaksina
Dr. Plaksina is an award-winning assistant professor of petroleum engineering at the Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering at the University of Calgary, AB, Canada. Research interests of Dr. Plaksina include geothermal energy exploitation and numerical modeling of CO2 sequestration (subsurface fluid dynamics and monitoring), reservoir engineering of conventional and unconventional oil and gas assets, petroleum data analytics, production data analysis (including rate transient analysis (RTA) and decline curve analysis (DCA)), petroleum economics, risk analysis, and petroleum engineering education. Dr. Plaksina is an award-winning assistant professor of petroleum engineering at the Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering at the University of Calgary, AB, Canada. Research interests of Dr. Plaksina include geothermal energy exploitation and numerical modeling of CO2 sequestration (subsurface fluid dynamics and monitoring), reservoir engineering of conventional and unconventional oil and gas assets, petroleum data analytics, production data analysis (including rate transient analysis (RTA) and decline curve analysis (DCA)), petroleum economics, risk analysis, and petroleum engineering education.
Data Analytics and AI Expert
Professor Bahman Tohidi
Professor Bahman Tohidi is expert on gas hydrates, flow assurance, PVT, phase behavior and properties of reservoir fluids and H2S/CO2-rich systems, production technology and EOR. He leads Hydrate, Flow Assurance and Phase Equilibria Research Group at Institute of Petroleum Engineering, Heriot-Watt University. He is the Director of International Centre for Gas Hydrate Research and the Centre for Flow Assurance Research (C-FAR) at Institute of GeoEnergy Engineering, Heriot-Watt His is a consultant to major oil and service companies. Bahman is Managing Director of “HYDRAFACT LIMITED” a HeriotWatt spin-out Company formed in late 2005 with Flow Assurance and PVT as its main area of activity. Hydrafact played a major role in Heriot-Watt University winning the Queen’s Anniversary Awards in 2015. Bahman was the recipient of “Life Time Achievement” from the 9th International Conference on Gas Hydrate, Denver, USA, in June 2017 for significant, continuous contributions to the area of hydrate research, practice, and/or exploration, for a period of over twenty five years. Also, his research group work was recognized as one of the top 10 UK examples of the role of Chemical Engineering in Modern World by the IChemE in 2016. He has more than 450 publication, several book chapters and 13 patents.
Expert in Production Technology
Prof. Tapan Mukerji
Tapan Mukerji is a Professor (Research) at Stanford University where he got his Ph.D. (1995) in Geophysics. Tapan co-directs the Stanford Center for Earth Resources Forecasting (SCERF), the Stanford Rock Physics and Borehole Geophysics (SRB) and Basin and Petroleum System Modeling (BPSM) projects at Stanford University. His research interests include rock physics, geostatistics, wave propagation, and stochastic methods for quantitative reservoir characterization and time-lapse reservoir monitoring. Tapan combines experience in conducting leading edge research, teaching, and directing graduate student research. He was awarded the Karcher Award in 2000 by the Society of Exploration Geophysicists, and received the ENI award in 2014. He has been an associate editor for Geophysics, journal of the Society of Exploration Geophysicists, and Computers and Geosciences. In addition to numerous journal publications, Tapan has co-authored The Rock Physics Handbook, Quantitative Seismic Interpretation, and The Value of Information in the Earth Sciences, all published by Cambridge University Press. He has been an invited keynote speaker and instructor for numerous short courses on rock physics and geostatistics, in North and South America, Europe, Africa, Australia and Asia
Geophysics Specialist
Prof. M. R. Riazi has over 40 years of experience in both industry and academia working on projects related to EOR, reservoir modeling and simulation, refining processes, flow assurance and solid deposition, phase behavior and property estimation, fuels characterization and quality, heavy oil processing and recovery. He received both PhD and MSc degrees in chemical engineering from Pennsylvania State University where he also worked as a faculty member with projects sponsored by API and US DOE. He has held university faculty chair and visiting positions (both in chemical and petroleum engineering) in the US, Europe, Middle East and Kuwait. He also has been a regular consultant for oil and energy related companies worldwide. He is currently the managing director of Montreal Oil & Gas, a consulting firm in Canada as well as director of fuels division of AIChE. He is the founding editor and editor in chief of IJOGCT journal, a board member of JPSE with some 150 publications including 7 books in areas of oil, gas, coal and biofuel production and processing. He received a Diploma of Honor from American Petroleum Engineering Society for his outstanding contributions to the petroleum industry and is a fellow of AIChE. He is also a licensed professional engineer in Ontario, Canada.
professional engineer
Vita Kalashnikova
Vita Kalashnikova accumulate over 15 years of Exploration and Development experience within Oil & Gas, with proven record of successfully predicted and evaluated more than 50 prospects for E&P companies in North Sea, Norwegian shelf, Barents Sea, Oman bay, Persian Gulf, Middle East, and West. Vita is author of 13 publications in conferences and journals. She successfully Managed research cooperation, developed several new geophysical exploration approaches and proprietary techniques, and successfully implement it production. Vita has developed short course helping geologists and geophysicist and applied geophysical knowledge at daily base exploration work.
Geophysics Expert
Prof. Wumi Iledare
Professor Iledare has over 5 years of professional experience in petroleum economics. He is Professor Emeritus in Petroleum Economics and Policy Research at the Center for Energy Studies, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, USA. He is the Africa Region Director on the SPE International Board of Directors and the GNPC Professorial Chair in Oil and Gas Studies, University of Cape Coast, Ghana. Professor Iledare is the Executive Director, Emmanuel Egbogah Foundation, Nigeria. Professor Iledare, an expert in fiscal system economics, petroleum project economics, risk and uncertainty analysis, and geopolitics of oil and gas resources and supply, is a distinguished fellow and Immediate Past President of the Nigerian Association for Energy Economics (NAEE), a Senior Fellow, and the 2008 President of USAEE. Professor Iledare is also the 2014 President of the International Association for Energy Economics (IAEE). He holds a B.Sc. degree in Petroleum Engineering with honors from the University of Ibadan, Nigeria; M.S. in Energy Resources from the University of Pittsburgh School of Engineering; and a Ph.D. in Mineral Economics from West Virginia University. He was an Associate Editor of the SPE Economics and Management Journal and a former editor of the USAEE Dialogue–a publication of the United States Association for Energy Economics.
Expert in Petroleum Economics
Yen Adams Sokama-Neuyam
Dr. Yen Adams Sokama-Neuyam is a lecturer in the Department of Petroleum Engineering, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Ghana. He has about seven 10 years research experience from the University of Stavanger, Norway, where he has worked as an Assistant Professor and Research Fellow. He has worked with international companies such as NORCE, Equinor and PGNiG Upstream in major research projects. He is an expert in Well Deliverability, Formation Damage, Flow Assurance, IOR and CCS. Dr. Yen holds a Ph.D. and MSc. degrees in Petroleum Engineering from the University of Stavanger and a BSc. Degree in Petroleum Engineering from KNUST.
Petroleum Engineering Expert
Yulia Cherepanova
Yulia Cherepanova is a geologist and mining specialist with over 10 years of technical, scientific research and business development experience in leading international mining and oil/gas service and consulting companies. Having started out as a diamond exploration geologist (Russia), Yulia subsequently worked in seismic exploration in Schlumberger (Egypt) in its quality control department, and in academia where she was awarded a Ph.D. degree in geoscience (Denmark), and in a prominent mining consultancy (UK) providing international business development, project appraisals, quality control and technical due diligence to clients. Yulia defended the PhD and published the scientific articles on the crustal structure of the West Siberian basin and the Siberian craton. Yulia is knowledgeable about quality control, exploration, technical risks and pitfalls of complex mining projects.
Expert Geologist
Zaman Ganji
Dr. Zaman ZiabakhshGanji has accumulated +12 years of reservoir engineering experience in research at National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) in Iran, VU University Amsterdam and TU Delft. He worked on fluid flow and PVT modelling of several oil fields in Middle East, pure and impure CO2 storage into a depleted hydrocarbon reservoir, thermodynamic modeling, and reactive transport modeling in the reservoir rock.
Expert in Reservoir Engineering
Dr. Rajan Chokshi
Dr. Chokshi works as an artificial lift and production ‘Optimizer’ for Accutant Solutions, a consulting firm out of Houston, USA. He has over 34 years of experience working with a national oil company, research consortia, consulting and software firms, and a service company in various roles from engineer, software developer, project manager, trainer, consultant, and a senior business leader.Dr. Chokshi has worked on projects globally in the areas of multi-phase flow, artificial lift, production optimization, and real-time production monitoring. He has co-authored over fifteen SPE papers, one patent and has three patents pending. Besides delivering several SPE webinars and trainings, Dr. Chokshi continues to conduct workshops for practicing professionals globally in SPE and private forums. As an adjunct faculty, he has taught at Texas Tech, Missouri S&T, U of Southern California, and continues to teach at the U of Houston. He has served on various SPE committees like production & facilities advisory, global training and production awards. He is incoming chair of awards & recognition committee. He was co-chair of an SPE artificial lift workshop, and is co-chair of SPE forum on production issues in unconventional. He has been selected twice as an SPE Distinguished Lecturer for the 2015- 2016 and 2018-2019 years
Production Optimizer Expert
Dr. Franciszek J. “Franek” Hasiuk is an associate scientist at the Kansas Geological Survey (USA), a research and service unit of the University of Kansas, where he focuses on developing models for the origin and distribution of microporosity in carbonate reservoirs, evaluating reservoir and seal quality for carbon capture/ utilization/ storage projects, developing models to predict road aggregate quality and 3D-printing geological models.
After graduating from the American Community School (Abu Dhabi), Dr. Hasiuk earned a BS in Geology (with honors) and BA in Classics (Greek and Latin) from the University of Iowa. He earned an MS and PhD in carbonate geochemistry from the University of Michigan and then worked at ExxonMobil on exploration, production, and research projects in Qatar, Abu Dhabi, Iraq, Germany, Nigeria and elsewhere.
Associate Scientist
Peter Aird C.Eng, CmarEng, FIMarEST, has 40 years’ experience as a drilling, well engineering and operations specialist. Peter worked in Shell International from 1980-1987 as a drilling supervisor, where he then worked in staff-based positions from 1987-1993 with Shell & BP. He then developed further knowledge and experience working in global consultancy positions from 1993-2005 in Deepwater, HPHT, Exploration and Appraisal Frontiers and Deepwater Horizontal development drilling and more complex well’s projects. Areas worked included: South East Asia (Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, China), North Atlantic, West of Britain, Norway, Faeroes, Greenland, the Black Sea, South Atlantic, Europe Mediterranean, Red Sea and West Africa. From 2005 Peter was employed in senior staff, consultant and advisory based specialist drilling engineering leadership roles with operating companies including Kerr McGee, Maersk & Marathon Oil, Cairn Energy (UK), ONGC (India), Centrica (Norway), and Providence Resources (Ireland). Drilling specialties further refined on a variety of subsea, horizontal, platform in-fill, HPHT, deep and ultra-deep water drilling projects.
Operations Specialist
Yohanes Nuwara currently leads Sustainability Digital Solutions at Asia Pulp and Paper (APP). He is also an Expert Data Scientist at the same company where he is currently working on computer vision and predictive analytics for natural resources. Prior to his current position, he has had 2 years of experience in the oil and gas industry. He has been giving consulting and teaching sessions on programming at SPE and universities across the world, for example at Marietta College in Ohio, USA. His clients were professionals from PTTEP, Shell, Chevron, and many more. In 2020, he was a DAS fiber-optic technical expert at OYO Corporation and RITE research institute, Japan, and he was part of the Gundih CCS Pilot Project project in 2019 where he contributed to geophysical modelling of CO2 storage in gas fields. He also has developed many open-source softwares for geoscience, reservoir engineering, and petrophysics. He is still actively researching machine learning for the industry, exploring digital use-cases for energy transition and sustainable companies.
Data Scientist Expert
Hoss Belyadi is the founder and CEO of Obsertelligence, LLC, focused on providing artificial intelligence (AI) in-house training and solutions. Mr. Belyadi has served as an adjunct faculty member at multiple universities, including West Virginia University, Marietta College, and Saint Francis University. There, he taught data analytics, natural gas engineering, enhanced oil recovery, and hydraulic fracture stimulation design. Mr. Belyadi has over 12 years of experience working in various conventional and unconventional reservoirs across the world. He has worked on various machine learning projects and held short courses across various universities, organizations, and the department of energy (DOE). Mr. Belyadi is the primary author of "Hydraulic Fracturing in Unconventional Reservoirs (1st and 2nd editions) and is the author of "Machine Learning Guide for Oil and Gas Using Python." Hoss earned his BS and MS, both in petroleum and natural gas engineering from West Virginia University.
CEO of Obsertelligence
Dr. Behzad Elahifar has accumulated 16 years of experience in drilling engineering. The experience comes from both onshore and offshore from different regions in the world like the Middle East, North Sea, Barents Sea, Caspian Sea, Australia, and the Gulf of Mexico. He has experience working with NOV as a Project manager with Wired Drill Pipe and real-time communication systems in the North Sea and the Barents Sea with Equinor and Lundin. Behzad also has the experience of working as a Project manager and Managed Pressure drilling engineer with Enhanced Drilling company. He has experience working with Controlled mud level systems and managed pressure systems for drilling and cementing operations on the Norwegian continental shelf and in the Gulf of Mexico and the Caspian Sea. Following is his working experience background:
oAssociated Professor, NTNU Geoscience and Petroleum department
oProject Manager, NOV (National Oil Well Varco) Company
oProject Manager/Drilling Engineer (MPD), Enhanced Drilling Company
oDrilling Engineer, Advanced Drilling Solutions Company
oDrilling Instructor/Researcher, University of Leoben
oDrilling Supervisor, NIOC (National Iranian Oil Company)
Drilling Engineering Expert
Professor Shahab D. Mohaghegh, a pioneer in the application of Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Data Mining in the Exploration and Production industry, is Professor of Petroleum and Natural Gas Engineering at West Virginia University and the president and CEO of Intelligent Solutions, Inc. (ISI). He holds B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in petroleum and natural gas engineering. He has authored three books (Shale Analytics– Data Driven Reservoir Modeling– Application of Data- Driven Analytics for the Geological Storage of CO2), more than 170 technical papers and carried out more than 60 projects for independents, NOCs and IOCs. He is a SPE Distinguished Lecturer and has been featured four times as the Distinguished Author in SPE’s Journal of Petroleum Technology (JPT). He is the founder of Petroleum Data-Driven Analytics, SPE’s Technical Section dedicated to AI, machine learning and data mining. He has been honored by the U.S. Secretary of Energy for his technical contribution in the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon (Macondo) incident in the Gulf of Mexico and was a member of U.S. Secretary of Energy’s Technical Advisory Committee on Unconventional Resources in two administrations (2008-2014). He represented the United States in the International Standard Organization (ISO) on Carbon Capture and Storage (2014-2016).
Artificial Intelligence
Tim Podesta is a subject matter expert and active advisor in project management and investment analysis, front end planning/project shaping and benchmarking/assurance; and has deep experience of the oil, gas, petrochemical and energy industries.
Tim has a strong track record of delivering cross cultural programs in strategy, change management and process improvement and is passionate about professional development; learning and sharing learning with a focus on the net zero agenda and the potential for a hydrogen economy alongside clean electricity.
Subject Matter Expert
Charley Rattan is an international hydrogen expert and respected energy insider and facilitator bringing over 25 years’ real-world renewable experience and a track record of successful major project delivery. Charley is a trusted strategic advisor to global energy companies and an advocate and facilitator for the emerging innovation energy market. Charley is a leading authority in hydrogen and renewables providing consultancy and training at high level across the globe including for key stakeholders, governments, consenting authorities and world organizations such as the United Nations.
International Hydrogen Expert