Training

Joseph Batir is a research geoscientist with exploration experience in East Texas, Permian Basin (Central Basin Platform), and Alaska resulting in new insights and prospect generation within existing and emerging plays. He holds a doctorate of philosophy in geophysics from Southern Methodist University. He is a technology-driven researcher with a literacy of multiple industry softwares, numerical code writing experience, and perpetual review of new software and technologies that has resulted in new funding, resource, and research opportunities. His previous research areas include Alaska (Cook Inlet and Interior), British Columbia, Permian Basin, offshore West Africa, Illinois Basin, Michigan Basin, Snake River Plain, and Hellisheidi geothermal field - Iceland.

Hoss is currently a Senior Reservoir Optimization Engineer specializing in production and completions optimization, completions and reservoir modeling, machine learning, and project evaluation. He is also an adjunct faculty member at Marietta College and Saint Francis University teaching Natural Gas Engineering, Enhanced Oil Recovery, and Hydraulic Fracture Stimulation Design. Previously he was an adjunct professor at West Virginia University teaching Hydraulic Frac Stimulation Design. After working the first two years of his career as a completions engineer designing and pumping Marcellus, Utica, and Upper Devonian Shale plays, he has been a reservoir optimization engineer focusing on optimizing completions, reservoir, production, automation and ML, and economic aspects of unconventional reservoirs. Mr. Belyadi is the primary author of “Hydraulic Fracturing in Unconventional Reservoirs: Theories, Operations, and Economic Analysis”, peer reviewed and published by Gulf Professional Publishing (Elsevier). Mr. Belyadi has been a member of Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) since 2006 and has authored and coauthored several SPE papers on completions optimization and production enhancement. Hoss earned his BS and MS, both in Petroleum and Natural Gas Engineering from West Virginia University.

Andrew has over 35 years’ experience in the petroleum industry, primarily in Australia, North Sea, South America, New Zealand and Libya. Andrew has worked for a variety of service companies, consultancies and operators, including Baker Hughes, Senergy, Woodside, Shell and Santos where he held both management and senior technical roles with extensive subsurface petroleum experience with expertise in all aspects of well site operations, exploration and development geology, petrophysics, and reservoir management across various types of reservoirs and diverse geological settings. Andrew is presently Principal Petrophysicist and Managing Director at ResEval Consulting Pty Ltd based in Perth (WA) and the main petrophysics instructor for Petrolern LLC.

Dr. William Cavazza is a Professor of Stratigraphy and Sedimentology at the University of Bologna since 2002. His current research focuses on the combined application of structural geology, geodynamics, sedimentology, and stratigraphy to the analysis of ancient and modern sedimentary basins. He has directed a number of international scientific cooperation projects involving UNESCO, IUGS, NATO, Italian and foreign research institutions, as well as the oil/mining industry. He has organized fieldwork in the Rocky Mountains, the Chilean Andes, the Rio Grande Rift, the Alps, the Greater and Lesser Caucasus, and Iran.

Dr. Abhijit Dandekar is a Professor and chair of petroleum engineering at the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF), where he has taught since January 2001. Before joining UAF, he was an assistant research professor at the Technical University of Denmark. In the summer of 2002, he also worked as visiting faculty at the University of Petroleum Beijing, P.R.C. He has also been a visiting professor at the African University of Science and Technology (AUST) in Abuja, Nigeria. He holds a B.Tech degree in chemical engineering from Nagpur University, India and a Ph.D. degree in petroleum engineering from Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, UK. Abhijit Dandekar is an active member of SPE and the author or co-author of over 30 peer-reviewed technical papers, over 45 technical conference papers in the petroleum literature and numerous research reports, in areas as diverse as special core analysis, PVT and phase behavior, gas-to-liquids, gas hydrates, viscous oils, wettability alteration and CO2 sequestration. He is also the author of the CRC Press book Petroleum Reservoir Rock and Fluid Properties.

Dr Afshin Fathi is an organic geochemist-basin modeler expert with extensive experience in different applications of petroleum geochemistry and source rock evaluation in oil and gas exploration, production and flied development. He has conducted or managed several industrial and research projects in conventional and unconventional reservoirs all over the world. Afshin holds BSc in Mining Engineering, MSc in Petroleum Exploration Engineering and PhD in Petroleum Engineering from Leoben University in Austria. He has given different industry short courses for the Research Intitule of Petroleum Industry, National Iranian Oil Company, Leoben University, National Iranian South Oil Company, POGC, Exploration Direction of NIOC, the FerVID group, TerraEx, and PETROLERN.

Steven Fehr is an oil finder with 34 years of global experience in oil and gas exploration, development, global new ventures, and technical assurance. Steven has been exposed to most basins and plays and has detailed exploration experience in over 25 basins spanning the globe. He is expert in integrated and holistic evaluations of exploration opportunities with excellent understanding of petroleum economics and commercial decision making. He has strong background in setting exploration strategies and effectively managing exploration portfolios. Steven has been involved in the discovery of Talisman Energy Kurdamir/Topkhana in Kurdistan (~600 MMBOE), Talisman Energy Acacias in Colombia (~250 MMBOE) and Chevron Hibernia Southern Extension in Canada (230 MMBOE). He has led the teams that set the standards for “Exploration New Ventures Evaluations: Chevron”, Play Analysis: Chevron, Talisman Energy, Maersk Oil”, and “Risk and Resource Estimation: Talisman Energy and Maersk Oil”. As part of the implementation of these standards and through the assurance of evaluations which were guided by these standards, he was involved in regular formal training as well as daily informal training on risk analysis and prospect evaluation. Steven led an initiative in both Talisman and Maersk, to promote early integration of prospect risk and resource evaluations with economic evaluations to foster more effective exploration decision making. He has intimate understanding of the components of exploration economic evaluations and have brought this business focus to every subsurface evaluation.

Dr. Abdelaziz Khlaifat is Professor at American University of Iraq in Sulaimani. Prior to that, he was the Petrochemical Engineering Department Head at Abu Dhabi Polytechnic and the Research and Development Manager of Dhahran Research Centre at Weatherford International, and erstwhile, he worked as a Senior Reservoir Engineer, specialized in unconventional resources (tight and shale gas) at Weatherford in Saudi Arabia and Dubai. Before joining Weatherford, he was a full professor of chemical engineering at Mutah University, Jordan. He obtained his BSc degree in petroleum engineering from Moscow Institute of Oil & Gas in Russia, and his Master and PhD in chemical/reservoir engineering from Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, USA. Dr. Khlaifat has been actively involved in scientific R & D of novel methodologies and techniques in tight and shale gas reservoirs, shale gas resources development workflow and tight gas staged field experiments. Abdelaziz has authored over 100 publications including journal articles, book chapters and specialized conference proceedings in the areas of fluid flow inside porous media, reservoir engineering, unconventional tight and shale gas, oil shale non-aqueous phase liquid transport, photocatalysis, two phase flow modeling and Dead Sea related research.

Kevin Kitz is a Professional Engineer and geothermal specialist who seeks to innovatively use existing technology to create new or better energy investment opportunities. Kevin has worked in almost all aspects of commercial geothermal development across his 35-year international career. He has been involved with all geothermal resource types, and his work has included, reservoir modeling., drilling, production facilities, power plants, O&M, PPAs, Transmission, marketing, and financing. He has been an independent consultant since 2018 working on conventional and innovative approaches to geothermal development, always with an eye toward quality investment opportunities.

David has over 35 years of experience as an international Drilling and Completions Manager responsible for delivering exploration, appraisal and production wells worldwide most recently with Hess Corporation. Projects completed by David include deep-water, remote offshore wells far from resupply, high pressure wells requiring ice-reinforced drillships in the Canadian Arctic Ocean, HPHT wells onshore and offshore, remote desert land wells and unconventional shale oil wells. He has been Production Manager for an offshore field in Indonesia and General Manager for an oil and gas exploration company in the Sultanate of Oman. His career has also included 5 years in a management role with a major drilling contractor in the USA and France. In addition, he has undertaken research work with emphasis on casing design. Since 2015, David is involved in preparing and presenting industry courses on Deepwater Design and Operations, HPHT Design and Operations, Drilling Project and Risk Management and Principles of Casing Design.