George Boyadjieff
Chairman, Petroleum Equipment Suppliers Association (PESA)

George Boyadjieff is Chairman of the Petroleum Equipment Suppliers Association (PESA) and Vice Chairman of the National Ocean Industries Association (NOIA). He is a Director and Chairman Emeritus of the Board of Varco International and served as Chief Executive Officer of Varco from 1991 to 1 January 2003. He has held numerous positions during his 33-year career at Varco, including Vice President of Operations, Division President, Corporate President and Chief Operating Officer, initially joining Varco in 1969 as Chief Engineer. He is considered the leading developer of surface drilling equipment during the last 25 years, most noted for his development of the Top Drive Drilling System, and he holds over 50 US Patents. Mr Boyadjieff is a member of the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE), the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), the American Petroleum Institute (API) and the International Association of Drilling Contractors (IADC) and he has actively served on several committees associated with these organisations. He has published numerous technical papers and has made many technical presentations throughout the world. He was selected as an SPE distinguished lecturer for 1990–1991. Mr Boyadjieff holds a BSc in Mechanical Engineering and an MSc in Mechanical Engineering from the University of California at Berkeley. He is a Registered Professional Engineer in the State of California.

Red Cavaney
President and Chief Executive Officer, American Petroleum Institute

Red Cavaney is President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the American Petroleum Institute (API), a position he has held since 1997. He previously spent 12 years as president and CEO of three other trade associations. Prior to this, he served as President and CEO of Irvine, CA-based Ericson Yachts, a major US yacht manufacturer, and as a senior member of the White House staff of US Presidents Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan. In 1997, he was named Association Executive of the Year by Association Trends magazine and earned his Certified Association Executive (CAE) designation. Mr Cavaney is a Director of API and Buckeye Technologies, Inc., and former Director of the Boards of the US Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), among others. He is Immediate Past Chairman of the American Society of Association Executives (ASAE) and of the Associations Division of the US Chamber of Commerce and serves on the Board of Trustees of the Center for Excellence in Education and the Alliance for Consumer Education. He graduated in Economics and History from the University of Southern California.

Professor Bryan Cronin
Department of Geology and Petroleum Geology, University of Aberdeen

Bryan Cronin is Professor in the Department of Geology and Petroleum Geology at the University of Aberdeen. He was appointed AGIP Lecturer in Petroleum Geology in early 2000, having moved to Aberdeen University in 1996 as a postdoctoral research fellow, working on deepwater petroleum reservoirs. Prior to this he worked as a postdoctoral research fellow sponsored by the Royal Society at Moscow State University in 1995, where he worked on fluid and gas escape features on the ocean floor. Professor Cronin works with a large research group in Aberdeen and is Venture Petroleum Director of the University of Aberdeen’s MSc in Hydrocarbon Enterprise and a Senior Lecturer in this department. He has convened or co-convened six international conferences on aspects of deepwater sedimentation and hydrocarbon reservoir modelling and has published more than 30 scientific papers. His areas of interest are in deepwater (turbidite) systems at outcrop, in modern ocean basins and in the subsurface. Professor Cronin spends significant amounts of time working on tertiary basins in the Mediterranean region and on research cruises in the Mediterranean and Black Seas and west of Britain and Ireland, studying modern deepwater environments. He has an interest in sediment and fluid escape on passive and active margins. Following receipt of his MSc in Petroleum Geology in 1989 from University College, Dublin, Professor Cronin worked in the oil industry as a geophysicist until 1990 and was then awarded a PhD from University College, Cardiff, in 1994.

Gert J de Jonge
Chairman, Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE), Aberdeen Section

Gert de Jonge is Chairman for the Aberdeen Section of the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) and is currently employed with ChevronTexaco Upstream Europe as Reservoir Engineering Advisor for the Captain Heavy Oil Asset. He has around 20 years of industry experience and, in that time, has been involved in a wide range of projects including coal bed methane and full-cycle energy projects in Poland, evaluation of Sakhalin Island oil prospects, gasfield development offshore Bulgaria, the more ‘conventional’ oil and gas developments in the North Sea arena and offshore heavy oil recovery. Prior to ChevronTexaco, Mr de Jonge was employed by Texaco, Conoco and Amoco Netherlands. His current interests lie with field management of mature reservoirs and, more recently, the application of data mining techniques and artificial intelligence to oilfield operations. He has co-authored a number of papers on these subjects. He is a member of SPE, the European Association of Geoscientists and Engineers (EAGE) and the Petroleum Exploration Society of Great Britain (PESGB). Mr de Jonge holds an MSc in Petroleum Engineering.

Peter M Duncan
President, Society for Exploration Geophysicists

Peter Duncan is 2003–2004 President of the Society of Exploration Geophysicists (SEG). He began his career as an Exploration Geophysicist with Shell Canada before joining Digicon Geophysical, first in Calgary and then in Houston. In 1987, he helped Digicon found ExploiTech Inc, an exploration and production consultancy, and was named President of ExploiTech when it became a subsidiary of Landmark Graphics in 1989. In 1992, he was one of three founders of 3DX Technologies Inc., an independent oil and gas exploration company where he served as Vice President and Chief Geophysicist. Mr Duncan is also Founding President of MicroSeismic, Inc., a Houston-based geophysical service company. He holds a PhD in Geophysics from the University of Toronto.

Sheldon R Erikson
Chairman, Petroleum Equipment Suppliers Association

Sheldon R Erikson is Chairman of the Petroleum Equipment Suppliers Association. He is also Chairman of the Board of Cooper Cameron Corporation, a leading international manufacturer of oil and gas pressure control equipment, where he has been President and Chief Executive Officer since 1995. Mr Erikson was previously Chairman of the Board and President and Chief Executive Officer of The Western Company of North America, a worldwide petroleum service company engaged in pressure pumping, well stimulating and cementing and offshore drilling. He was formerly President of the Joy Petroleum Equipment Group for Joy Manufacturing Company. Prior to joining Joy, Mr Erikson served as President of the Oilfield Services Group of NL Industries, Inc., as well as Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of Digicon, Inc., Group Vice President of the Plastic and Chemicals Group of Hoover Universal Corporation and General Manager of the Mining Products Department of General Electric Company. He is a member of the board of directors of Spinnaker Exploration Company, The National Petroleum Council, American Petroleum Institute and National Association of Manufacturers. Mr Erikson has an MBA from the Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration and studied Engineering and Economics at the University of Illinois.

Dr Birol Fatih
Chief Economist and Head, Economic Analysis Division, International Energy Agency (IEA)

Dr Fatih Birol is the Chief Economist and Head of the Economic Analysis Division of the International Energy Agency (IEA), the energy arm of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). He joined the IEA in 1995, prior to which he worked at the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) Secretariat in Vienna for five years. In his present post, Dr Birol is responsible for producing the IEA’s flagship publication World Energy Outlook. He teaches energy economics and modelling at universities in Austria and Germany and is the author of several articles in refereed journals on international energy analysis and policy. Dr Birol graduated with a BSc degree in Power Engineering from the Technical University of Istanbul and MSc and PhD degrees in Energy Economics and Modelling from the Technical University of Vienna.

Alan Grant
Executive Director, International Association of Oil & Gas Producers (OGP)

Alan Grant became Executive Director of the International Association of Oil & Gas Producers (OGP) in February 2001. His career with the oil and gas industry spans some 30 years and includes assignments in Oman, Brunei, Russia, the Netherlands and the UK. In December 2000, Mr Grant retired from Shell, having joined the company in 1971 and gaining his first practical experience of petroleum engineering by working on improving oil recovery from the giant oilfields of Southern Iran. Thereafter, he worked in Oman and then Brunei, where he had his first experience of the offshore environment. Mr Grant held posts in the Netherlands before returning to the Pacific Rim as Development Manager of Brunei Shell Petroleum Company. After Brunei, he held a succession of appointments as Director of Research, Staff Manager and Vice President for Joint Ventures and Planning in Russia before assuming the position of President of Sakhalin Energy Investment Company, a joint venture consisting of Marathon, Mitsubishi, Mitsui and Shell. In 1999, Sakhalin Energy became the first company in Russia to produce oil under a production sharing agreement.

Pat Gratton
President, American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG)

Pat Gratton began his one-year term as President of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG) in July 2004. The AAPG is the largest geological organisation of its kind with over 31,000 members in more than 120 countries. Mr Gratton has over 40 years' experience as a petroleum geoscientist, oil operator and manager. He has worked for mining companies, Shell Oil, Delhi-Taylor Oil and small companies but has been an independent since 1970. He is a member of the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE), Society of Independent Professional Earth Scientists (SIPES), Society of Exploration Geophysicists (SEG), The Texas Independent Producers and Royalty Owners Association (TIPRO) and the US National Petroleum Council. He holds BS and MS degrees in geology from the University of New Mexico.

Dr Per Gerhard Grini
Manager, OG21 Secretariat

Dr Per Gerhard Grini has been Manager of the Secretariat of OG21: The National Technology Strategy for Added Value and Competitive Advantage in the Oil and Gas Industry since April 2003. He has been employed by Statoil Norge AS, from whom he was loaned to take up his current position, since 1997. From 2001 to 2003, Dr Grini led Statoil’s ‘Tail End Production’ research programme. Prior to his appointment with Statoil he worked as a research scientist at SINTEF, Trondheim, from 1989 to 1997. Dr Grini received his PhD in Thermodynamics in 1994 and his MSc in Mechanical Engineering in 1989, both from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU).