David Alexander

David Alexander has been with Haverly Systems Inc for 20 years, 2 years based in England and the rest in New Jersey. Before that he worked for 9 years in New Zealand , primarily for Shell NZ. He has mainly worked in the supply planning and scheduling area of the Oil Industry. In last 15 years he has been Director of Haverly's Crude Assay Management Systems that are used at over 300 company sites around the world. He has a BE in Chemical and Process engineering from Canterbury University New Zealand.

John R. Auers

John R. Auers (jauers@turnermason.com) is the executive vice-president of Turner, Mason & Company, an international energy consulting firm located in Dallas, TX. He is the team leader of TM&C’s subscription products, including The Outlook, a biennial report that forecasts supply, demand, and pricing for crude oils and petroleum products worldwide, and both The World Crude Oil Outlook and The North American Crude Oil Outlook, detailed forecasts for crude oil supply and demand by region and by type. He also leads assignments in the area of refining economics and planning, LP modeling, downstream asset valuation, crude oil valuation and capital investment and strategic planning. Auers joined the firm in 1987 after 7 years with Exxon Corporation, with which he held various positions at its Baytown, Texas, refinery. He holds a BS (1980) in chemical engineering from the University of Nebraska and an MBA (1984) from the University of Houston-Clear Lake. Auers is a licensed professional engineer in Texas and Nebraska and is a member of TSPE and AIChE.

Clifford Avery

Clifford Avery is the Global FCC Process Advisor for Albemarle Corporation, Houston, Texas. He is responsible for troubleshooting FCCUs globally, performing FCC training and keeping up to date with the latest FCCU technologies and FCCU licensor developments. Prior to his current position he was the Technical Service Manager: Americas; Technical Service Manager: Asia Pacific, Commercial Manager: Americas, Technical Services Engineer for the Gulf Coast region (USA) and Technical Service Engineer for the West Coast region (USA).

Mr. Avery received his B.S. degree in Chemical Engineering from, Long Beach State and has over 29 years of experience in the refining/hydrocarbon processing industry.

Guy Caruso

Guy F. Caruso is a senior advisor in the CSIS Energy and National Security Program. He served as Administrator, Energy Information Administration (EIA) from July 2002 to September 2008. EIA is the statistical agency within the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) that provides independent data, forecasts, and analyses regarding energy. Mr. Caruso has acquired over 40 years of energy experience, with particular emphasis on topics relating to energy markets, policy, and security. Prior to joining EIA, Mr. Caruso was director of the National Energy Strategy (NES) project for the U.S. Energy Association (USEA).

Mr. Caruso has also worked at the Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA), first as the head of the Oil Industry Division, where he was responsible for analyzing world oil supply/demand and developments in the oil industry, and later as director of the Office of Non-member Countries, where he directed studies of energy-related developments in emerging economies. Mr. Caruso holds a B.S. in business administration and an M.S. in economics from the University of Connecticut. He also earned an M.P.A. from Harvard University. In January 2008 the French government awarded Mr. Caruso the National Order of Merit.

Dr Peter Collins

He is the CEO of Permasense Ltd, and has held board-level technical and operational roles in public and private companies with $100m+ revenues.

He was formerly Operations Director at Sondex plc, which specialises in the engineering and manufacture of directional drilling and formation evaluation systems and wireline tools for the production of Oil & Gas, now part of GE Energy. He was earlier Technical Director at PII Ltd, the Oil & Gas pipeline inspection provider, also now part of GE Energy. He was earlier a Manager at management consultancy firm Arthur D. Little Ltd and a technology developer with Sulzer Chemtech in Switzerland.

Peter holds a PhD in Computational Fluid Dynamics from Imperial College London, a BE(Mech) from University College Dublin, and an MBA from INSEAD.

Hege Dammen

Hege Dammen works for Invensys Spiral and she has more than 28 years of experience in the petroleum refining processing industry. Her main focus is Value Chain optimization and process integration within the oil sector. Hege has a broad career starting with 16 years in Statoil/Hydro as Planning Manager, Crude Oil Evaluation specialist and Technical Advisor for E&P as well as 5 years of Commercial Crude Trading. The past 10 years Hege has been focusing on software solutions for the petroleum refining and trading industry. Hege has also worked as a private consultant on several specialty projects related to refinery processing, renewable energy, and supply demand analysis.

Michael Federspiel

Michael Federspiel is a National Technical Sales Manager in North America for Grace Catalysts Technologies. He is responsible for FCC catalyst and additive sales in the Gulf Coast region of the United States.

Michael has 16 years of experience in FCC design, development, commissioning, technical service, operations management and catalyst sales & service. Prior to joining Grace, Michael worked at UOP and at the HOVENSA refinery in the USVI.

He has a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Wisconsin – Madison.

Matthew Goitia

Matthew Goitia is the founder and chief executive of the commodities logistics development and marketing firm Peaker Energy. Prior to founding Peaker Energy, Matthew was the business development lead for a commodities trading firm focused on developing the firm’s crude supply, logistics, and trading platform. Matthew worked at Standard Chartered Bank in the Corporate Finance division working exclusively in Energy M&A advisory. Previous to joining Standard Chartered, Matthew was with the marketing and logistics firm, Plains All American (PAA), several other banking institutions in various roles, and previously with a big four accounting firm in the financial services tax practice.

Sam Lordo

Sam Lordo is the Marketing Manager – Process at Nalco Champion's Energy Services Division. Sam has over 35 years of experience in refining and petrochemical industries accumulated through Exxon Chemical, Nalco/Exxon Energy Chemicals, L.P. and Nalco Energy Services. Current assignments are to support marketing activities in the North America Region and coordinate technology activities with super major refiners sites worldwide. Sam is involved with desalting and corrosion control technical and technology developments. Sam has been a member of NACE for 16 years, author of several papers on corrosion control, desalting, and Opportunity Crude Processing. Sam is an active NPRA participant and was a member of the 2002 NPRA Q&A Panel. Sam holds a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering from the University of Missouri – Columbia.

Bill Lywood

Bill Lywood is the president of Crude Quality Inc, the company that designed, developed and maintains www.crudemonitor.ca. Crude Quality inc is also involved in bitumen characterization studies, and has supported numerous Canadian and US associations, committees and panels in discussions related to crude petroleum quality. Bill's experience in drilling, production, transport, and processing crude oils has provided invaluable support to his quality monitoring efforts.

Bill graduated from the University of Waterloo, Canada with an Honours Applied Chemistry degree. His support of, and passion for, fresh and saltwater fishing has been a constant through his life.

Joseph McMullen

Manager SimSci Product Marketing Schneider Electric. Joseph McMullen manages the SimSci Product Marketing team at Schneider Electric. Joe earned his Bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering in 2000 and MBA in 2004, both from Villanova University. Joe started at Invensys (now Schneider Electric) as a Senior Technical Support Specialist in 2001. Joe spent 5 years as the Product Manager for steady-state simulation software products for the SimSci brand. In April 2011 he began his new role in Product Marketing, responsible for developing and expanding the SimSci brand awareness and strengthening the marketing behind SimSci software for design, simulation, training, advanced control, and optimization.

Dinara Millington

Dinara Millington joined the Canadian Energy Research Institute (CERI) in February 2004 and assumed her current role as a Vice President, Research in April 2014. Dinara is responsible for managing the Institute’s research agenda including leading the oil sands projects, assisting in the production of market research, economic analysis and economic modeling. Ms. Millington has participated in various projects involving oil sands, crude oil, natural gas, LNG, and renewable energy.

Dinara is also the Editor-in-Chief of the Institute's Commodity Reports on crude oil and natural gas and provides economic commentary for CBC, Global TV, The Globe and Mail, the BNN and other local, national and international news outlets.

Dinara graduated with a Masters of Arts degree in Economics from the University of Calgary, specializing in Econometrics and Time-series Analysis. She also holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics with minor in Finance. Ms. Millington spent some time studying at Masarykov University in Brno, Czech Republic, as well as worked and lived abroad in Kazakhstan.

Jon Moreau

Jon Moreau is Global Business Development Director for Cameron Measurement Systems. He has been with the company for nearly 20 years having joined the Jiskoot brand in 1995 prior to its acquisition by Cameron in 2008. Jon has worked extensively with quality measurement and blending systems over this time and has led a number of major crude and heavy oil blending projects world-wide leveraging in-line blending technology to deliver a rapid return on investment. He has experience of crude oil blending for applications as diverse as pipeline transportation, waxy and high viscosity blending in terminals for import/export and refinery blending.

Jon was instrumental in working with the technology team at Jiskoot to create many of the return on investment models that are now extensively used for quality measurement and blending.

Siauw Ng

Dr. Siauw Ng works as a senior Research Scientist for Canadian Government at Natural Resources Canada. He has been devoted to oil-sands research in his 30-year public service, engaging in bitumen upgrading, catalytic processing, and multidisciplinary innovation. His most recent research was focused on production of petrochemicals through deep catalytic cracking, pyrolysis, and microwave-assisted technology; narrow cuts examination; direct cracking of oil sands bitumen; and catalytic conversions of biomass and plastic wastes for transportation fuels, with an ultimate goal of reducing GHG emissions. Prior to joining federal government, he served for 11 years with the Iron Ore Company of Canada, responsible for iron ore beneficiation research and analysis. He developed a maintenance program based on engine oil analysis for a fleet of 80 locomotives, hundreds of haulage trucks and other heavy equipment for prevention of engine breakdowns. He received quite a lot of national and international scientific merit awards. He earned his B. Sc. In chemical engineering from National Taiwan University and Ph. D. in physical chemistry from University of New Brunswick. He is a member of ASTM International D-32 (On Catalysts), a professional engineer and a professional chemist.

Tim Olsen

Tim Olsen has been with Emerson Process Management for 16 years. He is a refining consultant within the global refining industry solutions group, where he supports Emerson’s technical and business strategy. He is a past chair of AIChE’s Fuels and Petrochemicals Division, and was the Meeting Programming Chair for the recent 2014 AIChE Spring Meeting in New Orleans. Tim was also with UOP for 8 years as a technical advisor and process control advisor. He has a BS in chemical engineering from Iowa State University with emphasis in industrial engineering and process control, and an MBA from the University of Iowa.

Rahul Pillai

Rahul Pillai joined Kellogg Brown & Root’s Fluid Catalytic Cracking (FCC) team in 2008. Since that time he has lead process engineering design activities for grassroots FCC units, various FCC revamp projects, numerous studies, technology proposals, technical service, plant start-up assignments. Rahul has a Master of Science (MS) degree in Mechanical Engineering from Texas A&M University, College Station.

Lucas Revellon

Lucas Revellon has worked for Johnson Matthey for seven years and is currently the Director of Sales for Latin America. He holds a BS with honors in Chemical Engineering from North Carolina State University, and an MBA with honors from the University of Dallas. He previously worked for Delek Refining in Tyler Texas as an operations engineer on the FCCU and Coker units. He also worked for UOP for five years completing numerous overseas assignments of various refining technologies including Platforming, FCC and Hydrocracking.

Richard H. Schlosberg, Ph. D.

Dr. Schlosberg is president of Schlosberg Consulting LLC and provides expertise in the areas of chemicals, petroleum products and processes and biofeed to fuels and chemicals. Dr. Schlosberg has a Ph. D. in physical organic chemistry from Michigan State University and was a post-doctoral colleague of Nobel Laureate George Olah. Dr. Schlosberg worked at ExxonMobil Research and Engineering and at ExxonMobil Chemical Company prior to starting his con-sulting firm. He is named inventor on 82 issued US patents and has written more than 70 reviewed articles in technical publications. He is Associate Editor of the Journal of Sustainable Energy Engineering and is engaged in writing a book on oil sands.

Since 2008, Dr. Schlosberg has led the Research and Development activities at EPIC Oil Extractors, LLC. The efforts of EPIC Oil Extractors focus on the non-aqueous selective extraction of hydrocarbons from oil sands. His presentation at the 4th Opportunity Crudes Conference will highlight the advantages available via the EPIC Oil Extractors process scheme.

Cassandra Schoessow

Cassandra Schoessow is VCC Process Manager, KBR Technology. She joined KBR in 2001 and her responsibilities include leading the process design team and providing input on commercial activities related to technology licensing for slurry phase hydrocracking technology.

Ms. Schoessow has a B.S. Chemical Engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and M.S. Chemical Engineering from The University of Texas at Austin.

Alexis Shackleford

Alexis Shackleford , Technical Marketing Specialist BASF Corporation - Refining Catalysts. She is the Technical Marketing Specialist for BASF refining based in Houston. She is involved in FCC catalyst publications, presentations, and new product introduction, and has provided FCC technical service and R&D testing support. She joined BASF’s Refining catalyst division in 2009. Prior to BASF, Alexis worked at Shell Oil Company’s Deer Park Refinery for three years as a process engineer in various roles supporting Projects and Operations. Alexis has a BS in Chemical Engineering from Michigan State University.

Gregory Shahnovsky

Graduated from Azerbaijan institute of petrochemistry and post-graduate school for specialty "Petrochemical processes automation" and then Haifa University for specialty "High-technology enterprises business administration".

From 1990 – field engineer, department manager, deputy general manager and then CEO of MODCON. From 2013 – President of MODCON Group. Under his leadership, MODCON has quickly grown to profitability and #1 market positions with its innovative line of process analyzers, optimization and control solutions. Gregory Shahnovsky is a member of the International Society of Automation, author of numerous scientific publications and award-winning scientific and technical communities.

Colin Stewart

Special Projects Director and Chartered Chemist within Intertek’s Exploration and Production division with over 32 years’ experience in hydrocarbon characterisation covering the crude oil supply chain from production through to refining.

For many years acted as the company’s technical representative on the pipeline measurement forums within the UK and thus has specific expertise on analysing products within a fiscal and regulatory environment.

More recently Colin has become the focal point for commercialising Intertek’s PT5 suite of products within the market place which is taking hydrocarbon characterisation from the laboratory to site to meet client’s real time operating requirements.

Eric Streit

Eric Streit is a Senior Staff Consultant for KBC Advanced Technologies. He specializes in the Hydrotreating and Naphtha Reforming areas and has experience in Crude Distillation, Steam-Methane Reforming, Hydrocracking and Utilities. He has expertise in process modeling and has developed many unit-specific and full-refinery process simulations for use in opportunity identification and evaluation. Prior to joining KBC in 2001 he worked as a process engineer at Clark Oil in Blue Island, Illinois and at Amoco Oil Company in Texas City, Texas.

Mr. Streit holds a BS degree in Chemical Engineering from Texas Tech University and has twenty years of experience in the oil refining industry.

Frederick Stubbins

Frederick Stubbins works as a Research Consultant with the Intertek Process Assurance Group based in the UK. The group draws upon the experience from within the group and across Interteks global businesses covering the hydrocarbon supply chain from offshore oil and gas through to refineries and refined products.

Frederick has been an integral part of the research team which has been developing new proprietary solutions covering both upstream and downstream Oil & Gas and Refining industries.

These solutions have included combinations of chemometric modelling, multivariate data analysis, integrated analytical techniques as well as process engineering and optimisation.

Dennis Sutton

Dennis Sutton is currently Executive Director of the Crude Oil Quality Association (COQA), an educational organization focusing on the production, transportation, and processing aspects related to crude oil quality. He also serves as a consultant to the industry through his company, PetroQual LLC.

Prior to assuming the leadership of the COQA, he completed a 41 year career with Marathon Petroleum, retiring in 2013. During his time with Marathon, he worked as a Research Chemist at their technology center in Denver, CO; and had assignments at their Indianapolis, IN; Robinson, IL; and Texas City, TX refineries. Most recently he served as their Manager of Feedstock Quality in the Feedstock Acquisition department. In this capacity at their corporate headquarters in Findlay, OH, he managed all quality aspects of their over $50 billion annual crude oil expenditures.

Dennis is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of Colorado with a bachelor’s degree in Chemistry. He also serves on the Board of Directors of the Canadian Crude Quality Technical Association (CCQTA) and is a member of the American Chemical Society.

Martin Tallett

Martin Tallett is President of EnSys Energy, a leader in global petroleum “downstream” assessments that has been heavily involved in North American supply and logistics evaluations, with three studies for the Department of State on Keystone XL, EnSys’ monthly service that tracks pipeline, rail, terminal and marine developments and an analysis for the American Petroleum Institute of the impacts of allowing US crude oil exports.

Current activities include EnSys’ annual OPEC World Oil Outlook cycle – where there is much interest in US developments – and an assessment of the outlook in Mexico in support of their marine fuels ECA application.

A J Troner

Al Troner is President of Asia Pacific Energy Consulting (APEC), a small consulting firm established in 1995 and now based in Houston, with associates in the U.K. and Australia. Since 1984, Mr. Troner worked in Asia’s energy sector, establishing Dow Jones/Telerate's regional energy services that year and returning to Singapore in 1989 to found and direct Petroleum Intelligence Weekly’s Asia-Pacific bureau. He won the International Association of Energy Economics award for Energy Journalism in 1994, retiring from journalism the following year. From 1987-1989, he was as a research assistant in the energy group at the East West Center. Recent APEC work included studies on Tight Oil and US Crude Exports; NGLs in the Shale Revolution; Annual Condensate East of Suez, Acidic Crude Marketing, Annual Bitumen East of Suez and Asia Pacific Product Quality. Mr. Troner has worked in the energy industry in the U.S., Europe, and the Middle East and Asia Pacific. Mr. Troner received a BA from Stony Brook University, New York, and a MA from the University of Hawaii.

APEC specializes in tactical consulting, research and analysis that helps companies identify, understand and profit from emerging commercial situations. APEC projects emphasize problem-solving, targeting short- and medium-term business concerns. As a small independent shop, the company provides tailored, company-specific services. For further information on APEC and its current activities, please see the company’s website at www.apecconsulting.com.

Eric Vetters

Eric Vetters is president of ProCorr Consulting Services, which provides process engineering and corrosion expertise to the petroleum refining industry. Previously he had over 32 years of experience with Conoco, ConocoPhillips and Phillips 66. His experience includes refinery process engineering assignments at 3 refineries, major projects, and strategic planning. He also spent 11 years providing refinery and R&D support for refinery corrosion, desalting and fouling issues.

Eric has a B.S in chemical engineering from Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology and an MS from Oklahoma State University. He is a registered professional engineer in Oklahoma.

Carl Weaver

Carl Weaver is a Senior Research Design and Development Engineer in Baker Hughes Downstream Chemicals group, providing technical support to Midstream applications and technical product management for Process and Pipeline Services.

Carl has a Master of Science degree in Chemistry and has served in R&D and technical support/sales roles in the chemical industry for 32 years. In his current position, Carl provides technical support to various Midstream areas including Remains on Board mitigation, industrial cleaning of process equipment, pipelines and tanks; paraffin accumulation mitigation in pipelines, tanks and other areas.

An inventor/co-inventor of five U.S. patents, he has published in Hydrocarbon Processing and co-authored a white paper on “Identifying the Hidden Cost Drivers of Refinery Shutdown Decontamination”.

Carl is a member of NACE and the American Chemical Society.

Irwin (Irv) Wiehe

Dr. Irv Wiehe, a Fellow of AIChE, is president of Soluble Solutions and author of the book, “Process Chemistry of Petroleum Macromolecules”. He has 37 years experience in the petroleum industry, 22 years at Exxon Corporate Research. As a consultant Irv has taught 38 short courses for 31 institutions in 15 countries and 4 continents. Today, refinery fouling by insoluble asphaltenes is the most understood, most controllable type of fouling only because of Irv’s Oil Compatibility Tests and Model. In addition, Irv has done pioneering research in solving other causes of refinery fouling and in improving resid conversion processes.

Alan Yahev

Alan Yahev serves as Marketing Manager for Newfield Exploration, and independent E&P company, focused on growing liquids production in four domestic areas: Uinta Basin, Williston Basin, Cana Woodford and the Eagle Ford.

In this position, Alan develops market opportunities for the Uinta basin black and yellow wax crudes and strategic crude logistics solutions. Alan previously worked for Suncor Energy, integrating Athabasca crude oils into North American refineries. He holds a bachelor of science in chemistry from the Moscow State University, Russia and a master of business administration from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.