People in the industry
Peter Voser has been named interim CEO at ABB. The appointment follows a mutual decision between the company’s board of directors and CEO Ulrich Spiesshofer that Spiesshofer step down from his role. Previously, Voser served as CEO of Royal Dutch Shell from 2009 to 2013, and CFO from 2004 to 2009. He also has served in board positions with companies including Roche, IBM, Catalyst, Temasek Holdings and PSA International.
Don Tyler has been named director of engineering at BCCK Holding Company. He brings more than 40 years of combined engineering, design, project and discipline management experience to his new position. Among his professional accomplishments are five NGL recovery patents that he co-invented, as well as the invention of the geothermal energy Patent 8,672,024 B2, “Subsurface Well Completion System Having a Heat Exchanger.”
LAGCOE has announced that Cornelius “Corny” Dupré II will serve as this year’s LAGCOE Looey. He is chairman of private equity firm Dupré Interests and Dupré Energy Services. He also is a founding member of EXXI, USWS and White Knight Production. Presently, he serves on the board of directors at Airis, Foundation Energy, Hoover Ferguson Group, Wellbore Fishing and Rental Tools, JVL Global Energy and Dynamic Chemical Solutions. Dupré began his oil and gas career as an offshore roughneck for Kerr McGee. He also worked for the Louisiana Legislature and as a political consultant for former Congressman and Governor Buddy Roemer. He later worked for former U.S. President Jimmy Carter’s administration in Washington, D.C. Dupré ventured into the oilfield services business with his brother in the early 1980s, starting several of their own companies.
Hema Prapoo has been named V.P. of sales at BiSN. Beginning her career as a wireline field engineer, she worked at Baker Hughes for a decade before joining Allied-Horizontal Wireline Services. With more than 15 years of experience in business development, sales, customer service and account management, Prapoo will now oversee BiSN’s sales team focusing on continued business growth, worldwide.
Lukoil has made changes to its leadership team. Sergey Kochkurov will now serve as V.P. of PJSC Lukoil for technical services. Previously, he held positions as V.P. of PJSC Lukoil and general director of OOO Lukoil West-Siberia. In addition to the appointment of Kochkurov, Vladislav Zubarev will succeed Kochkurov as general director of OOO Lukoil West-Siberia. Zubarev previously served as first deputy general director-chief engineer.
Emmanuelle Marshall has been named group HSE director at EnerMech. In her new position, Marshall will focus on the health and safety of the company’s workforce. Previously, however, she was BP lead for its global HSE learning and development capability. She also worked at Schlumberger for 18 years, where she held a number of senior roles in HSE, technology and learning.
Disruptive wireless subsea technology specialist WFS Technologies has appointed Richard Adams to its senior management team. As sales channel director, Adams will oversee the company’s defense activities. Following a 20-year career as a submarine engineer officer with the Royal Navy, Adams joined Frazer-Nash Consultancy as a senior consultant. He later became a business manager. Most recently, however, Adams served as sales director at Coda Octopus Products, where he was responsible for the global sales performance of its real-time 3D sonar technologies.
Steve Carter has been named project director for smart infrastructure solutions company Costain. He will work directly with the upstream team in Aberdeen, which delivers a broad range of offshore and onshore engineering projects across the lifecycle of oil and gas assets and infrastructure. Previously, Carter held management and project roles at companies including Fairfield Energy, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, TAQA, Petrofac and Siemens.
Dan Hampson and Brian Russell, who work for GeoSoftware, part of CGG’s geoscience division, are being honored by the Geophysical Society of Houston and the Society of Exploration Geophysicists. They’re being honored specifically for their groundbreaking achievements in geophysics. They founded Hampson-Russell Software in 1987 and, as V.P.s within CGG GeoSoftware, continue to guide the company’s strategy and development of reservoir characterization software. Russell is an expert in seismic inversion, amplitude variation with offset (AVO) and seismic attribute analysis. Likewise, Hampson has developed several innovations in the field of seismic processing.
Oleg Aksyutin has been named deputy chairman of Gazprom’s management committee. He will oversee strategic development, long-term planning and project planning, as well as development of the company’s investment program. Elena Burmistrova has been named deputy chairwoman of the management committee, while maintaining her position as head of Gazprom Export. She will oversee all foreign trade activities. Additionally, Igor Fedorov has been appointed managing director of Gazprom Germania GmbH. He will be replaced as a member of the management committee and head of Department 104 by Sergey Kuznets, deputy head of the department.
Engineering solutions specialist SengS has appointed a new managing director. With nearly 30 years of senior management experience, David Benison will step into the role. He previously held positions in Aker Solutions’ subsea division. Most recently, he was head of subsea lifecycle services, where he was responsible for the service and maintenance of subsea and topside equipment for installed base assets on the UKCS.
Siemens Oil & Gas has appointed Arja Talakar as CEO. Talakar began his career with Siemens in 1996 as a rotating equipment and automation systems engineer and has since held several roles of increasing responsibility. Most recently, he was responsible for Siemens Saudi Arabia. Throughout his 23-year career, Talakar has developed close ties with leading oil and gas, energy and petrochemicals companies around the world, and has succeeded in the execution of large infrastructure projects.
Kenneth Collins has joined OspreyData as V.P. of product optimization and services. With 25 years of industry experience, Collins holds a specialized expertise in optimization. He previously worked for Dowell Schlumberger, as a field supervisor and engineer. He moved on to other roles, including completions technical advisor, completions manager and production manager. Most recently, however, he was a leader at EP Energy, where he was responsible for the central completions engineering group and various operations across multiple shale plays.
