Mr. Charles E. (Chuck) Fox, PE is Vice President of Operations and Technology at Kinder Morgan CO2 Company L.P., in Houston, Texas. In addition to managing operations of the McElmo Dome CO2 source field and 1,000 miles of CO2 pipelines, he is responsible for his company’s oil and gas CO2 EOR operations, which include the 5 billion barrel original-oil-in-place (OOIP) Yates field, the 3 billion barrel OOIP SACROC field, and the Snyder Gasoline Plant.
Mr. Fox is a co-instructor of the popular SPE courses on the topics of ‘Practical Aspects of CO2 Flooding EOR’, and ‘Geological Sequestration of CO2’.He is one of the co-authors of the SPE Monograph Volume 22, Practical Aspects of CO2 Flooding, published in 2002, on which the ‘Practical Aspects of CO2 Flooding EOR’ course is based. He was an instructor for several short-courses held at the annual CO2 conferences in Midland, Texas, which were sponsored by the University of Texas of the Permian Basin and SPE.
Mr. Fox was Chairman of the Program Committee of the SPE/DOE Fourteenth Symposium on Improved Oil Recovery, held in Tulsa, Oklahoma, during April 2004. He holds an MS degree in Petroleum Engineering from Stanford University, and a BS degree in Mechanical Engineering from Rice University. He is a registered professional engineer in Texas and New Mexico, and a longstanding member of SPE.
Dr. S. M. (Sam) Avasthi, PE, is president of Avasthi & Associates, Inc., a worldwide petroleum consulting company, headquartered in Houston, Texas. In addition to managing the company, that he founded in 1990 and that now provides Petroleum Engineering, Geomechanics and Geosciences, CO2 Flooding EOR and CO2 Geosequestration, Oil & Gas Field Operations, and Management Consulting Services around the world, he is active in providing consulting and training services in his own areas of expertise.
Dr. Sam Avasthi has extensive worldwide oil & gas industry experience in oil & gas reservoir engineering and simulation, mature oilfield revitalization, CO2 Flooding EOR project design, evaluation and optimization, gas, gas-condensate, volatile oil, and black oil reservoir asset optimization, and training. He has lectured on numerous topics in his areas of expertise in the United States, Japan, South-East Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and Latin America. He is a co-instructor of the popular SPE courses on the topics of ‘Practical Aspects of CO2 Flooding EOR’, and ‘Geological Sequestration of CO2’, and a new SPE course on the topic of ‘Optimizing Gas Fields’.
Dr. Sam Avasthi is an engineering alumnus of Indian School of Mines, Imperial College of the University of London, and Texas A&M University. He earned a PhD in Petroleum Engineering from Texas A&M University, and thereafter was a Research Fellow in Chemical Engineering at Rice University in Houston, Texas. Thereafter, he worked in senior-level petroleum engineering and consulting positions with a major international integrated oil & gas company and a major international oil & gas consulting company for several years before founding Avasthi & Associates. He is a registered professional engineer in Texas, a senior member of SPE, and a Technical Editor for the SPE Reservoir Evaluation & Engineering journal.
Dr. Michael H. (Mike) Stein retired from BP in 2006 after 28 years of service, and is currently a consultant, specializing in enhanced oil recovery and integrated asset modeling.
With BP, prior to his retirement, he was a team leader of the Integrated Asset Modeling group in BP’s Technology Center in Houston. He was involved in numerous technical service assignments with integrated asset modeling around the world, as well as teaching company courses on integrated asset modeling. He also directed research on applying integrated asset modeling to monitor corrosion and erosion on a real time basis, and to couple integrated asset modeling with reservoir simulation. He has co-authored several SPE papers in the area of optimizing gas reservoirs through integrated asset modeling, and linking integrated asset modeling to real-time automation data to monitor corrosion and erosion.
Prior to working in the area of integrated asset modeling, Dr. Stein spent most of his 28 years with BP as a reservoir engineer. His efforts were primarily in the areas of CO2 flooding and reservoir modeling. He has written many SPE papers in these areas, and he is one of the co-authors of the SPE Monograph Volume 22, Practical Aspects of CO2 Flooding. He also holds three U.S. Patents, two in enhanced coal bed methane (ECBM) production, and one in automatic waterflood history matching. In 1991, he received the Distinguished Inventor award (presented by the Intellectual Property Owners, Inc.) for a patent on nitrogen injection in coal beds for enhanced coal bed methane (ECBM) recovery.
Dr. Stein is an engineering alumnus of the University of Missouri and Purdue University; he holds a BS in Chemical Engineering from the University of Missouri, and MS. and PhD degrees in Chemical Engineering from Purdue University. He is a long standing member of SPE, has served on the SPE editorial committees, and chaired the SPE Reservoir Engineering committee to select papers for the Annual SPE Meeting. He is a co-instructor of the popular SPE courses on the topics of ‘Practical Aspects of CO2 Flooding EOR’, and ‘Geological Sequestration of CO2’, and a new SPE course on the topic of ‘Optimizing Gas Fields’.
Dr. J. M. (Jay) Avasthi is Executive Vice President and Director of Geoservices (Geomechanics, Geosciences and CO2 Geosequestration) at Avasthi & Associates, Inc., a worldwide petroleum consulting company headquartered in Houston, Texas, and provides consulting and training services in his areas of expertise.
Dr. Jay Avasthi has extensive worldwide oil & gas industry experience, including several years with Chevron Corporation in geomechanics, well stimulation, rock properties, wellbore stability, and sand production prediction research and supervision. His expertise includes acquisition, calibration and use of the in situ stress data for oil & gas well construction and production, and for waterflood and CO2 flood enhanced oil recovery (EOR) project improvement; and solving fracturing stimulation, waste disposal through injection, wellbore stability, wellbore mechanics, and sand production prediction problems. He has authored/ co-authored numerous technical publications and a patent, and taught several short courses, and conducted hands on training workshops, in his areas of expertise, around the world. He is a co-instructor of the popular SPE courses on the topics of ‘Practical Aspects of CO2 Flooding EOR’, and ‘Geological Sequestration of CO2’.
Dr. Jay Avasthi is an alumnus of Indian School of Mines where he earned degrees in Applied Geology and Mining Engineering, the University of Minnesota where he earned an MS degree in Geo-Engineering, with specialization in Rock Mechanics, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison where he earned a PhD in Mining Engineering, with specialization in Rock Mechanics. Thereafter, he worked in senior-level research and supervisory positions at Chevron for several years. He is a long-standing member of SPE, a Technical Editor for the SPE Reservoir Evaluation & Engineering journal, and has served as the SPE Los Angeles Basin Section Director and Program Chairman.