MEET OUR SPEAKERS

Cathal Reilly

Cathal Reilly is a senior structural geologist with Petroleum Experts Ltd (formerly Midland Valley Exploration Ltd) since 2015. Following completion of his PhD with the Fault Analysis Group examining the temporal development of tectonics, faulting and fault seal capacity offshore New Zealand, Dr. Reilly joined Midland Valley as a consultant structural geologist specializing in Structural Restoration, Interpretation Validation and Balancing, Fault Displacement and Seal Analysis, and Fracture Modelling. In addition to consultancy work, Dr. Reilly teaches and supports the use of the MOVE suite of structural modelling software tools for clients around the world and led the PETEX Structural Geology technical support, consultancy and training team for our North American office between 2019 and 2021.

Wafik Beydoun

Wafik is the Director Americas at the International Association of Oil and Gas Producers (IOGP) promoting good and safe practices in upstream operations and on the low-carbon energy transition. Previously he was Country Chair Total Kuwait, and 2018-2019 Chairman of the Board, Offshore Technology Conference (OTC). Past assignments: President & CEO, Total E&P Research & Technology USA; Manager R&D Division, ADNOC UAE; Business Development Manager Technology/R&D, Total France; Sr. Negotiator New Ventures, Total France; Manager Geophysical Operations and Technology, Total France; Block 17 “Golden Block” Area Exploration Manager, Total Angola; Project Leader, Geosciences Research Centre, Total UK; Project leader, ARCO Plano Texas USA.

Francois Xavier Dubost

Reservoir Engineer Advisor with Schlumberger, Francois graduated from Herriot Watt University with a Master's degree in Petroleum Engineering. His current responsibilities lie in the technical support of reservoir engineering services throughout Mexico, Central America, and offshore North America. François has worked on different continents for the past 26 years with Schlumberger, with experience in logging, operations management, and interpretation engineering. His technical expertise resides in transient test interpretation, fluids and sampling. He also has previous experience in reservoir studies, such as field development planning and production optimization studies, having worked for five years in the Schlumberger consulting line. Francois is an active member of the SPE and SPWLA societies, coauthored over 30 publications and coinvented more than 10 allowed patents.

Alexandro Vera - Arroyo

Alexandro Vera-Arroyo is currently a research and teacher assistant for the Subsurface Detective Agency and Attribute-Assisted Seismic Processing and Interpretation consortium at the University of Oklahoma. His research interests include wave propagation phenomena, optimization problems, quantitative reservoir characterization, machine learning, and exploration risk management. He studied exploration geophysics at the National Autonomous University in Mexico City. He then earned his master’s in geophysics at OU. He is now pursuing his doctorate to better understand deep learning applications in different subsurface exploration challenges. He has worked as a geomechanical engineer at Schlumberger and a quantitative interpreter at PEMEX. Alexandro is the treasurer for the OU student chapter AAPGE, member of SEG, EAGE, SPE, and SPWLA

Edgar Medina

Geophysical Engineer with 20 years of experience in the Oil & Gas area, Graduated from the National Polytechnic Institute, in his experience he worked 12 years with the Schlumberger company, as Senior Geophysicist, and 6 years as technical / commercial representative for the Emerson-Paradigm company North Mexico Region, as well as geophysics and geology consultant in modeling and characterization areas.He has taught certified technical courses PEMEX, IMP, as well as private industry. An active member of AMGE and EAGE, he is the author of various articles published in Oil & Gas magazines, and is a recurring speaker for various national and international forums.Since 2020 he has been working as an interpreter Geophysicist and Geomodeler for the company Perforadora Latina Desarrollos Energéticos, within the Field Development management.Recently special guest in July 2021 by the SLB company in the event "The Digital World in the Oil Industry" with experts from the area worldwide.

Mark G. Rowan

Mark received a B.S. in biology from the California Institute of Technology in 1976, an M.S. in geology from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1982, and a Ph.D. in structural geology from the University of Colorado at Boulder in 1991. He worked for Sohio Petroleum Co. (1982 to 1985), Geo-Logic Systems (1985-1989), and Alastair Beach Associates in Glasgow, Scotland (1989-1992). He then returned to the University of Colorado as a Research Assistant Professor before founding his own company in 1998, where he consults and teaches for the petroleum industry worldwide and conducts research sponsored by industry.

Although Mark’s background includes many types of tectonic environments, his primary research and consulting interests are focused on the styles and kinematics of salt tectonics, the processes of salt-sediment interaction, the architecture and evolution of passive margins, and the applications to petroleum exploration. He is the author or coauthor of over 115 papers and 260 abstracts, has been an AAPG Distinguished Lecturer and an AAPG International Distinguished Instructor, has been awarded the Doris M. Curtis Medal by the GCSSEPM and the Robert J. Berg Outstanding Research Award by the AAPG, and is an honoree in the AAPG Heritage of the Petroleum Geologist.

Alejandra León

Alejandra León, Director, IHS Markit, is an expert on assessing business opportunities in Latin America, understanding them from market perspective (demand, prices, competition), technical viability, terms and conditions of contracts, regulation, project´s economics, and other above ground risks. Alejandra has developed expertise on scenario´s analysis as an integrated view, technical-political-regulatory-economic, to create a range of possible futures and understand possible risks. Alejandra has more than 20 years collaborating on assessing businesses through the oil & gas value chain, supporting private and public sector to take the best decisions.

Ms. León holds a degree on economics from the National University of Mexico.

Alfonso Reyes Pimentel

Alfonso holds the position of coordinator of the Regulation and Access Committee and Legal Committee at the Mexican Association of Oil and Gas Companies (Asociación Mexicana de Empresas de Hidrocarburos, AMEXHI). His main activities are regulatory advocacy and legal analysis. Previously, he was General Director of Contract Management at the National Hydrocarbon Commission (Comisión Nacional de Hidrocarburos, CNH), where he oversaw the technical and regulatory management of every oil and gas contract signed by the Mexican Government.

Alfonso has experience in deepwater and onshore exploration and development projects and near-surface geophysics. He is a geophysicist with a master's degree in petroleum engineering and is currently pursuing a PhD. in energy economics and regulation.

Ahmed Afifi

Ahmed Afifi is the Geology Discipline Leader for Western Hemisphere Renewal at bp in Houston. He has been working in bp for almost 18 years on variety of Exploration and Production projects in different basin types offshore and onshore in Africa, South America and North America. He has spent the last six years focusing on the exploration potential of the offshore Mexican basins. Ahmed has a master degree in structural geology from Ain Shams university in Cairo and is a licensed professional geoscientist in the state of Texas . His interests include rift tectonics and passive margins deformation and petroleum systems.

Alex Kurobasa

Alex Kurobasa is a Business Development Manager at TGS, currently responsible for well data and interpretation projects in Eastern Hemisphere. Prior to joining TGS in 2019, Alex worked as a geologist in a variety of oil and gas service companies on exploration and development projects across Latin America, West Africa, North Sea and Russia. Throughout this period, Alex also acted as a geological consultant on a range of exploration projects across offshore Mexico. Alex has a masters degree in Petroleum Geoscience from Royal Holloway, University of London, and is also an active member of many industry societies and interest groups, including sitting on the YP committee of the PESGB since 2017.

Andreia Leao Owens

Andreia Leao Owens serves since 2014 as the Regional Consultant for the International Association of Geophysical Contradctors (IAGC) in charge of South and Latin America issues related to environmental, social and seismic technical data, with emphasis in Brazil, Argentina and Mexico.

She began working in the Oil and Gas industry for WesternGeco/Schlumberger right after the opening of the market in Brazil in the early 2000’s. During more than a decade working at WesternGeco/Schlumberger, Andreia gave support on environmental legal issues, worked as Environmental Coordinator for Brazil in charge of environmental permitting for offshore seismic, HSE Legal Compliance Manager for Latin America and as Clients Contracts Manager for Europe.

Loeiza Gicquel

Loeiza Gicquel is a graduate engineering geologist from the National Superior School of Geology of Nancy, ENSG. Loeiza first discovered Latin America in 2018 thanks to a university exchange program with the Chile University based in Santiago. After graduation, she joined Eliis as geoscientist for the LATAM office, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Since 2019 Loeiza is providing PaleoScan™ software technical support for Eliis clients all over south America.