SPEIOR.ORG

Plenary Session

Monday, 21 April 9 a.m. to Noon, Salon I

Bill Cobb
2008 SPE President

Bill Cobb, 2008 SPE president, heads William M. Cobb & Associates, Inc., a petroleum consulting firm based in Dallas, Tex., that specializes in waterflooding, fluid injection, field studies, reserves evaluation and certification, and reservoir management.

Cobb’s 35 years of experience in the petroleum industry includes research, staff, and district positions for ARCO Oil & Gas. He also headed oil and gas operations for Cornell Oil Co., an independent oil and gas company.

Cobb taught reservoir engineering at Mississippi State University, where he now serves on the Dean’s Development Council. He is currently an adjunct professor of petroleum engineering at Texas A&M University.

Before his nomination as 2008 SPE president, Cobb served as SPE vice-president of finance and on many SPE committees, including the Reservoir Engineering Program Committee, Publications Review Committee, and Distinguished Author Series Committee, and as chairman of the Formation Evaluation Committee. He chaired the committee that recommended opening an SPE office in the Middle East and served on the SPE Fund Raising Committee in support of the SPE.org initiative. He was an SPE Distinguished Lecturer in 1995. In 1999, he received the SPE Reservoir Engineering Award.

Cobb has served in numerous leadership positions at the section level, including program chairman and general chairman for the Hydrocarbon Economics and Evaluation Symposium sponsored by the Dallas Section.

In addition to publishing technical papers, he has made more than 50 technical presentations to SPE sections throughout the world.

He received B.S. and M.S. degrees from Mississippi State University and a Ph.D from Stanford University, all in petroleum engineering.

Hu Wenrui
Vice-President
PetroChina

Hu Wenrui is the vice-president of PetroChina for oil and gas field development and production, a position he has held since 2005.

He has 35 years of experience in China’s oil and gas industry and is an expert in field development and production.

Hu has held many positions in China’s petroleum industry, including general manager of PetroChina E&P Co. (2002-2005); president of Changqing Oilfield Co., PetroChina (1999-2002); executive vice-president and president of Changqing Petroleum Exploration Bureau (1989-1999); and director of Unit 2 in Changqing Petroleum Exploration Bureau.

Rafael Sandrea
President
IPC Petroleum Consultants, Inc.

Rafael Sandrea is president of IPC Petroleum Consultants, Inc., a Tulsa-based international petroleum consulting firm that specializes in oil and gas reserves appraisals and risk analysis for international upstream petroleum investments.

Sandrea’s presentation will focus on “IOR and the Future of Oil Supply.” He is the author of a groundbreaking new research report, available soon from PennWell Publishing, on future global oil and gas supply.

Sandrea is very active giving seminars and workshops and speaking on the reserves theme around the world. He graduated cum laude in petroleum engineering from the University of Tulsa and received his Ph.D. from Penn State University.

Sandrea headed the petroleum engineering department at the Universidad de Oriente in Venezuela and later was the Ford Foundation Professor in the graduate school of petroleum engineering at the Universidad Nacional of Mexico.

Sandrea is the coauthor of Dynamics of Petroleum Reservoirs under Gas Injection (Gulf Publishing, 1974), a book used extensively in petroleum engineering courses around the world.

In 1974 he founded a Caracas-based engineering company, ITS Servicios Técnicos. During his 30-year tenure as its president and CEO, ITS provided the oil and gas industry a wide range of technical services and products, including project management, reservoir engineering, geology, seismic processing, E&P data management, and business archiving.

Sandrea is a member for life of the Society of Petroleum Engineers and a member of the editorial advisory board of the forthcoming Petroleum Encyclopedia, of the board of The Open Petroleum Engineering Journal, and of the United Nations Ad Hoc Group of Experts on Fossil Resources.

Sandrea has published over 30 technical papers. His latest publications cover areas such as risk analysis for international upstream petroleum investments, appraisal of global oil and gas reserves, development of algorithms for estimating the production capacity of new oil fields, global offshore oil reserves potential, and assessment of global oil and gas resources and their potential for enhanced recovery. Some of these articles have been featured in CNN Money and Petroleum World.com. They are available on IPC’s website at www.ipc66.com.

Paul Ching
Retired

Paul Ching retired from Royal Dutch Shell PLC on July 1, 2007, after more than 34 years.

His last position with the company was vice president, technical, E&P research and development, for Shell International Exploration & Production. Ching was responsible for the development and execution of Shell’s global E&P R&D program.

Ching was born and raised in South Dakota. He earned a BS in mathematics from Northern State University in 1969 and an M.S. in geological engineering in 1973 from South Dakota School of Mines and Technology.

Ching joined Shell (US) E&P in 1973 and spent the next seven years working as a petrophysical engineer, production geologist, and division geological engineer. In 1980, he was appointed to the position of offshore lease sale coordinator, preparing development scenarios and bids for U.S. offshore lease sales.

In 1982, Ching moved to Washington, DC, where he worked as a lobbyist/technical advisor for Shell’s U.S. governmental affairs office. He returned to Shell (US) E&P in 1983 and for the next 15 years worked in a variety of senior management roles in engineering and operations, both in the U.S. and internationally.

In 1999, Ching was named president of Pecten, an international subsidiary of Shell (US) E&P, and the onshore U.S. Continental E&P assets (excluding California). In January 2000, Ching moved to Miri, Malaysia, and was appointed general manager of technology and technical services in Shell Malaysia E&P, moving on to become general manager of the Sarawak Business Unit of Shell Malaysia E&P in 2001. In November 2002, he moved to Shell International Exploration & Production in Rijswijk, the Netherlands, to take over responsibility for the development and execution of Shell’s global E&P R&D program.

Ching remains active in energy and technology in a number of areas. He is working with the Bureau of Economic Geology (under the Jackson School of Geosciences, University of Texas) on nanotechnology. He is an independent director on three private technology start-up companies. Ching also was appointed an independent director of the Meridian Resource Corp., Houston, Tex.

Paul is a long-time member of SPE and the American Association of Petroleum Geologists. For SPE, he serves on the SPE R&D Advisory Committee. He also serves on the Advisory Committee of the Jackson School of Geosciences, University of Texas, and the Advisory Committee of the Bureau of Economic Geology in Austin, Texas.