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Saif Al Ghafli
CEO, Abu Dhabi Gas Development Company (Al Hosn Gas)
Saif Al Ghafli, head of Al Hosn Gas, was recently in the headlines after announcing that the Shah gas project will reach full production in the second quarter of 2015. The $10bn sour gas project will contribute half a billion scf/d of gas, which will help meet the UAE’s rising energy demand.
Al Hosn, a joint venture between ADNOC and Occidental Petroleum with 40/60% share, was the company to produce the first of its scale “very sour” gas. The project has set a precedent in the region inspiring similar mega-projects, particularly in the UAE and Saudi Arabia.
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Nabil Buresli
Chairman, Kuwait Oil Company
Similarly to its fellow GCC states, Kuwait has set some ambitious crude production targets as part of its 2020 vision. The country is looking to raise production by 1mn barrels of oil per day and has invested billions of dollars in the past six months to boost output from its depleting fields.
It is also looking to develop its offshore sector and tap into the more difficult reserves with the help of technology and enhanced recovery techniques. After a successful project with Halliburton, KOC now pumps 1,000 bpd from wells that had not produced anything for more than 15 years.
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Hamad Rashid Al Mohannadi
Chief Executive Officer, RasGas
Hamad Rashid Al Mohannadi is the chief executive officer of RasGas. With annual production of 37mn tonnes, RasGas is Qatar’s second biggest liquefied natural gas producer. Al Mohannadi previously served as managing director of RasGas and has been a board member of Ras Laffan Liquefied Natural Gas Company since it was established in 1993.
He has spent over 33 years in the refining, petrochemical and oil and gas sectors withing Qatar Petroleum’s (QP) group of companies. Al Mohannadi chairs the board of directors of several QP joint ventures and is also a board member of QP, Industries Qatar and QP International.
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Wael Sawan
Executive Vice President & Chairman, Qatar Shell
Wael Sawan has served as an executive vice president and chairman of Qatar Shell GTL since April 2012. After graduating from Harvard Business School, Sawan started his career as project engineer in Oman in 1997 and since 2008 has been heavily involved in Shell’s main activities in Qatar.
In 2012 Sawan was appointed managing director for the Pearl GTL Project, a joint venture between Qatar Petroleum and Royal Dutch Shell. Pearl GTL is the world’s largest GTL plant and has placed Qatar at the forefront of gas-to-liquid production. It uses 1.6 Bcf/d of gas feedstock to produce 140,000 bbl/d of GTL products as well as 120,000 bbl/d of natural gas liquids and liquefied petroleum gas.
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H.E. Suhail Mohamed Faraj Al Mazrouei
Minister of Energy, United Arab Emirates
Suhail Al Mazrouei has been making the headlines at home and abroad for vehemently defending OPEC’s decision to maintain crude oil production, reassuring the global oil and gas community that the oil prices would eventually climb back up.
Petroleum engineer by education, the 42-year-old Emirati has served as the energy minister for the U.A.E. since March 2013. Previously, he spent 10 years working for ADNOC before he moved to Mubadala Petroleum in 2007.
The charismatic politician is currently the chairman of the Board of Directors of Mubadala Petroleum and member of the Higher Advisory Committee of the Abu Dhabi Supreme Petroleum Council. Mazrouei is also a board member of Dolphin Energy and sits on the Audit Committee of ADNOC.
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Musabbeh Al Kaabi
Senior Executive Officer, Mubadala Petroleum
Musabbeh Al Kaabi was appointed chief executive of Mubadala Petroleum in 2013 and is now in charge of Mubadala’s upstream operations worldwide. Before being appointed to the role, Musabbeh spent 16 years working for Abu Dhabi National Oil Company.
He also served as a member to the Board Advisory Committee for the National Drilling Company and is currently an executive committee member of various newly established joint ventures in Abu Dhabi.
As the majority owner of the $5.8bn Dolphin Gas Project, which supplies gas to the UAE and Oman from the giant offshore North Field in Qatar, Mubadala plays a central role in the GCC energy scene. In the Middle East, the Abu Dhabi-based company has operating assets in Oman, Bahrain and Libya and has recently announced interest in an exploration block offshore Morocco.
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Ashti Hawrami
Minister for Natural Resources, Kurdistan Regional Government
Ashti Hawrami was appointed Minister for Natural Resources in May 2006, and has played an instrumental role in Kurdistan’s energy sector ever since. Before joining the KRG cabinet, Hawrami held several senior positions in the private sector.
He was the chairman and chief executive officer of leading Australian sevice company ECL Group. Hawrami holds a PhD in oil engineering. In the ‘70s, he worked as an engineer in the Iraqi National Oil Company in Basra and in the British National Oil Company in the North Sea.
Kurdistan has an estimated 45bn barrels of oil reserves and many believe it could turn into a regional powerhouse if the security conditions improve.
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Abdul Karim Luaibi
Oil Minister, Iraq
Appointed to the job in 2010, Luaibi has worked with Iraq’s ministry of oil since 1998 where he moved from chief engineer of the technical department to director of Chemical Materials to assistant director general, inspector general and then deputy minister position before being appointed to his current role.
While a number of oil and gas firms have been eyeing exploration and production in the country, militants fighting for control over its oil-rich fields has plagued Iraq’s oil industry for years, discouraging foreign investment.
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Mohammed Bin Hamad Al Rumhy
Minister of Oil and Gas, Oman
Through the leadership of Mohammed Bin Hamad Al Rumhy, Oman has managed to revive production from its aging fields with the increased use of technology and enhanced oil recovery techniques.
It became most evident that the Sultanate’s efforts to improve oil recovery have come to fruition when PDO announced record high production in 2014 and outlined plans to increase output by 600,000 barrels per day (bpd) by 2019. Al Rumhy serves as the chairman of Oman Refineries and Petrochemicals Company and vice chairman of Oman Oil Company.
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Yasuhisa Kanehara
Senior Vice President of Eurasia & Middle East Project Division, Inpex
Yasuhisa Kanehara heads up Japan’s oil and gas exploration firm Inpex in the Middle East. Last year it through its wholly-owned subsidiary Japan Oil Development Company Limited, it commenced oil production from Umm Lulu offshore oilfield in Abu Dhabi (which it holds a 12% stake in).
Inpex is jointly developing the project with ADNOC, BP and Total. Inpex said that it will utilise existing facilities of Umm Al Dalkh oilfield for production, located adjacent to the Umm Lulu oilfield, for production. In the first development phase, oil produced from the field will be transported via an existing subsea pipeline to Zirku Island, and eventually supplied to customers in Japan and other Asian countries.
