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Abdullah N. Al-Helal
President and Chief Executive Officer
Aramco Gulf Operations Company (AGOC)
Aramco Gulf Operations Company, the fully owned subsidiary of Saudi Aramco, which partners with Kuwait Gulf Oil Company, meets local and global energy demands with the production of its hydrocarbon reserves.
AGOC is also working with the Khafji Joint Operations organisation in which it owns a 50% share alongside its partner. The two share the Al Khafji, Lulu, Hout and Dorra fields, which are located in the Neutral Zone between Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.
Kuwait continues to meet the demand for liquefied natural gas while Saudi Arabia has increased gas exploration after it completed a massive crude expansion programme in 2009.
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David Cook
Executive Officer, Head of Oil & Gas
TAQA
David Cook joined TAQA in October 2010 following over 20 years’ experience in upstream and midstream businesses at Amoco, BP, and TNK-BP. Prior to joining TAQA, Cook was VP for BP Russia, responsible for BP’s non-TNK-BP E&P.
He has taken the reins at TAQA’s oil & gas division at an interesting time, as the company plows further investment into the North Sea, while making a $46 million play in Kurdistan through an investment in WesternZagros.
Speaking to Oil & Gas Middle East late last year, Cook said “in the last 18 months to two years we have been working really hard to get things on track for delivering the kind of business that we want this to be.”
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Todd F Kozel
CEO
Gulf Keystone
Todd Kozel started taking an interest in Iraqi Kurdistan shortly after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 2003. The company has personality, with a clique of committed private shareholders and an outgoing CEO unafraid of doing business in a daunting environment.
Kozel and his investors have been rewarded with the Shaikan field, for which a production sharing agreement was signed in 2007. Since appraisal began, Shaikan has upgraded reserves regularly, and is now a world-class field, with P90 reserves of 8 billion barrels, in which the firm holds a 75% interest.
The discovery updates sent the firm’s shares rocketing from 4pps to 104pps within a year, and the recent entry of ExxonMobil to Kurdistan increased Gulf Keystone’s shares by a further 25%. The talk is now of consolidation, as new concessions run out and large capital is needed for field development in the region’s awkward geology.
While other independents may merge or be gobbled up by supermajors, the Shaikan field means that Kozel – who was recently forced to deny rumours that the firm is up for sale – could find himself at the head of either the largest independent in Iraq or sitting pretty with an injection of cash and expertise from a supermajor partner.
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Marwan Chedid
Chief Executive of Engineering, Construction, Operations and Maintenance
Petrofac
Over his 20 years with Petrofac, Chedid has seen it all. He joined Petrofac as a project manager for the company’s Engineering & Construction division and as regional director before he became chief operating officer of Petrofac International Engineering & Construction in 2007.
Two years later he moved up to serve as managing director of Engineering & Construction Ventures.
He previously worked for a major regional civil and mechanical construction business based and brings over 25 years’ experience in the oil & gas sector to Petrofac. Mr. Chedid holds a degree in Mechanical Engineering from the American University of Beirut.
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Maurizio La Noce
Executive Director
Mubadala Energy, Oil & Gas
Maurizio is the Executive Director of Mubadala Energy and the CEO of Mubadala Oil & Gas. His primary responsibilities are to oversee Mubadala’s operational and business development activities in the oil and gas, petroleum services and renewable energy sectors.
He is a board member of Masdar, Global Foundries, EMAL, Pearl Energy, Spyker Cars, MPSC and SMN Barka Power Company SAOC. He has also held positions with Atlantic Richfield.
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Abdul Jaleel Al-Khalifa
CEO
Dragon Oil
Eleven years ago, Dragon Oil inherited an under-developed oil concession in the Caspian and never looked back. In 2000, the company acquired a 100% working interest in the Cheleken Contract Area (CCA) off the coast of Turkmenistan.
Dragon Oil which is headquartered with and majority-owned by the government of Dubai via state energy firm ENOC, recorded oil strike after strike to increase production at the CCA tenfold from 7,000 barrels per day (bpd) in 2000 to 60,000-plus bpd in 2011.
Al-Khalifa is now eyeing international expansion with the $1.3 billion cash pile it has accumulated, and has qualified for the fourth bidding round in Iraq.
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Hong-Pyo Kong
Executive Vice President
Samsung Engineering
Samsung Engineering’s Hong-Pyo Kong has been Head of Marketing for Middle East & North Africa for Samsung Engineering since 2006. In this capacity, Kong has overall responsibility for all oil, gas and petrochemical projects in the region.
During that time, Samsung Engineering has assiduously nurtured relationships with decision-makers in the Gulf’s upstream industry, and been rewarded with a string of massive EPC contracts in the region, including multi-billion packages at Abu Dhabi’s pioneering Shah sour gas project.
The Korean EPC giant, which has its regional base in Jubail Industrial City, Saudi Arabia, posted year-end revenue in 2010 of $4.87 billion.
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Jean Luc guiziou
United Arab Emirates – Country President
Total
Total and Abu Dhabi have grown hand in hand since the company first landed in the emirate in 1939.
Total holds a 75% stake in the Abu Al Bu Khoosh field (operator), a 9.5% stake in ADCO, which operates the five major onshore fields in Abu Dhabi, and a 13.3% stake in ADMA, which operates two offshore fields.
TOTAL also has a 15% stake in Abu Dhabi Gas Industries, in 2011, its production was 240,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day (boe/d), up from 220,000 boe/d. Over its 70-plus years in Abu Dhabi, Total has developed a suite of very strong partnerships with ADNOC.
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Sara Akhbar
CEO
Kuwait Energy
Ssara Akbar brings over 28 years of experience in the oil and gas industry. Her experience includes having worked in challenging positions in the Kuwait Oil Company and also in the Kuwait Foreign Petroleum Exploration Company.
She holds a B.Sc in chemical engineering from the Kuwait University. Akbar has served as a board member and as the chief executive officer of Kuwait Energy since October 2005.
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Khalid Mugharbel
Middle East – President
Schlumberger
Khalid Mugharbel is the President of Schlumberger Middle East Area, based in Dubai, UAE. He began his career in 1993 at Schlumberger as a Wireline services field engineer and has held several positions in line management and human resources. Through his career with Schlumberger, he worked in multiple regions including Europe, Asia in addition to multiple countries in the Middle East Area. His professional career was enriched by E&P exposure before rejoining Schlumberger in his current role as Middle East President.
Khalid graduated in 1992 with a Bachelors Degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley, USA.
