Purvin & Gertz, Houston, Tex., has named William J. Sanderson president and CEO.
Former vice president and manager of the London office, Sanderson joined the firm in 1988 in Los Angeles where he was active in the firm's U.S. West Coast and Asia business. In 1996, he relocated to London to direct PGI's European and Middle East consulting activities. Prior to joining Purvin & Gertz, Sanderson was with the technology firm UOP and with Champlin Petroleum (now Ultramar Diamond Shamrock) where he held various technical and commercial management positions.
Robert A. Hermes, former president, is serving as chairman of the board and will remain with the firm on a reduced-time basis.
Purvin & Gertz is a global enterprise providing technical, commercial and strategic advice to the oil, gas, chemical and power generation industries.
NetworkOil, Inc. has announced the opening of its Canadian branch in Calgary, a key oil business city in North America.
NetworkOil's Canadian branch is actively gathering e-commerce requirements for the Canadian oil and gas industry by engaging Canadian oil and gas and supply companies and Canadian subsidiaries of U.S. and multinational enterprises.
NetworkOil has placed Bob Vargo, Rod Nishiyama and Sean Doucette, veterans of the oil and gas industry, in its Canadian office.
Bob Vargo has more than 10 years of experience. Before joining NetworkOil, Vargo was vice president, exploration & production services for Ziff Energy Group. Prior to his tenure at Ziff, Vargo served as practice manager for Landmark Graphics, a supplier of software, systems and service used worldwide for exploration, production and management of oil and gas reservoirs.
Nishiyama recently served as supervisor of procurement for PanCanadian Petroleum, a producer of crude oil, natural gas and natural gas liquids. Nishiyama's tenure at PanCanadian Petroleum lasted 23 years.
Before joining NetworkOil, Doucette was a sales associate for Argo Sales, a supplier of oilfield products, including tubulars, production and rental equipment. Doucette also worked in sales for a number of years with Hydril, Inc., a provider of specialty tubular equipment.
Headquartered in Houston, NetworkOil is a premier, global Internet marketplace for petroleum services and new and used equipment. The electronic exchange provides a secure, neutral forum for conducting a variety of transactions including requests for bid, auctions and reverse auctions. The NetworkOil management team and investor group is drawn from the oil and gas, e-commerce, technology and financial industries.
Syntroleum Corp., Tulsa, Okla., a developer and licenser of Gas-to-Liquids (GTL) technology for making fuels, has named Robert A. Day to its board of directors.
Day is the founder, chairman and CEO of The TCW Group, Inc., an institutional money management firm based in Los Angeles. He is also chairman and CEO of the W.M. Keck Foundation, a private foundation, a member of the board of directors of Freeport McMoRan and a member of The Business Council, The Brookings Institution, and The Center for Strategic & International Studies. Day is also a member and former chairman of the board of trustees at Claremont McKenna College.
Syntroleum Corp. licenses its proprietary process for converting natural gas into synthetic crude oil and transportation fuels. The process is designed for application in plant sizes ranging from 2,000 barrels per day to more than 100,000 barrels per day. The company recently announced that it plans to build its first commercial plant, a 10,000 bpd Gas-to-Liquids specialty chemicals plant, in Western Australia. Syntroleum is also working with DaimlerChrysler to develop super-clean synthetic transportation fuels.
Western Geophysical, a division of Baker Hughes Incorporated, has named Lee Bell vice president of technology. He will be responsible for Western's research and development activities on a worldwide basis and shaping Western's contributions to the technology roadmap being implemented throughout Baker Hughes.
Bell previously served as the president of the Geosignal division of Western Geophysical. He joined Mobil Oil R&D in Dallas in 1976. After some years in research and interpretation for Mobil, Bell joined Digicon to participate in and eventually direct its contract research group for Aramco in the UK. In 1984, he co-founded Entropic Geophysical and became its president. In 1991, Entropic Geophysical and Geosignal merged, with Bell taking the post of vice president of research. Geosignal was acquired by Western Atlas in October 1997 and Bell became Geosignal's president a few months later.
Western Geophysical is an oilfield information services company, providing seismic and reservoir solutions from initial prospect assessment through fully integrated reservoir evaluation. Baker Hughes is a supplier of reservoir-centered products, services, and systems to the worldwide oil and gas industry.
Aker Maritime has named Dr. Paul Stanton vice president of the newly formed Riser Technology & Well Systems Div. of Aker Engineering in Houston. Dr. Stanton has over thirty years of experience in risers and well systems.
This new division is a combination of long-time Aker and the now integrated Deep Oil Technology (DOT) personnel offering the Houston market expertise for design and analysis of deepwater riser concepts including top-tensioned, steel catenary and hybrid systems.
