Fulbright & Jaworski LLP
has added three lawyers to its global energy practice. Partners Lisa Tonery and Erik Swenson have joined Fulbright from King & Spalding LLP, while Mark Tibberts arrives from Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP. Tonery and Tibberts will be based in Fulbright’s New York office; Swenson will practice from Washington, DC. All three routinely serve as lead counsel on energy infrastructure development matters. Tonery is a regulatory lawyer who represents independent developers of Federal Energy Regulatory Commission-jurisdictional LNG import terminal projects, interstate natural gas pipelines, and natural gas storage projects. She has also represented independent power producers and power marketers. Tonery has represented clients in the natural gas, oil, and electric power industries in proceedings before FERC, state commissions, and federal courts. Swenson has more than 20 years experience practicing energy law. He represents energy project participants, including developers, equity investors, and lenders. He also represents energy traders with respect to regulatory matters and industrial and commercial companies with regard to energy matters. His work includes guiding clients developing LNG import terminals and gas storage projects, assisting major energy companies with acquisitions and dispositions of substantial generating facility portfolios, and representing a power marketer in FERC proceedings involving an allegation of gaming. Tibberts has spent more than 18 years working with energy industry clients, focusing on the finance, development, and sale and acquisition of energy infrastructure projects, such as power plants and gas pipeline and storage facilities.
Fulbright & Jaworski is a leading full-service international law firm, with nearly 1,000 lawyers in 16 locations worldwide.
Fortis Energy Marketing & Trading
(FEMT), Houston, appointed Bruce Sukaly managing director, asset management, and Lloyd P. Jackson managing director, power trading. Previously, Sukaly worked at Constellation Energy Commodities Group, where he served as vice-president, energy investments, and was responsible for the energy merchant assets of natural gas, power, coal, and natural gas liquids. Prior to that, he worked at Foothills Energy Ventures and was chief commercial officer for Cinergy Marketing & Trading. Jackson formerly was head of Midwest power trading at FEMT and acting head of power trading. Prior to joining Fortis, he was managing director, Midwest power trading, for Cinergy; senior power trader and asset manager with Dynegy; and manager, real-time trading, Midcontinent and Southeast regions, at Williams Cos.
FEMT is a division of Fortis Merchant Banking, part of the Fortis global financial services group based in Brussels.
Spectraseis,
Zurich, has named Vassil Bliznakov CFO. Bliznakov brings more than 10 years of financial experience in the oil and gas industry to his new role and will be tasked with further developing Spectraseis’ financial and operational controls and managing expansion. Bliznakov comes to Spectraseis from Schlumberger, where he was controller for the company’s business in continental Europe. Prior to that, Bliznakov worked as Schlumberger’s South Russia regional controller based in Nefteyugansk and corporate internal auditor based in Paris, where he conducted four acquisition audits. Bliznakov is a graduate of the Hautes Etudes Commerciales in Paris.
Established in 2003 in partnership with leading European universities, Spectraseis is the principal technology and service provider in the fast-emerging field of low-frequency, passive-seismic geophysical surveys.
Seismic Micro-Technology
(SMT), Houston, has appointed Bill Stephenson vice-president of sales, Americas. He is responsible for all direct and channel sales across North and South America. He will work closely with his counterparts in Europe and Asia to align goals as SMT continues its rapid expansion globally. Previously, Stephenson was senior director of sales at Symantec. He has also worked in finance and specialty products distribution in various roles of sales and management. Stephenson earned a bachelor’s degree in finance from the University of Houston and is a 4-year veteran of the US Army, where he served in South Korea, Germany, and in Southwest Asia during Desert Storm.
SMT is a market leader in PC-based geoscientific interpretation software aimed at oil and gas geoscientists.
The Information Store
(iStore) Houston, named Ezat Zarasvand general manager of the Middle East office the company is establishing in Abu Dhabi. He will oversee business development and services in the Middle East and Africa market. Zarasvand brings more than 30 years of global technology and management experience in the petroleum industry to iStore. Previously, Zarasvand managed sales and delivery of enterprise resource planning systems for Oracle Corp.. During his time at Oracle he worked closely with exploration and production (E&P) companies in the US, Europe, the former Soviet Union, Asia-Pacific, and the Middle East to develop E&P applications and align systems with business processes. He has also held various key positions with companies such as BP Exploration, Foxboro/Invensys, Cap Gemini/Sogeti Corp., and Cerner Arabia.
The iStore has been assisting oil companies with their information and data access challenges for more than 14 years.