Services/Suppliers

Houston, has elected Steven Richards of Key Energy Services Inc. to the chairmanship of IADC’s newly created Advanced Rig Technology Committee (ART). Also elected to the committee were Vice-Chairmen Jeff Swain, Chevron Corp., and David Reid, National Oilwell Varco Inc. The IADC ART Committee comprises five subcommittees, of which four have chosen vice-chairmen to chart the working group’s progress. They are Vice-Chairman-Software Interface Zain Master, Caterpillar Inc.; Vice-Chairman-Guidelines Logan Puckett, Pride International Inc.; Vice-Chairman-Reliability Robert Urbanowski, Grey Wolf Drilling Co. LP; and Vice-Chairman-Future Technology Frank Springett, National Oilwell Varco.

Newpark Resources Inc.,

The Woodlands, Tex., has named William D. Moss president of Newpark’s Mats and Integrated Services business. To be based in The Woodlands, he is also an executive officer of Newpark Resources Inc. Before joining Newpark, Moss held management positions at BJ Services Co., most recently—since 1997—as division president of BJ Chemical Services, a provider of production and industrial chemicals, remedial pumping, and capillary services to US and international customers. He previously served as director, logistics, of BJ Services with responsibility for the worldwide logistics organization. From 1988 to 1995, Moss was vice-president, international operations, of Western Petroleum Services International Co. Prior to that, he spent 10 years in numerous leadership positions at Western Co. of North America. He holds an MBA from Texas Christian University and a BBA from Texas Tech University.

Newpark Resources is a worldwide provider of drilling fluids, temporary worksites, and access roads for oil field and other commercial markets, as well as environmental waste treatment solutions.

Synthesis Energy Systems Inc. (SES),

Houston, and Aker Solutions US Inc., a Houston-based unit of Aker Solutions ASA, Oslo, have entered into an engineering agreement. Aker’s expertise in the gasification and chemicals industries will assist SES in its strategy to build, own, and operate coal-to-chemicals plants worldwide.

SES is an energy and technology company that builds, owns, and operates coal gasification plants that utilize its proprietary U-GAS® fluidized bed gasification technology to convert low-rank coal and coal wastes into higher-value energy products, such as transportation fuels and ammonia. The U-GAS® technology, which SES licenses from the Gas Technology Institute, gasifies coal without many of the harmful emissions normally associated with coal combustion plants.

Aker Solutions ASA is a leading global provider of engineering and construction services, technology products, and integrated solutions in the oil and gas, refining and chemicals, mining and metals, and power generation industries.

ABB Group,

Zurich, has appointed Joseph Hogan CEO, effective Sept. 1, 2008. He currently is CEO of GE Healthcare, the global leader in medical diagnostic technology and biosciences, and is a member of the GE Senior Executive Council. Michel Demaré, ABB’s chief financial officer, who has held the CEO position on an ad interim basis since Feb. 13, will continue to serve as ABB’s CFO. Hogan’s career at GE spans 23 years and a wide range of positions. He led GE Medical Systems and then GE Healthcare from November 2000. Prior to this, he served as president and CEO of GE Fanuc Automation North America Inc., a global supplier of industrial controls systems and a joint venture between GE and FANUC of Japan. Previously, he held a number of key positions in sales, marketing, and product development at GE Plastics. Hogan holds a BBA from Geneva College and an MBA from Robert Morris University.

ABB is a leader in power and automation technologies that enable utility and industry customers to improve performance while lowering environmental impact.

MOGAS Industries Inc.,

Houston, has named Jeff Diestler account manager for control valves. He will be responsible for promoting MOGAS’s FlexStream® technology, working with Kevin Jackson, global manager for oil and gas, transport and storage, and LNG. Diestler spent the past 2 years working for a water treatment equipment manufacturer, Tonka Equipment Co. in Plymouth, Minn., where he assisted engineers and owners in solving hydraulic and chemistry-related challenges. He also worked selling valves and instrumentation after his graduation from Minnesota State-Mankato, with a BS in mechanical engineering.

MOGAS designs, engineers, manufactures, and services severe-service metal-seated ball valves for use in the power generation, oil and gas production, metals and minerals, refining, petrochemical/chemical, and specialty industries.

Carbonetworks,

Vancouver, BC, has closed on its $5 million Series A round of financing. The funding was provided by NGEN II LP, part of the NGEN Partners group of leading “clean-technology” venture funds. The capital raised strengthens Carbonetworks’ ability to support the growing global demand for its software and services. At present, the company is helping more than 180 organizations in 23 countries create and manage their greenhouse gas emissions strategies. Customers come from a range of industries, including energy, financial, materials, manufacturing, offset project providers, and governments. In the coming months, the company expects to significantly expand its operations.

Earth Search Sciences Inc.,

Lakeside, Mont., has acquired General Synfuels International Inc. (GSI) and its patented technology to recover hydrocarbons through an environmentally benign gasification process. GSI has agreed to the buyout involving an undisclosed amount of cash and shares. The acquisition enables key Earth Search subsidiary Petro Probe Inc. to establish a joint venture and commercial licensing program to develop domestic oil shale and other heavy oil resources. Petro Probe plans a full-scale field test of this technology as early as fall 2008 and subsequent commercial development as early as 2009.

Earth Search’s hyperspectral technology provides the ability to accurately read the chemical properties of surface substances from great altitudes and produce easily interpreted maps allowing the user to identify specific minerals and substances on the surface of the earth by their diagnostic reflectance patterns.

KPMG LLP,

New York, has hired John P. Gimigliano as a principal in its Washington National Tax practice. He is based in the firm’s Washington, DC, office. At KPMG, Gimigliano will serve as principal in charge of the firm’s newly formed Americas Climate Solutions and Energy Sustainability Practice. In this role, Gimigliano will work with clients to help identify potential opportunities to develop their corporate sustainability strategy in a tax-efficient manner, utilizing the alternative and clean energy tax incentives created by Congress in recent years. He will also monitor energy-related legislation and oversee the firm’s various energy credits services, including credits for alternative energy sources, and services related to industry transactions. He is a former senior tax counsel for the House Committee on Ways and Means and staff director for the Subcommittee on Select Revenue Measures. Prior to his positions in the public sector, Gimigliano spent 11 years with another Big Four accounting firm, serving as the national director of its electric and gas energy tax group. In helping to build that practice, he worked closely with leading regulated and nonregulated utilities throughout North America. An adjunct law professor at Georgetown University, he teaches a course on taxation of energy markets that is currently the only one of its kind. Gimigliano holds an LLM in taxation from Georgetown’s Law Center, a JD from the University of Cincinnati’s College of Law, and a BA from Miami University of Ohio.

KPMG LLP, the audit, tax, and advisory firm, is the US member firm of KPMG International.

SulphCo Inc.,

Houston, has appointed Richard K. Sell director of business development-Americas. Sell will lead the company’s business development initiatives in the Western Hemisphere. He brings more than 30 years’ experience in crude oil markets. He served as senior managing director, crude oil supply and trading, and senior managing director, petroleum origination (commercial activities), at El Paso Merchant Energy-Petroleum Co., a subsidiary of El Paso Corp. Prior to that, Sell was a senior vice-president at Coastal States Trading Inc. and Coastal Petroleum NV, where he managed the economic supply of crude oil for the entire Coastal Corp. refining system. More recently, he was a partner in Riverway Petroleum Partners LLC, an oil industry consulting group. Sell has a BA in economics from Texas Christian University.

Sulphco has developed a patented process employing ultrasound technology to desulfurize and hydrogenate crude oil and other oil-related products. The company’s technology is designed to upgrade sour heavy crude oils into sweeter, lighter crude oils, producing more gallons of usable oil per barrel.

Sensornet,

Elstree, UK, has appointed John Perrin vice-president for North and South America and Doug Walker vice-president for the Asia-Pacific region. In addition, Richard Kluth has been promoted to chief operating officer. Perrin has more than 10 of years industry experience, specializing in wireline logging in both open- and cased-hole environments. He joins Sensornet from an international oil services company, where he worked as a petrophysicist in Canada. With more than 20 years of industry experience, Walker has held senior management positions with a global energy services business in Abu Dhabi, Norway, the Gulf of Mexico, and Vietnam. While he originally specialized as a wireline field engineer, his most recent position was district manager for India and Bangladesh. Since joining Sensornet in 2003, Kluth has been responsible for a number of the company’s key developments, including the installation of the world’s first fiber-optic in-well distributed temperature sensing (DTS) system. He has substantial experience in drilling and reservoir monitoring and has worked in North America, the Middle East, and Europe. He previously was Sensornet’s operations director.

Launched in 1998, Sensornet provides advanced asset monitoring solutions, using real-time distributed temperature and strain measuring systems to the global oil and gas industry and offers its own temporary and permanent DTS installation capability. The company has offices in Europe, North and South America, the Middle East, and Asia.