Technology Oversight Board - Technology
Introduction

Central to RSI’s technology plan is the integration of seismic, EM and well log data, for improved reservoir characterisation.  To oversee progress in all areas of technology development RSI has formed a Technology Oversight Board to provide independent review, oversight and guidance on the future direction of RSI’s technology.

Responsibilities 

The Technology Oversight Board will meet not less than twice a year, at locations and times agreed between Board members.   The responsibilities of the Board will include:

  • Reviewing the quality and performance of RSI’s key technologies.
  • Assessing technology needs and priorities at RSI and guiding the formulation of plans to address them.
  • Assessing wider industry technology needs and providing high level guidance on meeting these needs.
  • Keep abreast of new technology developments in the industry and provide review and feedback on these.  It is anticipated that the board will be a forum for the discussion of new ideas and next generation technology development that will give the company a competitive advantage.
  • Reviewing technology plans and progress, and providing feedback on technical feasibility and prioritisation.
Members

Membership of the board comprises the CEO, CTO and a number of external world renowned experts in the field of seismic analysis and inversion, EM and rock physics:

Dr. Sven Treitel (Chair)

Sven is a graduate of MIT, where he received his PhD in geophysics in 1958. From 1958 to 1960 he worked for Chevron in Cuba and then joined Amoco’s Research Center in Tulsa, OK.  While at Amoco, he carried out investigations in seismic signal processing and in the numerical simulation of seismic wave propagation.  He retired from Amoco in 1993. 

Sven has published extensively. With Enders Robinson, he wrote the book “Geophysical Signal Analysis”, published by Prentice Hall in 1980, and reissued by the Society of Exploration Geophysicists (SEG) in 2000. A more recent book, also co-authored with Enders Robinson, "Digital Imaging and Deconvolution" was issued by the SEG Press in 2008. Sven has authored and co-authored over seventy technical papers. In 1991 and again in 1993 he was a Visiting Professor in the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences at MIT.

In 1994 Treitel was awarded the German government’s Alexander von Humboldt Prize. He is an Honorary Member of the SEG and of the EAGE, a Fellow of the IEEE and of the AGU, and a member of AAAS and Sigma Xi. He is the recipient of the SEG Fessenden Medal (1969), of four SEG Best Paper Awards (1964, 1969, 1988, and 1995), of the EAGE's Conrad Schlumberger Award (1969), of the SEG’s Maurice Ewing Medal (1989), and of the EAGE’s Erasmus Medal (2007). He has served as Distinguished Lecturer for the SEG (1982) and for the AAPG (1994). In 1997 he formed TriDekon, Inc., a geophysical consulting firm.

Prof. Steven Constable

Steven Constable studied geology at the University of Western Australia, graduating with first class Honors in 1979 and the Rex T. Prider Medal. In 1983 he received a Ph.D. in geophysics from the Australian National University and later that year moved to the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California, where he is currently a Professor of Geophysics. Constable is interested in all aspects of electrical conductivity, and has made contributions to inverse theory, electrical properties of rocks, mantle conductivity, magnetic satellite induction studies, global lightning, and instrumentation.

However, his main focus is marine electromagnetic methods; recent efforts have involved the commercialization of marine EM for hydrocarbon exploration, in which he played an important role in the early adoption of marine EM methods by industry. This work was recognized by the G.W. Hohmann Award in 2003 for “outstanding achievement in electrical/electromagnetic methods that has led to a significant improvement or discovery in gas or oil exploration” and the 2007 SEG Distinguished Achievement Award to Scripps. During his career Constable has spent 694 days at sea on research cruises, published 78 papers and book chapters, and had 4 patents issued in his name. He is a member of AGU, EAGE, RAS, and SEG. He has served as an associate editor for the journal Geophysics and as a section secretary and corresponding editor for the American Geophysical Union.
He is married to the smart geophysicist in the family, has two children, and keeps fish.

Prof Gary Mavko

Gary received his Ph.D. in geophysics from Stanford in 1977.  He then joined the Tectonophysics branch of the USGS in Menlo Park where he worked in areas of rock physics and earthquake fault mechanics. In 1984 Gary joined Entropic Geophysical, in its first months as a start-up reflection seismic processing company. Gary developed many of Entropic's algorithms and software for reflection and refraction analysis, and eventually became their VP of research and development. He returned to Stanford in February, 1989, and is now Professor (Research) of Geophysics. He has been working on modeling and analysis of the acoustic properties of rocks and techniques of seismic interpretation for rock and fluid properties.

Gary co-directs the Stanford Rock Physics and Borehole Geophysics Project (SRB), a group of approximately 25 researchers (faculty, research associates, post-docs, and graduate students), working on problems related to wave propagation in earth materials - the field of Rock Physics. The goal is to better understand how rocks, pore fluids, and physical conditions of temperature and stress impact wave propagation, particularly in disordered, heterogeneous media.

Richard Cooper (CEO)

Richard is a graduate from the University of Liverpool in UK with an honours degree in geophysics. He joined Digicon (which became Veritas and now CGGVeritas) in 1979 and held a variety of positions in data-processing, research, marketing and management in UK, Australia, Singapore and US. He joined CogniSeis Development in 1993 and spent two years as managing director of the EAME division, before returning to Houston as CogniSeis President and COO. Following the sale of CogniSeis to Paradigm, Richard founded Rock Solid Images in 1998 and served as CEO and director until the sale of Rock Solid Images to OHM in 2007. Richard is currently CEO of RSI, and is based in Houston, Texas. Richard is also a non-executive Director of the privately held company Terraspark Geosciences, L.L.C.

Dr. Lucy MacGregor (CTO)

Lucy is currently the Chief Technology Officer of RSI, and leads the company’s technical group which specialises in the analysis and interpretation of seismic, well log and marine EM data and in the integration of these data types for improved reservoir characterisation.   Lucy has ten years experience in developing and delivering new technology to the oil and gas industry, and has particular expertise in intellectual property protection and strategy.

Lucy has a PhD from the University of Cambridge for research in the field of CSEM and over 16 years’ experience in marine EM surveying and its application to the detection and characterisation of fluids in the earth.  Following her PhD she was a Green Scholar at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography working on marine electromagnetic methods, before returning to Cambridge as a Leverhulme Trust/Downing College research fellow.   In 2000 she moved to the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton as an NERC research fellow to continue her work on marine CSEM methods, before co-founding OHM in June 2002 and joining the company as its CTO.   She is a recognised world expert in CSEM methods and was appointed an SEG honourary lecturer in 2011.