Speakers

Subsea Awareness Course

 
Trey Lynch SUT-US Speaker

Trey Lynch, SPSE Manifold and Connection Systems Manager, BP

Trey Lynch is a Subsea Hardware Engineer with 19 years experience in the Subsea Oilfield Industry.  He graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a bachelors degree in Mechanical Engineering before working as a design engineer with a subsea production system equipment supplier, specializing in subsea trees and valves.  He moved to BP in 2006 and has since worked in various hardware delivery, engineering and commissioning roles for subsea projects in the Gulf of Mexico.  Trey is currently the Manifold and Connections System Manager in BP’s Global Subsea Systems Organization. 


Peter Moles, Director of Emerging Technology, Oceaneering International Inc.

Peter Moles has been with Oceaneering for over 25 years filling multiple management and technical roles with most product and service businesses. He is currently Director of Emerging Technology with responsibilities for integrating new technology into product development. He was Director of Engineering for Oceaneering Umbilical Solutions with worldwide responsibility for project engineering and product development and prior, Worldwide Chief Engineer with OIE as manager of the Special Projects Group as well other engineering and operational positions. He is a graduate from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst with a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering and is Professional Engineer registered in Texas and is a Project Management Professional. 
 

Subsea Awareness Course presenter Tim Lowry
Tim Lowry, Chief Engineer, Subsea Processing Technologies and R&D, TechnipFMC

Tim Lowry has held a variety of technical roles during his 15+ years of experience working in upstream / process engineering. His is currently Chief Engineer, Subsea Processing, for the Technologies and R&D group at TechnipFMC in Houston, TX. Prior to his current role, Tim was Principal Subsea Process Engineer at Genesis Oil and Gas Consultants (a TechnipFMC subsidiary), providing support for subsea projects with a primary focus on the development and deployment of emerging technology.
 

SUT Subsea Awareness Course Speaker
Ashutosh Kak, Genesis Oil and Gas

Ashutosh has work experience with development planning, process engineering, and flow assurance groups. Ashutosh has been managing a large team of development planning, and production assurance professionals whilst consulting on projects as advisor. 

Ashutosh has conducted and lead various oil and gas engineering studies in development planning, operating scenario evaluation, specifying equipment design criteria, creating and reviewing technical documents. Ashutosh’s project experience includes managing studies from concept screening phase to helping asset teams in bench-marking, and troubleshooting. His project experiences include projects from US Gulf of Mexico, West Africa, Latin America, and India. 
 

Jake Keel Subsea Awareness Course
Jake Keel, Subsea Technical Services Engineer, BP

As a Subsea Technical Services Engineer, Jake supports a range of key subsea development projects by maintaining technical customer relationships across the Subsea sector in the region. Jake has a key role in supporting the Americas Subsea Sales team, supporting the Global Subsea Technical Services offer, and providing regional subsea technical support.

Michael Zaldivar Subsea Awareness Course

Michael Zaldivar, President and founder, Evoleap

Dr. Zaldivar has worked in flow assurance and real-time flow assurance systems for 16 years. In 2013, he represented BP as the multiphase flow and flow assurance expert in federal court during the Quantification phase of the Macondo trial. In 2012, he co-founded evoleap, a flow assurance company that offers consulting services and software to the upstream oil and gas market.

Christopher Curran, Speaker for SUT-US Subsea Awareness Course
Christopher Curran, Senior Consultant, CJC Enterprises

Christopher Curran is an independent consultant, having recently retired from BP where he was an Advisor within the Upstream Facilities Technology group.  He has worked in the areas of subsea condition monitoring and integrity management and has been active in developing subsea wireless communication technology.  His work covers many aspects of subsea systems and controls and he is a focal point within the industry for the development of High Integrity Pressure Protection Systems for application in the Gulf of Mexico and elsewhere.  He is Chairman of API 17F Subsea Controls, API 17O HIPPS and API 17V for Subsea Safety.   He has over 30 years’ experience within the industry.  Christopher has a degree in Physics from Bristol University and is founding Chairman of the Society for Underwater Technology’s Houston Branch.  He is a Chartered Engineer, a Fellow of the Society for Underwater Technology and of the Institution of Engineering and Technology.



Wayne Chenoweth, Mechanical Engineer, TechnipFMC

Wayne attended the University of Houston from January 2006 to 2010 and received a Bachelor’s of Science in Mechanical Engineering and also a Master’s degree in Subsea Engineering in 2016.  Wayne began working with FMC Technologies in January 2008, in the University of Houston Design Center (UHDC).  In June 2010 Wayne was hired (full-time) into the FMC Chokes group.  In the Chokes group Wayne managed choke projects from initial design to field installation, performed on site engineering support for choke issues and designed chokes and interfaces for subsea applications.  In early 2012 Wayne transitioned into the chokes technical sales position.  This included working directly with FMC customers and project teams to develop and establish choke specifications during the quotation customer agreement phase.  In early 2013, Wayne transitioned to the Well Completions Systems (WCS) group from the Choke Product Group, at which time Wayne was assigned the Product Responsible Engineer (PRE) role for WCS Tubing Hangers.  In mid-2014, Wayne transitioned into the WCS Quotes Group.  Wayne is still currently in the WCS quotes group and is responsible for coordinating and working with the central tender team and system engineer to release all preliminary specifications, preliminary structured BOM's and preliminary layouts for new WCS projects.  In addition to the preliminary releases, Wayne is also responsible for submitting the WCS PMPE CTR, Technical Assessment Plans and Design Review Minutes for all WCS preliminary releases.
 

Mark Siegmund SUT-US Speaker

Mark Siegmund, Independent Contractor

With a BSc in Petroleum Engineering, Mark has gained over thirty years of global experience in Subsea Production & Deepwater Well Engineering. Mark was employed with BP for over 20 years where he held Subsea leadership roles in projects and operations, and is a recognized Subject Matter Expert on the application of Subsea & Wells Reliability Engineering. Within Industry, Mark has chaired the API17N committee on Subsea Reliability & Technical Risk Management and is chairman of the IOGP Well Expert Committee’s BOP Reliability Task Force. In January 2016, Mark was elected to chair the oversight committee for the newly launched BOP Performance JIP which is focused on industry-wide reliability improvements to BOP systems. 
 

Joseph Noska SUT-US Speaker

Joseph Noska, Installation Engineer, TechnipFMC

Joseph graduated from Texas A&M University in December 2010 and received a Bachelor’s of Science in Mechanical Engineering. He began working with Houston Service Industries, Inc. testing multistage and high speed turbo blowers for wastewater industry, ensuring blowers met specification requirements in accordance with ASME test codes, and performing field installations and repairs across the U.S. In August 2012 he joined TechnipFMC with the MPS installation engineering team (jumpers, manifold, pressure caps, SFLs, HFLs), and a year later he began working on completion systems as an installation engineer in 2013 (trees, tubing hangers, intervention systems). Joseph is interested in being a leader and sharing knowledge with others, thus ensuring the technical knowledge can be passed down to future engineers and technicians in the offshore oil & gas industry.

Eric Stagner Principal Manifolds Engineer TechnipFMC

Eric Stagner, Principal Manifold Engineer, TechnipFMC

Eric has an Aerospace Engineering degree from Texas A&M University. For 7 years he worked as a contractor for the Shuttle program doing dynamic analysis for cargo traveling in the space shuttle cargo bay, and for the last 7 years he has been with TechnipFMC as a Manifold Project Engineer designing manifold and interconnecting systems for projects run by Shell, Exxon, BP, Tullow and Chevron. Currently, he is the Principal Manifold Engineer for the Manifolds and Interconnecting group where he oversees all manifold projects that the team executes and attends all design reviews. He also reviews manifold specifications.

Manoj Jegannathan
Manoj Jegannathan, Senior Specialist - Naval Architecture, Deepwater Facilities Engineering & Construction, Oxy

Manoj is an award winning Naval Architect and Marine Engineer with diverse experiences ranging from data-centric computational engineering analysis to hands-on ultra deep-water offshore installations. He has held key roles on flagship projects for Technip, Occidental, Equinor & Google-X in the Gulf of Mexico, Norwegian and North Sea regions. Manoj’s primary areas of expertise include Hydrodynamics, Hull & Mooring design, Computational Analysis, Data Science, Offshore Installations, Marine Transport, Marine Systems & Operations, Decommissioning, Energy Transition & Project Leadership.  Currently, Manoj works at Occidental Petroleum where he leads key projects in Marine, Naval, Capital & Decommissioning activities for their fleet of 10 offshore deep-water platforms in the Gulf of Mexico. Before moving to the United States, he was a Marine Engineering Officer sailing onboard a large ocean-going vessel. Manoj has sailed across most of Northern Europe & Baltic states before leaving his Merchant Navy career. Outside of work, Manoj is an invited speaker and member of numerous Technical Committees in the Houston area. He also loves mentoring high-school kids for Junior Achievement and volunteers at  MD Anderson Cancer Institute during his free time.
 


James Seaver SUT-US Speaker
James Seaver, Principal Technical Expert – Subsea, Shell

Jim Seaver works for Shell in Houston as Principal Technical Expert – Subsea, with responsibility for managing the global subsea skillpool, and providing support to subsea projects and assets. Jim has spent all his 40-year career in subsea project delivery within Shell, starting in the North Sea with the Central Cormorant and Draugen developments, followed by assignments in the Far East, with the Malampaya Gas to Power Project and Prelude FLNG, and the US, with Mars A, strategic supplier arrangements and pre-DG3 developments for Nigeria. Jim has previously participated in the delivery of the SUT Subsea Awareness Course in Houston for several years. Jim holds a Diploma in Mechanical Engineering from Dublin Institute of Technology and an MSc in Production Engineering from Trinity College, Dublin.


Dr. Naveen Ravirala SUT-US Presenter
Dr. Naveen Ravirala, Lead Engineer, Subsea 7

Dr Naveen Ravirala completed his Doctorate (PhD) from University of Bolton, United Kingdom. Naveen has more than 13 years of work experience in Advanced Engineering and Oil and Gas, in particular the subsea pipeline design and installation. He has 1 patent and over 40 publications. He is highly experienced with pipelay methods (S-lay, J-lay and Reel-lay), mooring and weld repair analyses. He worked on several vessels that include mainly the Saipem installation vessels: Castoro 6, Castoro 10, Castoro 1 and Castoro 7. He supported installation engineering field operations for Statoil, BP, Hess, Saudi Aramco, NuStar, Chevron, Williams, Total, Conoco Philips and Nexxen. He is a Professional Engineer registered in Texas and also a Charted Engineer from IMechE, UK. He is presently working at Subsea 7 as Lead Engineer.
 


Chuyan Nah SUT-US Subsea Awareness Course Speaker

Chuyan Nah, Technical Services Engineer, BP Castrol – North America
 
Chuyan Nah is currently Technical Services Engineer, BP Castrol -North America, based in Houston, TX. Previous roles include Senior Subsea Hydraulic System Engineer, and Project Engineer for Aker Solutions. Chuyan has more than 10 years of experience in Subsea Oil and Gas industry. Chuyan’s specialties include Lubrication, Subsea Production Control Systems, Hydraulic Analysis, Subsea Hydraulic Control Fluids, Drilling Riser. Chuyan earned his Master of Science in Chemical Engineering from University of South Alabama.


Thierry Dequin SUT-US Subsea Awareness Course Speaker

Thierry Dequin, PE, PMP, Principal Engineer, Genesis Oil and Gas
 
Thierry is a Subsea Principal Engineer with 20+ years’ experience. He graduated from Ecole Centrale Nantes in France with a Master of Mechanical and Civil Engineer degree. He joined Coflexip in 1998 as R&D engineer for Umbilical and flexible pipe products mainly for developing a fatigue analysis software and performing qualification testing. He moved to Duco Houston manufacturing site in 2007 as lead umbilical engineer, after which he joined Genesis Systems and Controls department . As an umbilical system specialist, he provides Engineering supports to FEED, Pre-FEED and execution projects scopes regarding power or hydro-electric umbilicals, flexible, ancillary equipment,  and subsea systems. 



Nick Cuaresma, North America Energy Account Manager, BP Lubricants USA – Global Marine & Energy
 
Nick Cuaresma is the North American Account and Business Development Manager for BP Lubricants USA; with offices in Houston TX. He currently manages the technical transactions of Castrol Branded Subsea Control Fluids to the Oil & Gas Sector, working with Regional Energy Operators and the OEMs that support the industry. His career with BP spans 24 years in a variety of business sectors and disciplines; he has been working in the Energy Sector since 2009. He is affiliated with the Society of Tribologist and Lubrication Engineers and joined BP with degree in Business Marketing, FIDM.



Mark Roberson
 
Mark is a licensed professional mechanical engineer with graduate certificates in subsea engineering from the University of Houston and engineering management from the University of Manchester. He has 30+ years in the oil & gas industry, and currently works for Woodside Energy as a manager in their concept development group. His experience includes working for operators throughout the project lifecycle from early appraise stage to operations. His subsea experience includes project development and operation of subsea systems in Australia, Mexico & US Gulf of Mexico, and the UK North Sea.



William M. Taggart IV
 
William has been a professional engineer for 34 years. Originally with W.S. Nelson Engineers he worked on major projects in deepwater oil/gas, mining, and refineries. In 2005 he joined Murphy Exploration and Production Company, working on deepwater projects, shale oil facilities and serving as subject matter expert for process controls and process safety. Active on industry committees that defined the standards and requirements for process safety on offshore platforms and subsea wells. Since leaving Murphy in October 2020, he has focused on large scale energy storage as well as serving as a consultant to the oil and gas industry.



Carlos Avila
 
Carlos has a Ph.D. and M.Sc. in Petroleum Engineering from The University of Tulsa. Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering, Universidad de Los Andes. M rida, Venezuela. Subject matter expert on Multiphase Flow, Multiphase Flow Conditioning, Gas/Liquid and Liquid/Liquid separation and Compact separation (14+ years in Chevron). Experience in Flow Assurance from design phase to operations support. Multiphase Flow and Droplet size prediction expertise for Separation and Flow Assurance applications. Experience as Research & Development (R&D) program manager. Expertise in Gas-Liquid Cylindrical Cyclone (GLCC) separator from design to operations support for both metering and debottlenecking applications. Carlos is enthusiastic mentoring on different topics including Multiphase Flow and GLCC separator to engineers, interns, and university students. Interests in Computational Fluid Dynamics and Multiphase Flow Metering. Dr. Avila holds multiple patents and has authored and co-authored over 25 publications. In 2021, Dr. Avila created Avila Multiphase Flow Consulting, LLC to provide training and technical services in the Multiphase Flow area. Carlos is currently a Sr. Project Scientist at Assured Flow Solutions (an SPL company) applying Project Management skills, technical oversight, QA/QC to Flow Assurance experimental projects for Major Operating Oil Companies and Chemical suppliers and providing modeling support on Transient Multiphase Flow and Droplet size prediction.
 



Ian Still, Independent Contractor
 
Ian has over 30 years of subsea systems engineering experience in the hydrocarbon development and production processing industry, working in many global shallow and deep-water basins in his career. As principal systems engineer with Shell International he held the office of Subsea Systems Technical Authority contributing and validating the portfolio of concept identification, definition and execute projects in Brazil, GoM, Nigeria, Malaysia and Australia. He was accountable for HPHT 400 F and 20ksi subsea hardware development, subsea processing technology programs, and held authority over corporate technical standards for subsea equipment in addition to serving on API sub-committees. He holds an honors BSc in Engineering from Robert Gordon University, is a Chartered Mechanical Engineer and a member of the International Council of Systems Engineering.

 


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