Tracing the Industry

ON THE MOVE...

Kevin Frankiw is pleased and excited to announce that he has moved to Penn West Energy Trust and will be working out of the Swan Hills group. Kevin thoroughly enjoyed his time at Kelman and wishes them all the best. Kevin can now be reached by e-mail at kevin.frankiw@pennwest.com or by phone directly at 777-3332.

Carmen Swalwell would like to announce that she has started a new company, Swalwell Resource Consulting Inc., recruiting for the oil and gas industry, specializing in Geology and Geophysics. You can contact me at carmen.swalwell@shaw.ca or (403) 560-8431. I look forward to doing what I can to help people achieve their career goals. I would like to thank all my past clients; it has been a pleasure working with you. I hope to do so again in the future. I would also like to thank David Nordin for all his help. It is greatly appreciated.

Mike Burianyk has left Calgary, and Shell Canada, to take a position with Shell International at their research lab in Risjwijk (The Hague) in The Netherlands. He’ll be working in the Exploration R&D group doing research in potential fields (gravity and magnetism). Mike’s email remains the same: michael.burianyk@shell.com.

Paradigm Geophysical (Canada) Limited is pleased to announce 2 new members to our Marine Processing Team - Valmore Ceilis and Hotma Siagian. Valmore has his Masters Degree from the Colorado School of Mines and specializes in 3D depth imaging and seismic processing in structurally complex areas, both in Land and Marine. He brings over 15 years of experience working on projects around the globe. Hotma has over 22 years experience in geophysics, predominantly as a Senior geophysicist running large Marine and Land projects. Valmore can be reached at 403-571-1611 and Hotma at 403-571-1589. These two individuals will be great additions to our expanding Reservoir Studies and Processing teams!

New start-up processing center, Absolute Imaging Inc., is pleased to announce commencement of seismic data processing operations at their new location: L120, Mission Centre, 2303 – 4th Street SW, Calgary, T2S 2S7. Absolute Imaging began processing 2D and 3D seismic data January 2, 2007. Gerry Schlosser (gerry@absoluteimaging.ca), Des Maguire (des@absoluteimaging.ca) and Gordon Dyck (gord@absoluteimaging.ca) are looking forward to their new challenge and would like to let their clients, colleagues and friends know that they can be reached at (403) 245-3001 or fax (403) 245-3002.

Absolute Imaging Inc. is extremely pleased to announce that Mike Gervais has joined their organization. Mike brings 21 years of experience to the team and the company is excited to have him participate in the growth and prosperity of the newly founded business. Mike would like to let his friends and colleagues know that he can be reached at mike@absoluteimaging.ca or at (403) 245-3001.

HOW I GOT INVOLVED IN THE SEISMIC INDUSTRY...

Damien Thenin – Paradigm/Sales Manager Canada

I grew up in Paris, and started to get interested in geology while learning things about tectonics and volcanism. I originally intended to work in the food processing industry, as biology was my favorite school class. But after spending three years specializing in this area, I realized that I had more fun learning geology than biology. So I took a master’s degree in petroleum geology at the Nancy School of Geology in France. During the 3 years spent in Nancy, I studied many aspects of geology. Not only petroleum geology, but also mining geology, geophysics, civil engineering, etc… This was a great opportunity to understand the different disciplines linked to the subsurface knowledge.

After several internships in the mining and the oil industry, plus some research work done with Pr. Mallet’s team (gOcad Consortium), I decided to move to Dubai to join Earth Decision Sciences as a consultant in 2003. My job was to provide support, training and consultancy to GOCAD users throughout the Middle East. This was a very fun time, with a lot of travels, where I had the opportunity to meet many great people. I spent most of my time in Saudi Arabia. On a professional side it was an opportunity to work with integrated asset teams, from interpretation to flow simulation. And on a personal side, a great chance to discover a very nice culture (very different from what was shown on TV at that time). It is during that time that I started to work more and more on the geophysical side, as we integrated seismic data into reservoir modeling studies.

In 2005 I was transferred to Calgary with Earth Decision, in order to provide consultancy in reservoir modeling. And after only few months, I was in charge of the Canadian operations of Earth Decision, dealing with both the services & sales activities. This is when I started to get more involved in the seismic side of the industry, by providing solution for seismic interpretation and visualization, and advanced velocity workflows. But that was not the end of the reservoir modeling for me! I truly believe the industry will benefit more and more from integrated studies with multidisciplinary teams: geophysicists, geologists and reservoir engineers contributing together to build more realistic reservoir models, for example in the heavy oil.

In 2006 Paradigm acquired Earth Decision. Thanks to its seismic processing and software portfolio, the concept of integrated services became even more obvious. It is now time for me to learn more science and technology linked with the seismic industry!