Management
Brad Braun, Environmental and Stakeholder Relations Manager
B.Sc. Mechanical Engineering, University of Calgary
With over 20 years experience, Mr. Braun comes to Osum from CNRL, where he served as Environment Manager and Engineer for the past 9 years. In this role, he obtained environmental and regulatory approval for CNRL’s Wolf Lake / Primrose thermal project expansion and developed long-term relationships with numerous key stakeholders in the Cold Lake area. Mr. Braun has been active in discussions and negotiations with regulators and other oil sands industry colleagues through work with key committees such as the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers’ Water Task Group and has been a board member of the Lakeland Industry and Community Association (LICA).
Stan Bergen, Thermal Operations Superintendent
Mr. Bergen has 25 years of heavy oil experience - the majority of which is in thermal operations. He most recently served as the Superintendent for Petro Andina Resources in Argentina, where he was part of a team that developed a 30,000 bbl/d heavy oil field and the first technically successful thermal project in the country’s history. Prior to working in South America Mr. Bergen was an operational specialist and stakeholder relations liaison for the MEG Energy Christina Lake Project. He has also been a Power Engineering instructor and consultant. The bulk of Mr. Bergen's experience comes from 20 years with Phillips Petroleum, Gulf, Conoco and ConocoPhillips. At Conoco Mr. Bergen was the Senior Foreman for the Surmont and Kerrobert Thermal Projects.
Edward G. Bruce, C.P.P., C.P.M, Manager, Contracts & SCM
Mr. Bruce brings over 20 years of oil sands experience to Osum. Most recently he was a Contracts & Procurement Manager for Statoil Canada Ltd., where he developed and implemented the contracting strategy for the Leismer SAGD Project. Prior to that he was SCM Manager for Suncor Energy, responsible for developing and implementing purchasing and contracting strategies for major projects (MNU, MCU Upgrader expansion and Mining & Extraction) in excess of $3B. Mr. Bruce is a member of Purchasing Management Association of Canada.
Jamie Carlson, P. Eng., Operations Manager
B.Sc. Petroleum Engineering, North Dakota State University
Mr. Carlson has 14 years of heavy oil and conventional oil and gas experience. Early in his career, Mr. Carlson gained extensive heavy oil experience with both PanCanadian and Petrovera Resources. This experience led to jointly receiving the "Dr. S.M. Farouq Ali Best Paper of the Year" for a paper on solvent gas injection published in the Journal of Canadian Petroleum Technology in 2003. Most recently, Mr. Carlson was the Area Coordinator for NW Alberta at Baytex Energy Trust.
Ken Gray, P.Geoph., Senior Staff Geophysicist,
B.A.Sc. Electrical Engineering, University of British Columbia.
Mr. Gray brings over 30 years of experience with Shell Canada and Royal Dutch Shell companies in a variety of geophysical data acquisition, processing and analysis roles, and is a technical specialist in 3D seismic imaging and interpretation. Most recently at Shell he was the Venture Discipline Lead for Shell's Groundbirch Development Team responsible for the application of geophysical techniques for delineating subtle shale gas characteristics in NEBC. Prior to this, he was the lead geophysicist for the Jurassic Nikanassin structural play, guiding the development and then use of an industry-leading anisotropic 3D prestack depth migration for well planning and targeting. His previous development and exploration experience covers a wide variety of stratigraphic and structural plays within Western Canada, as well as two international assignments; this includes the planning and execution of imaging campaigns in marine and onshore areas as well as the detailed processing and interpretation of data sets encompassing a variety of rock physics models. He is passionate about the application of cutting edge imaging technology to extract every possible nuance from remote sensing datasets.
Dr. Qi Jiang, P. Eng., EOR & Reservoir Engineering Manager
M.Sc., Ph.D., Chemical and Petroleum Engineering, University of Calgary
Dr. Jiang has over 20 years of industry and research experience in the area of heavy oil and oil sands development. He served most recently as an exploitation lead of thermal development at CNRL for over 8 years, where he was involved in thermal operations, reservoir modeling, strategic planning and acquisitions, technology development and field testing of new thermal and solvent related recovery processes. He also assisted in the submissions for the Kirby and Primrose East commercial applications, as well as gas over bitumen hearing. Prior to CNRL, he worked as a senior engineering advisor at GravDrain Inc., a Calgary based consulting firm specialized in SAGD and horizontal well technologies, and a reservoir engineering manager at PetroChina where he was involved in a number of thermal recovery projects. He has published over 20 technical papers on thermal and non-thermal recovery processes including SAGD, VAPEX, CSS and SAGP. He has been invited as a panel speaker at international conferences primarily on his experiences with SAGD and CSS development. Dr. Jiang conducted his Ph. D. and M.Sc. studies, which focused on development of SAGD and VAPEX processes, under the inventor of SAGD, Dr. Roger Butler.
Murray Morrell, P. Eng., Commercial & Marketing Manager
BEng, University of Saskatchewan
MBA, University of Alberta
Mr. Morrell brings 30 years of diverse experience to Osum. His most recent job was with Nexen where he worked in a variety of commercial marketing and business development roles including the lead cross-commodity marketing role in the Long Lake project from business conception through to completion of commercial contracts. Experience at Nexen also included business development assignments in the North Sea and in Canadian heavy oil. Earlier in his career, Mr. Morrell served as a crude oil buyer for United Refining and in a variety of crude oil and product supply roles with Petro-Canada. Mr. Morrell started his career in Gulf Canada’s pipeline department. Mr. Morrell is active in CHOA and CAPP and frequently participates in industry panels, conferences and committees.
Howard Plato, Information Systems Manager
B.Sc., Computer Science, University of Manitoba
MBA, University of Victoria
Mr. Plato brings nearly two decades of Information Systems management experience to Osum, with a broad range of exposure to both the public and private sectors in a variety of industries including petroleum services, chemical manufacturing, energy regulation, transportation, health care, logistics, scientific and academic research and food safety regulation. He possesses expertise in information security, infrastructure, application development, IT governance, telecommunications, database administration, and in strategic and business case analysis. Most recently, Mr. Plato was Director of Solution Delivery at CGI, a global IT firm, where he led an organization of 50 professionals in Calgary to provide services and expertise to over 100 oil & gas companies and numerous other organizations within North America.
Justin Robinson, Communications Manager
BA (Honours), Communications Studies, University of Calgary
Mr. Robinson possesses a depth of multi-sector strategic communications experience including oil & gas, consumer products, real estate and utilities. He has played a key role in numerous start-ups and product launches, including an acquisition involving the transition of more than one million customers to a new business. Mr. Robinson has led integrated campaigns for some of the world’s most recognized trademarks and has expertise linking brand strategy to corporate financial performance. He is a well-rounded business communicator with experience in strategic planning, public relations, interactive, social media, research, advertising, community engagement, and event development. Mr. Robinson is a believer in creating rich, multi-dimensional communicative contexts that support meaningful and transparent interaction with stakeholders.
Dr. Jen Russel-Houston, P. Geol., Geosciences Manager
Ph.D., Earth Sciences, Dalhousie University
Dr. Russel-Houston has 13 years of industry and research experience in Geology. Prior to joining Osum in 2008 as the Geoscience Manager, she was the subsurface team lead for the thermal development of the Peace River Heavy Oil Insitu project with Shell. As a geologist and leader of this team, she was involved in the delineation, appraisal, and development of the Bluesky Formation; a Cretaceous-aged bitumen-saturated clastic reservoir. This included drilling 32 horizontal cyclic steam stimulation wells, 28 geosteered horizontal primary wells, water disposal wells, and over 80 stratigraphic wells. Prior to this, she was a geologist with Shell's Sable Offshore Development where she created 3D static models that integrated seismic, petrophysical logs, and core data in realistic geologic models of the Thebaud, North Triumph, South Venture, and Marmora fields. Dr. Russel-Houston joined Shell in 2001 after completing her Ph.D. studies, which focused on graptolite paleontology and carbonate sedimentology of a Silurian-aged carbonate ramp of the Cape Philips Formation in the Arctic of Canada.
Angelo Scotton, Director, Projects
B.Sc. Mechanical Engineering, New York University
With over 36 years of engineering management and project management experience, Mr. Scotton comes to Osum having most recently worked on Petro-Canada's Fort Hills Upgrader mega-project. There he served as Principal Technical Advisor and Engineering Director to the project. Prior to that, Mr. Scotton worked on large projects around that world for such EPC industry heavyweights as C.F. Braun, Bechtel Corporation, Bantrel and others. Mr. Scotton has been an active and important member of several technical associations over the years and is an industry-renowned expert in Delayed Coker design, technology, retrofit and operation.
Heather Screaton, CHRP, Director, Human Resources
BA (Honours), Economics and Mathematics, Queens University
With experience in four market segments (Oil & Gas, including Mining; Gas Transmission; Education; Telecommunications, including Manufacturing), Ms. Screaton possesses expertise in all facets of Human Resources, including organizational design, compensation, benefits, employee communications, training, recruitment and selection, mergers and acquisitions, due diligence, performance management, succession planning, staff planning and positive employee relations. In over 20 years in business, Heather has received many formal awards and has been recognized for her ability to create people solutions that drive improved business results. As well, Heather has been an elected Director to the Human Resources Institute of Alberta and has served as a volunteer to various community boards.
Harold Slaferek, Construction Manager
Harold Slaferek brings 35 years of construction of experience to Osum, Most recently he was the Construction Manager for Statoil Canada Ltd., The Leismer Plant is 20,000/40,000 bbl/day steam assist gravity drain (SAGD) project. Prior to that project he was the Construction Manager for a EPCM Shell Orion SAGD 10,000/20,000 bbl/day plant in the Cold Lake area. Harold also managed construction for Petro-Canada, Exxon Mobile USA and Husky Oil Ltd.
Bruce Thornton, P. Eng., Development & Regulatory Manager
B.A.Sc. Civil Engineering, University of Waterloo
Mr. Thornton has 28 years experience primarily in production and operations engineering with Dome Petroleum, Amoco Canada and Canadian Natural. Over the past 19 years he has worked in thermal and primary heavy oil production operations in several areas in Alberta both at a supervisory and technical level capacity. Prior to joining Osum, he served as a Production / Development Engineer at Canadian Natural, responsible for the submission of the Primrose East Application and the subsequent drilling and completions program. Previously Mr. Thornton was also a key participant on the Amoco Canada Heavy Oil Strategy Team, which helped lay the foundation for their initial heavy oil operations in Canada. Mr. Thornton is a member of APEGGA and CIM.
William Uzcategui, Project Controls Manager
B.Sc., Civil Engineering, The Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech)
Mr. Uzcategui brings over 26 years of Oil & Gas industry experience to Osum. He comes from Suncor Energy where he worked as project controls manager since 2004, on projects such as the Millennium Vacuum Unit, the 52C-305 Fractionation Unit Fire Rebuild, the Millennium Coker Unit Expansion Program, Firebag's SRU, VRU, Stages 5&6 and most recently in a central project controls role for MEUD portfolio (Mining, Extraction, Upgrading & Downstream projects). Before that, Mr. Uzcategui had worked for PDVSA (Venezuela's national oil company) for 20 years, initially as a civil engineer involved in field engineering and construction support to exploration and production operations, and later as project controls lead for several projects including amongst others a major LNG plant and cryogenic complex expansion in Venezuela, and two Delayed Coker units in Sweeny, Texas and St. Croix, USVI each. He is an active member of AACEi and PMI.
Dr. Jian-Yang Yuan, Principal EOR Advisor
B.Sc., Nuclear Physics, Nanjing University
M.Sc., Ph.D., Physics, University of Maryland
With over 26 years experience, Dr. Yuan comes to Osum from CNRL, where he served as an Exploitation Specialist providing technical supports for operations in thermal (CSS, SAGD), non-thermal (solvent) heavy oil and oil sands production and experimental CSS follow-up processes. Prior to that, he worked with Alberta Research Council as a Senior Research Scientist and SAGD Strategic Area Leader, where he guided and participated in activities ranging from fundamental research to field operations support, all related to heavy oil and oil sands technology development in Canada and internationally. Dr. Yuan's career in the oil and gas industry started when he was awarded with the NSERC Industrial Fellowship with Imperial Oil Resources where he conducted research on fundamental physics of oil sands. Before joining Imperial Oil, he worked with McGill University, University of Virginia and University of Maryland as a physicist with a broad range of research interests. Dr. Yuan has served for the SPE Editorial Review Committee, and as Technical Committee and Section Chairman for variety of international technical conferences and workshops. He also served on industrial steering committees for various research programs. He has produced over 100 publications, conference presentations, invited speeches and confidential technical reports in following areas: fluid dynamics, statistical physics, physics of instability and pattern formation, scanning probe microscopy, multi-phase flow in porous media, heavy oil and oil sands recovery mechanisms and technologies - thermal (CSS, SAGD, Electrical, Solvent and hybrid) and non-thermal (CHOP, Solvent), as well as gas separation technology. He also holds 3 US patents. Dr. Yuan is currently an active member of SPE and CHOA.
Vance Wanchulak, CMA, Controller
BComm, University of Calgary
Mr. Wanchulak brings a broad range of finance and accounting experience to Osum. During his 15 year career in the western Canadian oil and gas industry, he has had experience with most every facet of the accounting and finance functions; from production, joint venture and field accounting during the early stages of his career at Fletcher Challenge Energy Canada to his role as Vice President Finance at Morpheus Energy Corporation, a privately held junior oil and gas exploration company sold to Orleans Energy in June 2006. As an officer of Morpheus Energy and through numerous consulting engagements, Mr. Wanchulak has become well versed in the nuances of corporate governance and internal controls over financial reporting. Most recently, he spent two and half years at TAQA North Ltd., rationalizing receivable collection processes in addition to converting millions of dollars of old accounts into cash. Mr. Wanchulak is a Certified Management Accountant and a Member of the Society of Management Accountants of Alberta.