Management Team
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).
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.
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.
Jeffrey R. MacBeath, CA, Controller
BComm, Dalhousie University
Mr. MacBeath brings a broad range of experience from increasingly senior financial roles within the oil and gas sector. Through recent positions at Shiningbank Energy Income Fund and PrimeWest Energy Trust, Mr. MacBeath developed expertise in financial management including external financial reporting, corporate governance, forecasting and budgeting, treasury, economic modeling, due diligence, and mergers and acquisitions. Prior to entering industry, Mr. MacBeath spent 6 years at KPMG LLP where he gained valuable experience in financial reporting, tax compliance, internal controls, and securities regulations. Mr. MacBeath is a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Alberta.
Hal Middlemiss, C.R.S.P., Health and Safety Manager
Mr. Middlemiss brings 25 years of Industrial Construction and Operations experience to OSUM. He has provided Environmental, Health, Safety and Security (EHS&S) support for many industrial construction projects in Alberta over the last 11 years. For the last 6 years he was the senior Environmental, Health, Safety, and Security lead for Petro-Canada at the Refinery Conversion Project at the Edmonton Refinery and most recently was Petro-Canada’s Construction Total Loss Management Advisor with EHS&S responsibilities for the MacKay River SAG-D facility, early works on the Fort Hills minesite, and the Fort Hills Upgrader in Redwater. Prior to that he was Corporate Safety Manager, for PCL Industrial Constructors, responsible for implementation of the PCL Safety Program on major industrial projects in Western Canada. He began his career with Borden Chemical as a Chemical Plant Production Supervisor and Regional Safety Specialist with responsibilities for 11 operating facilities in Canada and the U.S. Mr. Middlemiss has served as co-chair of the Construction Owners Association of Alberta safety committee for the past 9 years, and has been a member of the Board of Directors to the Alberta Construction Safety Association. Mr. Middlemiss has served on several initiatives with Alberta Workplace Health and Safety, the Workers Compensation Board and was a member of Minister Clint Dunfords Worksafe initiative charged with improving Health and Safety performance in Alberta.
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.
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, Engineering Manager
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.
Mr. Taylor is a drilling veteran and brings over 33 years experience drilling hundreds of wells to Osum. He served as drilling coordinator for Phase 1 of Encana’s Foster Creek SAGD project, drilling and completing the initial 24 SAGD well pairs. Mr. Taylor has worked on many bitumen and heavy oil projects for numerous companies including Imperial (Cold Lake), Atlas Energy, Mobil Oil, Canadian Occidental, AEC Oil & Gas, and Aerostar Resources, where he served as VP, Operations and Production.
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.
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.