latin american forum on energy & the environment€¦ · engineering laboratory (netl). his...

Latin American Forum onEnergy & the Environment

Austin, TexasDecember 7-9, 2008

A SALUTE AND THANK YOUTO OUR

SPONSORS(confirmed at press time)

Tuesday night reception and dinnerMarriott Brazos Suites

Monday night reception & dinnerTexas Memorial Museum

Monday lunchTexas Alumni Center

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Sherburne Abbott is director of the Center for Science and Practice of Sustainability at

The University of Texas at Austin. She was previously chief international officer at the

American Association for the Advancement of Science where she directed the Center for

Science, Innovation and Sustainable Development. She has consulted on environmental

science and sustainable development for private foundations, the World Bank, the

Brookings Institution, and other non-governmental organizations.

Steve Biegalski is currently the director of the University of Texas at Austin's Nuclear

Engineering Laboratory (NETL). His research focuses on nuclear analytical methods,

nuclear instrumentation, nuclear reactor design, and nuclear reactor operations. In the

past he has worked to develop technology in support of nuclear treaties. He earned his

Ph.D. in nuclear engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

John Briceño is a member of the Belize House of Representatives, former deputy prime

minister of Belize and former minister of natural resources and the environment,

commerce and industry. As a member of the Belizean National Assembly, Briceño also

represents Orange Walk, his home district, where he is a businessman.

José Chávez is CEO of Perupetro S.A. He has signed numerous agreements and

contracts with petroleum companies from Europe, Asia, North America, and South

America. Chávez has worked for Perupetro for 18 years, holding management positions

in a range of departments. He is currently leading efforts to make Peru one of the most

attractive countries to invest in and a successful player in the South American

hydrocarbon industry.

Milton E. Chaves is currently the upstream public affairs manager of ExxonMobil

Corporation for Latin America. He is based in Houston, Texas. He works closely with the

public affairs and government relations managers of ExxonMobil in each country in

support of business development opportunities. He joined ExxonMobil as the

Government Relations Manager with Mobil Agencia Administradora, S.A., Caracas,

Venezuela in 1998. He was the senior commercial advisor for the United States Foreign

Commercial Service in Caracas for over 20 years.

Juan Mario Dary is the president of the Mesoamericano Committee and former minister

of the environment for Guatemala. Prior to this he was general manager of Laboratorios

Labind, the first industrial biological laboratory in Guatemala; general manager of

Services and Subministries for Water; lab chief of the environmental watch on Lake

Izabal; and professor of biology at the University of San Carlos. He is past president of

the Guatemalan Association of Natural History, the Guatemalan Conservation Trust, and

the Mario Dary Rivera Foundation, and is a founding member of the Trinational Alliance

for the Conservation of the Gulf of Honduras.

Latin American Forum IV Participants

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Robert Dickinson joined the Jackson School in August 2008. For the previous nine

years, he was professor of atmospheric sciences and held the Georgia Power/ Georgia

Research Alliance Chair at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He was elected to the US

National Academy of Sciences in 1988, to the US National Academy of Engineering in

2002, and a foreign member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2006. His research

interests are in climate modeling, climate variability and change. He has a Ph.D. in

meteorology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Guillermo Cruz Dominguez-Vargas is the current director of Petroleum Operations of

the Secretariat of Energy for Mexico (SENER). Prior to working for SENER he worked as

an engineer for PEMEX for 34 years in exploration and production throughout Mexico,

particularly in the southern region and the marine region in Ciudad del Carmen,

Campeche. He holds a Ph.D. in petroleum engineering.

David Eaton is the Bess Harris Jones Centennial Professor in Natural Resource Policy

Studies at the LBJ School of Public Affairs. His current research concerns U.S.-Mexico

environmental cooperation, new methods for evaluation of air pollution emissions, joint

management by Palestinians and Israelis of shared groundwater, and water conservation

in Texas. He received his Ph.D. in environmental engineering and geography from The

Johns Hopkins University.

Eugenio Figueroa is former executive director of the National Center for the

Environment, director of the Center of Environmental and Natural Resource Economics,

and a professor of economics at the University of Chile. He is also an adjunct professor

at the University of Alberta Business School. One of 24 scientific members of the

Committee for Development Policy that advises the UN, he is a current or past economic

adviser to governments, institutions and companies in Africa, Asia, Europe, and America,

including the World Bank and many international development agencies.

William Fisher is a professor and former dean of the Jackson School of Geosciences.

He is a member of the US National Academy of Engineering and National Petroleum

Council. He was assistant secretary of interior for energy and minerals under President

Gerald Ford and on the White House Science Council under President Ronald Reagan. His

research has focused on stratigraphy, sedimentology, and oil and gas assessment. In

1967 he introduced the concept of depositional systems, the basis for modern resource

assessment by class or play. He has championed the importance of technology in

resource availability. Fisher is past president of AAPG and other national geological

societies and has received numerous international honors.

Peter T. Flawn has a distinguished history as a leader in the University of Texas system

as well as in science and industry in general. He served as president of UT Austin twice

and UT San Antonio once. He was named president emeritus by the UT Board of Regents

in 1985. He served as professor of geological sciences and director of the Bureau of

Economic Geology at UT Austin from 1960 to 1970. He was elected to the National

Academy of Engineering in 1974. He received his B.A. from Oberlin College in 1947 and

Ph.D. in geology from Yale University in 1951. He is a professor emeritus at UT Austin

and honorary life member of the Geology Foundation Advisory Council.


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Allan Flores Moya is the former vice minister for Costa Rica’s Ministry of Environment

and Energy and currently serves as the general director of Costa Rica’s Institute of

Tourism. Flores Moya is a frequent international speaker on Costa Rica’s widely

respected environmental and ecotourism programs, including its efforts to protect

indigenous cultures and pursue environmentalism in tandem with poverty reduction.

Michelle Michot Foss is chief energy economist and head of the Center for Energy

Economics (CEE) at the Jackson School's Bureau of Economic Geology. She advises U.S.

and international energy companies, publishes and speaks widely on energy issues, and

provides public commentary and testimony to governments. She developed and directs

New Era in Oil, Gas & Power Value Creation, an international capacity building program,

and is the principal investigator for the CEE’s LNG consortium. In 2003 she was selected

one of the Key Women in Energy for the Americas.

Cliff Frohlich is the associate director of the Jackson School's Institute for Geophysics.

He is also a senior research scientist at the Institute. His research interests focus on

deep earthquakes and the statistical analysis of earthquake catalogs. He has participated

in field projects in Alaska and Vanuatu involving the deployment of ocean bottom

seismographs; currently he is investigating moonquakes and tsunamis. He has a Ph.D. in

physics from Cornell University.

Rong Fu is a professor in the Jackson School. Her research aims at understanding the

role of the atmospheric hydrological cycle in determining the stability of the Earth's

climate. She uses satellite and in situ observations and numerical models to identify the

mechanisms that control this interaction between water cycle and surface climate, and

uses them to explain natural variability and anthropogenic forced changes in rainfall,

cloudiness, and water vapor distribution. She has a Ph.D. in atmospheric sciences from

Columbia University.

Terri Givens is vice provost and associate professor in the Government Department at

the University of Texas at Austin. She was formerly the Director of the Center for

European Studies and director of the France-UT Institute for Interdisciplinary Studies.

She received her Ph.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles, and her B.A. from

Stanford University. Her academic interests include radical right parties, immigration

politics, and the politics of race in Europe. She has conducted extensive research in

Europe, particularly in France, Germany, Austria and Denmark.

Neal Goins is president of ExxonMobil Ventures Mexico Limited in Mexico City with

responsibility for development of new business opportunities in Mexico. He joined Mobil

Corporation in 1978 and held a variety of research, operations, strategic planning, and

managerial positions with assignments in Dallas, Houston, Princeton, Bakersfield, and

Fairfax. He received his undergraduate degree in physics from Princeton University in

1973, and a Ph.D. in geophysics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in

1978.


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Mario González is a former member of the Board of Directors of PetroEcuador. A

professor of petroleum engineering at Ecuador’s Coastal Polytechnic Institute (ESPOL)

since 1975, he is the representative of ESPOL in Quito. From 1995-1997 he was head of

Ecuador's National Hydrocarbon Directorate (DNH). He previously worked as technical

representative for Pool Intairdril, a drilling company in Quito, and was a member of the

board of directors of PetroEcuador in 1994-1995.

Bob Hardage is a senior research scientist at the Bureau of Economic Geology at the

Jackson School. His research interests are multicomponent seismic technology, seismic

stratigraphy interpretation, and reservoir characterization. He has recently been

involved with gas-hydrate characterization from electrical resistivity logs. He has a

Ph.D. in physics from Oklahoma State University.

Chip Groat is the interim dean of the Jackson School, where he directs The University of

Texas at Austin’s Center for International Energy and Environmental Policy and the

Energy and Mineral Resources graduate program. He served from 1998-2005 as director

of the U.S. Geological Survey and previously as acting director of the Bureau of

Economic Geology and director of the Louisiana Geological Survey. Among many

leadership positions, he is past president of the Association of American State

Geologists.

Brian Horton is an associate professor of geological sciences at the Jackson School.

Prior to coming to UT, he spent five years as an assistant professor at UCLA. His

research focuses on sedimentary processes in modern and ancient basins and he has

worked extensively in Latin America. He has a Ph.D. in geosciences from the University

of Arizona.

Fares Howari is an associate professor in the Jackson School and Middle East research

coordinator for Center for International Energy and Environmental Policy. Prior to

joining the Jackson School he was an associate professor at United Arab Emirates

University and senior environmental consultant for Southwest Earth and Environmental

Services. He holds a Ph.D. in environmental sciences and engineering from The

University of Texas at El Paso.

Linda Hubner is the Latin America exploration manager for Shell. Previous to this

position, Linda was the US onshore exploration manager from August 2003 until August

2007. Linda graduated in 1982 from Renssalear Polytechnic University with a B.S. in

Mechanical Engineering, and moved to Houston work as an exploration geophysicist with

Shell. In her 26 years at Shell, Linda has worked in a variety of technical and

management positions across the exploration and production value chain: exploration,

development, production, planning & strategy.


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Lawrence Lawver is a senior research scientist at the Jackson School's Instititute for

Geophysics. His current research is focused on paleogeographic reconstructions of

Gondwana, the Polar Regions, East Asia, and the Western Pacific, the development of

paleo-seaways and their impact on climate, and the aerogeophysics of the Arctic region.

He has a Ph.D. from the University of California at San Diego, Scripps Institution of

Oceanography in marine science.

Charlie Kerans is a professor in the Jackson School whose research in carbonate

geology includes carbonate sedimentology and sequence stratigraphy. Applied aspects of

carbonate reservoir characterization, outcrop analog studies, and new approaches to 3D

modeling are of particular interest. He has a Ph.D. in geology from Carleton University.

James Kunetka is the associate vice president for development for the University of

Texas. He is the author of four novels and two nonfiction books, including a biography

of the scientist Robert Oppenheimer. His novel Warday was on the New York Times

bestseller list.

Steve Laubach is a senior research scientist at the Bureau of Economic Geology at the

Jackson School. His areas of expertise include structural petrology, structural geology,

fractures, fault systems, and the structural evolution of the North American Cordillera.

He is presently leading applied and basic research into fluid flow in fractured rock

through the Jackson School's Structural Diagenesis Intiative. He holds a Ph.D. in

geology from Illinois University.

Steven Leslie is the provost of the University of Texas at Austin. Prior to becoming the

provost, he served as dean of the College of Pharmacy for almost 10 years. An

internationally noted researcher in alcoholism and alcohol abuse, Leslie was director of

the university’s Institute for Neuroscience from 1986 to 1992. He earned his bachelor’s

degree in pharmacy in 1969, his master’s degree in pharmacology/toxicology in 1972,

and his doctor’s degree in pharmacology/toxicology in 1974, all from Purdue University.

Nancy Lynch is a Texas attorney whose solo practice focuses on oil and gas title

matters relating to on-shore and off-shore exploration. She taught the oil and gas law

course in the University of Texas Petroleum Land Management Department in the 1990s

and was an attorney in the Legal Department of the Texas General Land Office from

1993-1996 where she was actively involved in the US-Mexico Border Energy Forums.

She obtained a J.D. from the University of Texas School of Law.

Paul Mann is a senior research scientist at the Jackson School's Institute for

Geophysics. His research uses field observations and mapping, remote sensing, and

geophysical data including single- and multi-channel seismic data to study the tectonics

of late Cenozoic deformation plate boundary zones. He is currently working on the on-

and offshore geology of Colombia, Venezuela and Trinidad, and the tectonic evolution of

the Central America volcanic arc. He has a Ph.D. in geophysics from State University of

New York at Albany.


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Ernesto Marcos Giacoman was chief financial officer of Petroleos Mexicanos (PEMEX)

between 1989 and 1994. From 1986 to 1989, he was president of Nacional Financiera

(NAFIN), Mexico’s development bank. Between 1982 and 1983, he held the position of

Undersecretary of the Mexican Ministry of Industry. He holds a Ph.D. in economics from

Notre Dame University, and has been professor of economic analysis, economic

development and economic planning at universities in Mexico and the United States.

Lourdes Melgar currently works as an advisor on Latin American affairs to the Jackson

School. She has previously held positions in the Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs

where she held diplomatic rank, as a consultant in political strategy for LRB Consultants,

deputy assistant secretary for international affairs, and as the deputy director in the

office of chief of staff for the office of the President of Mexico.

Ricardo Padilla y Sánchez is currently the head of the Engineering Division of the

Earth Sciences at UNAM. He has also served on the faculty of the University of Texas-

Pan American and has held several positions with Pemex including director of of

operations and assistant director of seismology. He is a member of the Mexican

Academy of Engineering, the Geological Society of America, and American Association of

Petroleum Geologists. He holds a Ph.D. in geology from the University of Texas at

Austin.

Mauricio Parra has recently joined the Jackson School as a postdoctoral fellow. He has

previously been involved with projects in the Llanos Orientales, Middle Magdalena Valley,

and Bogota basin. His recently concluded dissertation focused on the timing of the

Guaicaramo fault at the thrust fault belt of the Llanos Orientales Basin of Colombia.

Richard Parrish is the team leader for Latin American exploration and new ventures for

Chevron. He has been involved in the evaluation of exploration opportunities in several

countries across Latin America for Chevron and previously Texaco for over 18 years. He

had earlier served as geologist on various US and international oil and gas exploration

projects.

Eric Potter is associate director for energy research at the Bureau of Economic

Geology. Since 2001, the energy research group has conducted significant research in

Latin America, including completion of major basin and reservoir-characterization studies

for Pemex (2001-2005), and is currently working with Petrobras on a research and

training initiative. He worked 25 years in exploration and technology positions with

Marathon Oil Company. He holds a master's degree in geology from Oregon State

University.

Terry Quinn is a professor in the Jackson School's Department of Geological Sciences

and a research professor in the Institute for Geophysics where he also serves as an

associate director. His research interests focus on using the geochemistry of marine

sediments and coral reefs to investigate climate variability and changes in mean climate

state in the geologic record. He has a Ph.D. in geological sciences from Brown

University.


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Marilda Rosado de Sáo Ribeiro is an attorney and consultant and former director of

legal affairs for Brazil's National Petroleum Agency (ANP). Prior to joining ANP she was

director of legal affairs of Repsol YPF Brasil and a professor of private international law

at Rio de Janeiro State University. Professor Rosado was also a consultant to the

National Petroleum Agency and a lawyer at Petrobras. She is a member of the

Association of International Petroleum Negotiators and author of Joint Ventures in the

Oil Industry (2003), among many related works.

Francisco Rivas is currently director general of energy for the Secretariat of Natural

Resources and Environment of Honduras. His responsibilities include renewable energy,

electrical distribution, hydrocarbons, biofuel and hydropower resource management for

Honduras. He is also a professor industrical electrical engineering at the National

University of Honduras.

María Salomón de Salazar is manager of geology and exploration for PDVSA. She

previously served as PDVSA's vice president of management and CVP's general manager

of administration and management. As an exploration geologist since 1974 she has

worked in Venezuela for Creole-Lagoven, Lagoven, Total, and on special assignment at

the Bureau of Economic Geology at The University of Texas at Austin.

Juan Sanchez is the vice president for research at the University of Texas at Austin.

He coordinates research throughout the university, handles applications for research

funding, coordinates strategic areas of research focus and tracks guidelines and

regulations governing research. A range of research units report to Dr. Sanchez.

Luis Sánchez-Barreda is the program coordinator for Latin American projects at the

Jackson School of Geosciences. He is responsible for developing new projects in Latin

America and acting as a liaison between the school and foreign companies and countries.

His technical experience includes numerous geological studies based on field work and

stratigraphic and geophysical data from the Gulf Coast, southern Mexico, and Central

and South America. He has worked on basin studies for much of Latin America

evaluating hydrocarbon systems, reserves, seismic stratigraphy, and geochemical

analyses.

Bridget Scanlon is a senior research scientist at the Bureau of Economic Geology at the

Jackson School. Her research includes evaluation of land-use change impacts on

groundwater resources, quantification of groundwater recharge using soil physics,

environmental tracers, and numerical simulations and assessments of paleoclimate

impacts on groundwater recharge in semiarid and arid regions. She has a Ph.D. in

geology from the University of Kentucky.


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Russell Slayback was CEO and Chairman of Leggette, Brashears & Graham from 1984

to 2006, and is now senior consultant to the firm. A consulting hydrogeologist since

1960, his major focus has been public water supply and dewatering of open-pit and

underground mines. He served as president of the American Institute of Professional

Geologists in 1994 and the American Geological Institute in 2000. He is past chairman

of the AGI Foundation and serves on its Board of Trustees, and was a leader in the

establishment of the William L. Fisher Congressional Geoscience Fellowship endowment,

the only fully endowed fellowship in the geosciences. He is chairman-elect of the

Geology Foundation Advisory Council of the Jackson School.

Cynthia Speyrer is commercial coordinator for Latin America Exploration and New

Ventures for Chevron in Houston. She provides commercial support to Chevron's oil and

gas activities in Latin America and has provided similar, prior support to Chevron's

power and LNG marketing & trading groups.

Ron Steel is a professor in the Jackson School of Geosciences. His research attempts to

decipher the signatures of tectonics, climate, sea level change, and sediment supply in

stratigraphic successions. He has a Ph.D. in Geology and Geophysics from the University

of Glasgow.

James Steinberg became dean of the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs in

2006. Before joining the School, he was the vice president and director of Foreign Policy

Studies at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. (2001-2005), where he

supervised a wide-ranging research program on U.S. foreign policy. From December

1996 to August 2000, he served as deputy national security advisor to President Bill

Clinton. He received his B.A. from Harvard in 1973 and J.D. from Yale Law School in

1978.

Melinda Taylor is a clinical professor of law and director of the Environmental Law

Clinic at The University of Texas at Austin. Previously, in addition to working as an

environmental lawyer in Austin and Washington, D.C., she was director of the Ecosystem

Restoration Program at Environmental Defense where she managed a staff of attorneys,

scientists, and economists engaged in projects to protect endangered species and water

resources. She specialized incentives and market mechanisms to encourage land and

water conservation.


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Ramón Carlos Torres Flores is general director of energy and mining at Mexico's

Secretary of the Environment and Natural Resources (SEMARNAT). Previously in senior

positions at PEMEX, his responsibilities included integration, evaluation, and negotiation

of projects in refineries, including projects aimed at the elimination of lead from gasoline

and reduction of sulphur content in fuel oil and diesel. Prior to PEMEX, Torres was a

manager at Nacional Financiera, worked for the UN, and was vice president of Grupo

EPN, a private company supplying capital to the electric and oil industry. Torres has

taught in several of Mexico's most prestigious universities.

Ramón Treviño has been a project manager in the Bureau of Economic Geology’s Gulf

Coast Carbon Center (GCCC) for the DOE-sponsored SECARB Phases 2 & 3 studies since

October 2007. He has a B.Sc. from Texas A&I University (19830), an M.S. degree in

geology from the University of Texas at Arlington (1988), and an MBA from the

University of Oklahoma (1994). His contributions to the GCCC derive from his

experience in the petroleum industry including 12 years of research at the Bureau in

reservoir characterization using 3D seismic interpretation and sequence stratigraphy of

various basins worldwide and four years of U.S. onshore exploration for Mobil Oil.

Roberto Urquizo is the former undersecretary of environmental quality of Ecuador's

Ministry of Environment. He is currently working with the USEPA internationally as

representative for Ecuador in the Methane to Markets partnership sharing experience

and technical cooperation in projects related to capture and use of methane in oil and

gas, agriculture waste, and landfill gas sectors.

Zong-Liang Yang is a professor in the Jackson School who teaches undergraduate

courses in climate change and graduate courses in global physical climatology and

hydroclimatology. His primary research interest is to understand the exchanges of

momentum, radiation, heat, water, carbon dioxide, and other materials between the

atmosphere and the Earth surface spanning from small (short) to very large (long)

scales. He has a Ph.D in Atmospheric Sciences from Macquarie University.

Andres Zuzek is principal exploration adviser to BP, where he has worked for the past

23 years. His work has mainly been related to generating and opening new potential

frontier plays and country entry opportunities in oil & gas. Most of his career has been

devoted to the exploration of deep water basins, in the Gulf of Mexico, Angola, Nigeria,

and Brazil. He recently led the team that assessed the exploration potential of Russia.

During his 36 years in the industry, Zuzek has worked in most of the hydrocarbon

bearing basins in South America, Central America, and Mexico.

Armando Zamora is director of the National Hydrocarbon Agency of Colombia. Prior to

this he was head of Iberia and leader of the oil markets team at ILEX Energy Consulting

in Oxford, England. He is an honorary lecturer at the Centre for Energy, Petroleum and

Mineral Law and Policy at the University of Dundee (Scotland). Zamora worked

previously with the Boston Consulting Group and A.T. Kearney in London and Madrid,

and held senior positions in insurance and investment promotion in Colombia.


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Select Programs

Jackson School

Petrobras Cooperative Agreement

Texas-Mexico Border Area

Current Energy Research in Southern Mexico

Environmental Studies in Belize

Using LIDAR in Honduras

Environmental Studies in Venezuela

Caribbean Basins, Tectonics and Hydrocarbons

Gulf of Mexico Basin Depositional Synthesis

Gulf Intraslope Basins Project

Center for International Business Education & Research

IC²: Cross Border Institute for Regional Development

Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas

Latin American Research Review

Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies

Argentine Studies Center

Brazil Center

Center for Environmental Studies in Latin America

Center for Indigenous Languages of Latin America

Center for Latin American Social Policy

Latin American Network Information Center

Select Collaborative Agreements

Bilateral Consortium in Social Science and Public Policy

Center for Democracy

Escuela de Administración de Negocios para Graduados

(ESAN) - UTMBA Double Degree Program - Lima, Peru

Fortaleciendo la Justicia Mediante la Capacitación Judicial -

ITESM Monterrey

Fundação Getulio Vargas - UTMBA Double Degree

Program - Sao Paulo, Brazil

Guatemalan Legislative Modernization Program

Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (ITAM) -

Jackson School of Geosciences (CEE/EER/CIEEP) Energy Training

ITESM - UTMBA Double Degree Program -

Monterrey, Mexico

Pontificia Universidad Católica - UTMBA Double Degree

Program - Santiago, Chile

Summer U.S. Law Program - Programa de Derecho

Angloamericano

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