People in the industry

Michael McGinnis has been named V.P. of operations at Kirkpatrick Oil Company. He joins the company after 31 years as an engineer in the upstream industry. He began his career at Tenneco Oil Co. in 1982, and went on to work at John E. Chance & Associates, Union Pacific Resources and Range Resources. McGinnis spent the last nine years at Chesapeake Energy, working as a senior asset manager in West Texas and central Arkansas, before becoming district operations manager in 2012.

Murphy Oil Corp. recently announced several executive promotions. Walter K. Compton has been promoted to executive V.P. and general counsel, having previously been senior V.P. and general counsel. Kelli M. Hammock has been promoted to senior V.P., Administration, from her previous post V.P., Administration. John W. Dumas has been promoted to V.P., Corporate Insurance, having served previously as director, Corporate Insurance. Allan J. Misner has been promoted to V.P., Internal Audit. K. Todd Montgomery has been elected V.P., Corporate Planning & Services, replacing Tom Mireles who has been promoted within Murphy Exploration & Production Co.

Oxane Materials has announced the addition of Clay Border as V.P. of sales. Previously, Border was managing director for Donovan Capital, an investment bank that provided merchant bank, advisory and capital raising services to private upstream companies.

MicroSeismic, Inc., has announced that Sudhendu “Kash” Kashikar joined the company as V.P. of Completions Evaluation, the company’s newest division. Kashikar has more than 20 years of industry experience. He began his career with Schlumberger, as a field engineer, and has held numerous international assignments. Prior to joining MicroSeismic, he was V.P. of sales for oil and gas at Silixa.

Diamond Offshore Drilling, Inc., appointed Marc Edwards as president and CEO, and as a member of the board of directors, effective March 3. He succeeds Lawrence Dickerson, who announced his intent to retire in September 2013, after almost 30 years of continuous service to the company. Prior to joining Diamond Offshore, Edwards spent almost his entire career at Halliburton, starting as a field engineer in Kuwait in 1984, with progressively greater management responsibilities in a variety of roles across the globe. 

Schramm, Inc., a manufacturer of mobile, land-based hydraulic drilling rigs, has appointed Kelly Shideler to the newly created position of Oil & Gas business development manager, based in Houston. He will report to Peter Christian, V.P., Oil & Gas. Shideler’s primary focus will be the upstream deployment of Schramm’s Telemast drilling rigs, including the T500XD—the first Telemast rig designed specifically to handle challenges in shale pad drilling.

Karim Amin has been named head of the Siemens Oil & Gas (SOG) sales unit, effective Feb. 1. He has been managing Siemens Energy Service with over 1,000 employees since 2011, and was responsible for business operations in the Middle East and in North Africa. Amin studied at Cairo University and received a degree in electrical engineering in 2000. In 2011, he earned an MBA degree from Warwick Business School in the UK. Amin has been employed at Siemens since 2001, occupying a variety of management positions.

Oceaneering International has promoted Charles “Chuck” W. Davison, Jr., to senior V.P., Subsea Products. He joined Oceaneering in 2007 as V.P., Umbilical Solutions. Prior to this, Davison spent eight years with GE. The company also has appointed Knut Eriksen to senior V.P., Business Development. Eriksen joined Oceaneering in 2010 as senior V.P., Subsea Products. Prior to joining the company, he served as senior V.P. of global execution with Natco Group, Inc. The company also promoted David K. Lawrence to Senior V.P., General Counsel and Secretary. He previously served as V.P., General Counsel and Secretary since November 2011.

State-owned Saudi Aramco named Abdallah Al-Saadan to the newly created post of senior V.P. for finance and corporate strategy. Al-Saadan joined the company in 1980. He most recently served as vice president of corporate planning.

dGB Earth Sciences, a provider of open-source seismic interpretation software, has appointed Nanne Hemstra as executive V.P., Brazil, and head of the company’s new office in that country. He was previously executive V.P. for the Americas. Hemstra is one of the founders of dGB’s open-source seismic interpretation system, OpendTect.

ABB’s board of directors said that it would propose Hubertus von Grünberg for re-election as the company’s board chairman, while also proposing Matti Alahuhta as a new member of the board. The directors also stated that all other board members, with the exception of Hans Ulrich Maerki, will stand for re-election. Alahuhta has been president and CEO of Helsinki-based Kone Corp. since 2006. Maerki has been a board member since 2002, but he has decided not to stand for re-election.

EnQuest has appointed Neil McCulloch as president, North Sea, effective April 1. McCulloch has held a number of senior oil and gas positions, and joins the company from OMV AG, where he was senior V.P. of production and engineering. Prior to this, McCulloch spent 11 years with BG Group, in a range of senior UK and international roles, most recently as V.P. and asset general manager, UK Upstream, overseeing BG’s UK North Sea business. He succeeds David Heslop, who retires from his role as managing director of the UKCS on April 1. Heslop will continue to support EnQuest in an advisory capacity, or on special projects.

The Louisiana Mid-Continent Oil and Gas Association (LMOGA) is launching a new Offshore Committee to promote Gulf of Mexico energy production, as well as advocate for the industry’s continued responsible development of domestic energy resources. The new offshore initiative is to be coordinated by consultant Lori LeBlanc of Lori LeBlanc, LLC. The committee will focus on policy, partnership, public input and positive communication, as it works to support and promote oil and gas production in the Gulf.

GlassPoint Solar, a solar EOR specialist, has appointed Tarik Hussain as director of Oman projects, based in Muscat. Hussain brings a decade of engineering and project management experience in Oman, delivering large-scale industrial and infrastructure projects in the country. Most recently, he served as project manager for WorleyParsons on BP’s $24-billion Khazzan project, the largest new upstream project in the Sultanate. 

ValvTechnologies, Inc., has named Gary Marler as V.P. of sales and marketing. Based in Houston, he will be responsible for the company’s sales, marketing and service activities worldwide. For more than 25 years, Marler served at ABB, Inc., most recently as V.P. of its U.S. Process Automation Systems business. Prior to that, he served as the president of ABB Vietnam, where he managed the firm’s operations. Additionally Marler held executive sales and business development positions at ABB.