How 'Virtual' Assets Impact
Oil and Gas Production

When: 11:00 AM CT, Wednesday, March 11
Where: Your Computer
Cost: Free

The ability of the upstream oil & gas industry to optimally align capital investments, operating procedures, and maintenance has too often been inhibited by challenges that include geographical dispersion, a tradition of asset independence, and information "stove-piping."

You should know, however, that emerging capabilities are already being exploited in today's upstream oil & gas environments that overcome these type limitations, accelerating time-to-oil and optimizing operations, assets, risk, and profits. Essential aspects include capabilities to measure performance, analyze constraints, and identify alternatives.

Whether applied to asset, operations, or business-enterprise management, fundamental changes in the ruling information-technology paradigm present the oil & gas industry with the opportunity to use analytics, modeling, and business intelligence to achieve better decision making.

• A new model for asset life-cycle management that incorporates "human" and "virtual" assets along with actual physical plant.
• Essential aspects of a viable information ecosystem well suited for the production realm - at the well head, the engineering workstation, and in the business suite.
• How this emerging infrastructure will lead to optimization of operations, for increased production and reduced costs.

Sid Snitkin, Ph.D.
Vice-President & General Manager, Enterprise Services, ARC Advisory Group

Sid Snitkin is a senior member of ARC Advisory Group and has primary responsibility for management of enterprise research activities. He also has lead analyst responsibility for ARC in the area of Asset Lifecycle Management. Sid has over 30 years of experience working with automation and information systems. He has used his engineering design, construction, and supply-chain expertise to support clients across a range of industrial sectors.

Sid's has been with ARC for more than 10 years.  Prior to joining ARC his professional career encompassed a range of engineering, managerial, and senior executive positions.

Joe R. Hill
EDS Fellow
EDS, an HP Company

Joe R. Hill became an EDS Fellow in 2000, and today works in the EDS' Applications Services Engineering group. The title of EDS Fellow is awarded to the corporation's most innovative thought leaders, and today Hill is helping develop enterprise initiatives that shape the future of EDS. Hill leads EDS Fellows program activities in the Business Process Optimization (BPO) market. Previously, Hill was chief architect for BPO Portfolio Development. He actively evangelizes EDS' Agile Application Architecture based on Web services, business intelligence, content management, and role-based portals.

Hill has been an R&D specialist working on statistical applications in artificial intelligence, applied decision theory, text processing, and relational databases. Hill earned his bachelor of science, master of arts, and doctor of philosophy degrees in mathematics - all with an emphasis in statistics - from the University of Texas, Austin.

Doug Hanson
Director, Global Energy Industries, Worldwide manufacturing & distribution industries, Technology Solutions Group, Hewlett-Packard Co.

Doug Hanson joined HP in June 2007 to lead HP’s Global Energy Industries, which includes Oil & Gas and Utilities. Hanson’s organization is responsible for the definition and execution of the global energy strategy and for establishing a portfolio of solutions that combine HP technology, services, knowledge, and innovation to deliver better business outcomes.

He has more than 25 years experience in IT; 12 years in the energy sector; 17 years with IBM and eight years with BMC Software, where he was responsible for sales, sales management, professional services management and solutions marketing.

Hanson has worked extensively with oil & gas and utilities customers in the Americas, in Europe, and in the Middle East. He established and led a Process and Petroleum Industry group in the Middle East and Africa, based in Dubai, and went on to lead Upstream Solutions for EMEA, based in London.

Hanson earned a bachelor’s degree in commerce from the University of Calgary in Alberta, Canada, and is a certified information systems security professional.

Kevin Parker

Kevin Parker is senior editor, covering production issues, with E&P magazine. He has more than 20 years experience writing for and editing technology magazines, including 15 years as chief editor of Manufacturing Systems, and as associate editor with Chemical Processing magazines. Parker also spent close to a decade as engineering services and quality control manager with Lindberg, a Unit of General Signal, a maker of heat-treat equipment. His bachelor’s degree is in philosophy & religion is from MacMurray College in Jacksonville, Illinois. His military service included more than three years in the US Army Infantry stationed with the Berlin Brigade in West Berlin, Germany.