2020 SPE GCS Annual Drilling Symposium - Event Cancelled

Paul Pastusek is a Drilling Mechanics Advisor in the Wells Technical organization at ExxonMobil Upstream Integrated Solutions.   He has 41 years of experience in drilling mechanics. His areas of expertise are: automation, drill string dynamics, steerable systems, borehole quality, bit applications, cutting mechanics, rig instrumentation and control systems, and failure analysis.  Paul has a BSME from Texas A&M University and a MBA from the University of Houston.  He is a Registered Professional Engineer, holds 39 US patents and has written 25 papers on drilling technology. 

Jeff Bailey is a Drilling Mechanics Advisor in the Drilling Center, ExxonMobil Upstream Integrated Solutions Company.  He has worked at ExxonMobil for 30 years in drilling and subsurface technology, including the areas of drilling vibrations, directional drilling, microseismic fracture mapping, and hydraulic fracture stimulation.  He holds a doctorate in Mechanical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

George has over a 30-year career in global upstream oil and gas services, primarily in operations, marketing, and business development roles within drilling services. He has vast experience in directional drilling technology development, corporate strategy development and technology commercialization, within major service organizations, and as a founder and co-developer of rotary steering technologies and companies. He holds a BS in Geology from The University of Texas and his current role is President and COO of Kinetic Upstream Technologies, Inc., a company leading the way in Unconventional Innovation of Directional Drilling Technology.

Carlos Blanc is Director of Unconventional Oil and Gas Technologies for Tenaris. Carlos has been with Tenaris for more than 25 years in various roles, and in the last 10 years he took several technical positions, leading the Well Design Solutions team in US, and managing more than 200 cases related to String Design, Material Selection, Torque Drag & Fatigue and Failure Analyses among worldwide shale plays. His current role also focuses on novel technologies applicable to the OCTG industry. Carlos is an active API, NACE, and SPE member, and a graduate of University of Rosario, Argentina, with an Industrial Engineering degree.

Curtis Cheatham is Senior Drilling Engineering Advisor for Corva where his interests include real-time drilling optimization and monitoring, analytics and data-driven algorithm development, and machine learning – all provided in real time using a cloud-based platform.

His career began with Shell in 1977 where he worked in drilling engineering research and deep-water drilling operations in the Gulf of Mexico. In 1989 he joined Sperry Sun Drilling as one of the first operator-experienced drilling engineers working for a service company. Since 2001 he consulted for various other service companies focused on new technology development until joining Corva in 2017. 

He has co-authored 21 technical papers including two papers to be presented next month at the 2020 SPE/IADC Drilling Conference on: 

• “Automated Procedural Compliance Drives Real Time Drilling Optimization”


• “Applied Real-time Data Analytics Improves Drillstring Life and Design”

Curtis is past executive editor of SPE Drilling & Completion Journal and is presently an associate editor. In 2016, he was elected an SPE Distinguished Member.

He holds B.S. and Master degrees in Mechanical Engineering from Rice University in Houston, Texas.

Ricardo Borjas currently holds the position of VP of Products at Moblize where he has worked since early 2019. He has more than 15 years’ experience in drilling engineering, real-time drilling optimization centers and drilling optimization. He’s held various positions with other service and operator companies ranging from MWD/LWD to Drilling Optimization Director. Mr. Borjas holds a BS in mechanical engineering from Universidad Simon Bolivar, Venezuela and an MBA from Heriot-Watt University, Scotland.

Dr. Robello Samuel is a Chief Technical Advisor and Halliburton Technology Fellow with more than 34 years of multi-disciplinary experience in domestic and international oil and gas drilling and completion operations. He has taught on the faculty of various universities concurrently; for the past 14 years at the University of Houston and 5 years at University of Southern California, LA. Dr.Samuel has published 200 technical papers, 13 books, 64 patents and 75 patent pending applications. He holds a BS and MS degrees in mechanical engineering, an MS degree and a PhD degree in petroleum engineering from the University of Tulsa.

He is regarded as one of the world’s most influential contributors to advancement of research and practice in well engineering. He is a SPE Distinguished Lecturer, SPE Distinguished member, SPE Gulf Coast Drilling Engineering award, and the recipient of SPE international Drilling Engineering award.