Secretariat

Andrew K. Gibson specializes in oil & gas field development, operation and maintenance at MARINTEK. Andrew holds a B.Tech (Hons) in Mechanical Engineering from Loughborough University of Technology and a MSc in Applied Mechanics from Cranfield University of Technology both in UK. During his period at MARINTEK, he has been involved in various research projects for oil & gas companies, and as Research Manager and Research Director became increasingly involved in the wider shipping and other industry sector projects MARINTEK undertakes. After starting his career in rotodynamic machinery, he gained extensive experience from a 20 year oil & gas career with Shell International E&P in Holland, Brunei, Norway and Oman. Major projects included Norske Shell’s Draugen project (1987 to 96) and Hydro’s Ormen Lange Langeled project (2005-06) plus many diverse brown-field developments in the Sultanates of Brunei and Oman. He has been involved in all phases of field development; - from concept selection, design, procurement, construction, commissioning, hand-over, to decommissioning and abandonment of on & offshore oil & gas facilities. In addition to experience in legal arbitration, he has also held functional positions in systems development, competence development, HSE, quality and contract management. He has also been a Program manager at the Centre for Integrated Operations hosted by NTNU, SINTEF and IFE.

Arild N. Nystad (Ph.D) is working as adviser to several R&D centers in Norway including the IO Center (www.iocenter.no), Center for Drilling and Well for Improved Recovery (www.sbbu.no) and Center for Petroleum Production Facilities (www.cppf.no). He is also Conference Chair of the annual international IO Conference in Trondheim (www.ioconf.no) organized by the IO Center. Nystad has 35 years of experience from the petroleum industry in Norway at different management positions for the Norwegian petroleum authorities, the oil and gas industry and in academia. He has a broad experience from the petroleum sector in the capacity as Director for Petroleum Resource Management at the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate (www.npd.no), manager of the establishment team of Petoro AS (the Norwegian state oil company with responsibility of the State Direct Financial Interests) (www.petoro.no)  and as board member 2005-2007 of Gassco AS, the Norwegian state gas pipeline transportation company (www.gasco.no). He has a broad international experience and exposure and he has participated in several projects and seminars in petroleum producing countries on planning of the oil and gas assets and the petroleum sector. Nystad has also served as member of Advisory Group Energy (AGE) for the European Commission advising on the 7th frame program on R&D (2006-2008). He is educated in engineering and economics and has published numerous publications on resource economics and petroleum resource management in international refereed journals. He holds a doctorate in Reservoir Optimization and Reservoir Economics. Nystad was board member (1994 – 2003) and president (2001) of the International Association of Energy Economics (IAEE) (www.iaee.org)