Jim Murtha, a registered petroleum
engineer, presents seminars and training courses and advises clients in
building probabilistic models in risk analysis and decision making. Jim is an
industry-recognized expert on risk and decision analysis; he was elected to
Distinguished Membership in SPE in 1999, the recipient of the 1998 SPE Award in
Economics and Evaluation, and was 1996-7 SPE Distinguished Lecturer in Risk and
Decision Analysis. Since 1992, over 4000 professionals have taken his classes.
He has published Decisions Involving Uncertainty - An @RISK Tutorial for the
Petroleum Industry and he is the principal author of the chapter on Risk
Analysis and Decision Making in Volume VI of the 2007 edition of the SPE
Petroleum Engineering Handbook.In 25
years of academic experience, he chaired a math department, taught petroleum
engineering, served as academic dean of a college, and co-authored two texts in
mathematics and statistics. Jim has a Ph.D. in mathematics from the U of
Wisconsin, a MS in petroleum & natural gas engineering from PennState,
and a BS in mathematics from MariettaCollege.
Susan K Peterson
Susan K Peterson has 25 years of experience as a consultant, project manager, senior engineer, and professor. For more than 15 years she has specialized in applying risk analysis and decision methods for economic models, for full project development optimization, and for cost and schedule models. As a consultant, Susan performs project-specific risk analysis and provides training on decision and risk analysis; clients represent the oil and gas, power, construction, and transportation industries, among others. Her experience includes guiding the implementation of a Risk Management process, project team leader for a Risk Analysis and Decision Methods initiative, large capital-expenditure cost modeling (including mega-projects), integrated risk analysis on field development optimization, and numerous project evaluations.
Susan models probabilistic time and cost estimates for expenses and stochastic production forecasts in order to provide probabilistic engineering economics. These models provide the basis for selection of appropriate technology, strategizing terms and conditions, and risk management. As a petroleum engineer, she has experience in reservoir and production engineering, as well as extensive experience as a drilling engineer. In addition to her consulting career, she serves as a part-time lecturer in the Civil & Environmental Engineering Department of Rice University. Previously, she was assistant professor of petroleum engineering at Marietta College. Susan has PhD and MS degrees from Texas A&M University and a BS degree from Marietta College, all in petroleum engineering. She is active in the SPE, co-author of the Petroleum Engineer?s Handbook chapter on Risk and Decision Analysis, and serves on the Risk Analysis Reprint Series committee.
