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Oil Patch Insider: Decker headed to Oil Search;
Elixir’s Dougal Ferguson will go to Entex if….
Kay Cashman Petroleum News
Petroleum geologist Paul L. Decker is leaving the state Division of Oil and Gas to go to work for Oil Search in Anchorage.
“My last day with the state is Jan. 14,” Decker told Petroleum News in late December. “I will be working in exploration for Oil Search.”
Oil Search, an Australian company with major oil and gas operations in Papua New Guinea and with a market capitalization of around US$9 billion, is the operator of the Armstrong/Repsol Pikka discovery on Alaska’s North Slope, west of the central North Slope.
Part of the company’s community commitment is the use of local hire, as much as possible. More than 85 percent of the firm’s employees are local citizens in the regions where Oil Search operates, Keiran Wulff, president of Oil Search Alaska, said in November.
The company has been ramping up its Alaska workforce.
In March, Oil Search had just three Alaska employees. That number rose to 80 in November. By mid-January 2019, Wulff expects the number to be at the 100 mark, rising to around 200 by the time that the front-end engineering and design, or FEED, process for the Pikka development begins.
Following a commitment to construction, there would likely be around 800 people working on the project on the Slope, Wulff said, with the potential for first oil from Pikka flowing in 2023.
Decker has about 30 years of experience in oil and gas, more than half of that time in resource evaluation and management with the Division of Oil and Gas, part of the Alaska Department of Natural Resources.
He worked in the private sector of the oil industry from 1988 to 2004 in new ventures exploration and development for ARCO, Phillips and ConocoPhillips in Anchorage.
Decker has collaborated closely with geologists at DNR’s Division of Geological and Geophysical Surveys and Interior’s U.S. Geological Survey to integrate outcrop and subsurface data to produce geologic maps and regional interpretations that have furthered the public domain understanding of Alaska petroleum systems.
Decker holds Ph.D. and M.S. degrees in structural geology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a B.S. degree in geology from Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado.
- KAY CASHMAN
In case you missed it, Ferguson might stay with Alaska project Last minute changes resulted in some Petroleum News readers possibly missing this piece of news in last week’s Oil Patch Insider about the Elixir/Emerald House deal with Entek: Elixir’s chief executive, Managing Director Dougal Ferguson, will move to Entek as its GM if the deal closes in March as expected.
Last week’s Insider piece was titled, Paul Craig pleased with Elixir/ Emerald House deal with Entek.
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