Lecturers

Erling Fjær

Erling Fjær has been working within petroleum related research for more than 30 years, much of the time studying how to drill deep, stable holes in soft formations. He is currently studying how to plug the holes in an efficient way. His current position is Chief Scientist at SINTEF Industry. He also holds a part time position as Adjunct Professor in petroleum technology and applied geophysics at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. 

Vincenzo de Gennaro

Vincenzo has twenty-five years’ experience in theoretical and applied geomechanics, including fifteen years’ experience in O&G industry. He graduated as Civil and Geotechnical Engineer in 1992 in Rome University. He holds a MSc in Solid Mechanics and Poromechanics from University Paris VI and Ecole Polytechnique (Paris, France) and a PhD in Geomechanics from the Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussees - ParisTech (Paris, France). At Ecole des Ponts – ParisTech he has been lecturer and then habilitated research director until 2009. He’s currently geomechanics advisor and technical and business manager at Schlumberger. His activities encompass exploration, appraisal and production related projects, drilling integrity studies, coupled reservoir seismic geomechanics analyses (compaction, faults stability, underground gas storage), geomechanics for unconventional (completion quality evaluation and hydraulic fracturing modelling). He’s author/co-author/co-editor of about 130 publications (journal papers, book chapters, conference papers, research/technical reports, monographs, books). He has presented a wide variety of topics related to geomechanics and petroleum geomechanics for a total of more than 60 lectures worldwide.

Siavash Ghabezloo

Siavash Ghabezloo is a research scientist and lecturer at Ecole des Ponts ParisTech, France.He received a PhD degree in Geomechanics from Ecole des Ponts ParisTech. He has also a civil engineering degree from Shiraz university and a Master of Science in Soil Mechanics and Foundations from Tarbiat-Modarres university in Iran. His research works are mainly based on poromechanics theory, in its broad sense, with a particular emphasis on the characterization of the behavior of geomaterials. During the past ten years he contributed mainly to characterization of thermo-hydro-mechanical behavior of cement paste for oil-well integrity assessment and claystone for nuclear waste disposal. Siavash Ghabezloo is the general secretary of the French Rock Mechanics Committee.

Rune Holt

Rune M Holt is Professor in the Geoscience and Petroleum Department at NTNU (Norwegian University of Science and Technology) in Trondheim. His main research areas are rock physics and geomechanics related to petroleum engineering and geophysical applications. The current focus is on overburden shale, including geophysical applications such as 4D seismic monitoring of changes in overburden stresses and pore pressure induced by reservoir pressure depletion or inflation, and engineering applications such as borehole stability and formation of natural shale barriers around cased wells. Past work includes experimental studies on synthetic rocks to assess the influence of coring induced rock alteration and discrete element modelling from grain to reservoir scale. Holt holds a PhD in solid state physics from NTNU and is co-author of the textbook "Petroleum Related Rock Mechanics" by Fjær, Holt, Horsrud, Raaen & Risnes.

Yves Leroy

Yves M. Leroy received a PhD in solid Mechanics from Brown University and started his professional career with Shell in the Netherlands. He than joined the CNRS in France with a first appointment at the Ecole Polytechnique in Palaiseau where he was also a lecturer and a second appointment at the Earth Sciences Department of the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris. He is currently a senior specialist in mechanics and geology with Total SA. 

Euripides Papamichos

Euripides Papamichos is Professor of Mechanics at the Civil Engineering Department of the Aristotle Univ of Thessaloniki, Greece and a Senior Scientist at SINTEF Petroleum Research, Trondheim, Norway. He holds an integrated BSc and MSc Degree in Mining and Metallurgical Engineering from the National Technical Univ of Athens, Greece, and MSc and PhD in Civil Engineering from the University of Minnesota. Previously he worked as a Research Scientist for Elf Aquitaine Production in Pau, France and a Research Associate at the University of Colorado at Boulder. He has performed original research in a variety of petroleum-related geomechanical problems such as sand production in single and multiphase flow, reservoir compaction and subsidence, reservoir geomechanics, and core damage. He is author of over 150 scientific publications and four books with more than 1500 citations. He is the main developer of SandPredictor, a software tool for the calculation of the sand rate and mass during hydrocarbon production. He hasbeen Project Manager in more than 30 projects supported by various government agencies and the petroleum industry.

Panos Papanastasiou

Panos Papanastasiou is Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering of the University of Cyprus. Among else, he served as the founding Head of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (2002-2008), Dean of the Engineering School (2009-2014) and director of the Master in Petroleum Engineering Program. He obtained his first degree in Civil Engineering from the NTU of Athens in 1984 and his M.Sc in 1986 and Ph.D in 1990 from the University of Minnesota.

He worked more than 15 years in the Oil & Gas industry in the Research Center of Schlumberger in Cambridge, England from 1991 to 2002 and as consultant to Schlumberger in U.K. and Russia from 2002-2007. He was Advisor to the Government of Cyprus on hydrocarbon exploration, development and gas monetization options from 2011-2017 and he is a member of the board of directors of Cyprus Hydrocarbon Company. 

His expertise and scientific contributions are in the areas of Applied and Computational Mechanics with applications in Petroleum Geomechanics which include wellbore stability, hydraulic fracturing, sanding prediction and control, reservoir Geomechanics and CO₂ geological storage. He has published more than 160 articles in scientific journals, conference proceedings, book chapters, edited books and he invented 3 patents in the oilfield. He is editorial advisor in international scientific journals on geomechanics and petroleum engineering.

Arne M. Raaen

Arne Marius Raaen has a Ph.D. in solid state physics/NMR from 1983. He has after that worked mainly with rock acoustics and rock mechanics, including 25 years at various positions in  Statoil. He is presently with SINTEF in Trondheim, Norway. He is a co-author of the textbook Petroleum Related Rock Mechanics (1^st ed. 1992, 2^nd ed. 2008).

Patrick Rasolofosaon

Patrick Rasolofosaon holds a Doctorat d'Etat ès Sciences (access to Professorship) from Université Denis Diderot (Paris) in 1987 and a PhD from École des Mines de Paris in 1983. He is a research geoscientist at IFP Energies nouvelles (France) since 1985. He was a professor of Seismics and Acoustics both at Sorbonne Universités (Paris VI) and at the Université Denis Diderot. He is a professor of Rock Physics and Poro-Acoustics at the IFP School, and a professor of Rock Mechanics & Acoustics at CentraleSupelec. He is an Associate Editor of Geophysical Prospecting, and is a member of both EAGE and SEG. His research interests are rock physics, general acoustics, nonlinear acoustics in geomaterials, seismic anisotropy (from the laboratory to the field), poromechanics, seismic interferometry and physical modeling.

Selected references

Selected book ‘Petroacoustics – A tool for Applied Seismics’ free download

Selected e-lecture ‘Seismic anisotropy in Shaly formations… Revisited’ Video