Dr. Brant Bennion
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Dr. Brant Bennion is Hycal’s Director of Porous Media Research. Dr. Bennion has close to thirty years of domestic and international expertise in the area of formation damage and fluid flow in porous media. He has authored or co-authored over 250 technical papers on a variety of subjects, including underbalanced drilling, fluid phase behavior, multi-phase flow in porous media, formation damage, carbon sequestration, heavy oil operations and enhanced oil recovery. Brant received his Bachelor of Science degree (B.Sc. with Distinction) and Ph. D. degrees in Chemical Engineering from the University of Calgary. He has served in various assignments in the petroleum industry and is currently Chairman of the editorial review board of the Journal of Canadian Petroleum Technology (JCPT). In the past Brant has served and a Director of the Petroleum Society of Canadian Institute of Metallurgy (CIM) in numerous portfolios, chairman of both the Calgary and Canadian National Petroleum Society, Chairman of CIM/SPE and CSPG technical conferences and served on numerous industry committees. Brant is a Distinguished Author for the Petroleum Society, a registered Professional Engineer and a member of the Association of Professional Engineers, Geologists and Geophysicists of Alberta (APEGGA) and the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE). Brant is the recipient of three best published papers in the JCPT awards from JCPT and numerous best presented technical paper awards at various conferences. Brant has served as a distinguished lecturer for both the SPE and the Petroleum Society, and has taught courses and made technical presentations in over sixty countries on six continents. Brant also teaches undergraduate and graduate level courses as an adjunct professor at the University of Calgary on the topics for formation damage, drilling and production engineering. |
| Dr. Brent Thomas 
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Dr. Thomas received his undergraduate (1981) and Master’s degrees (1983) from the University of Calgary and then received his Doctorate in Chemical Engineering from Washington University (St. Louis, Missouri) in 1987. Dr. Thomas is Hycal’s Director of Fluid Phase Behavior and EOR Research and has over twenty-five years of working experience in the area of gas injection (CO2, N2, hydrocarbons) injection, fluid phase behavior and modeling, solids precipitation, numerical simulation and chemical and thermal applications. He has authored or co-authored more than 100 technical papers and in 1992, received the Best Technical Paper of the Year Award from the Canadian Institute of Metallurgy (Experimental and Theoretical Studies of Solids Precipitation from Reservoir Fluids). In 1998, Dr. Thomas was selected as a Distinguished Author for the Petroleum Society of the Canadian Institute of Metallurgy (Gas Injection Screening Criteria). He was selected as a Distinguished Author for SPE International in 2003 and lectured during the 2003-2004 year on the theme of gas condensate reservoirs. Brent has presented courses and papers in over twenty-five countries. |
| Tony Ma 
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Tony is the General Manager at Hycal. He completed his B.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Calgary in 1984. He joined Core Laboratories in 1984 as a junior engineer and later joined Hycal Laboratories in 1997 as a project engineer. Tony has over twenty-two years of industry experience in the areas of multi-phase flow, formation damage, thermal operations and reservoir exploitation techniques on conventional and unconventional reservoirs. Tony is a registered member of APEGGA and SPE. |
| Mike Piwowar 
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Michael is a Project Engineer with Hycal Energy. He completed his
Bachelor of Science in Petroleum Engineering from the University of Alberta in 1995 and also graduated from Northern Alberta Institute of Technology
in 1990 with a diploma in Petrochemical Engineering Technology. Michael joined Hycal Energy in 2000 as a junior engineer in the Special Core Department
in the areas of mutiphase flow, formation damage, reservoir exploitation and thermal operations. Michael is a registered member of APEGGA. |
| Hugo Rojas 
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Hugo Rojas is a Project Engineer with Hycal Energy. He completed his Bachelor of Science in Petroleum Engineering from the Universidad Industrial de Santander, Bucaramanga, Colombia, in 1998. He has more than seven years of international experience in petroleum laboratory testing, PVT and reservoir fluid phase behavior and he has been working for Hycal for about two years in the area of EOR studies, phase behavior, special core analysis and formation damage. Currently Hugo is registered as an examinee member of the Association of Professional Engineers, Geologists and Geophysicists of Alberta (APEGGA) and a Member of the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE). |
| Ahmed Alshmakhy 
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Ahmed Alshmakhy is a project engineer at Hycal working in the area of rock properties, foamy oil, steam flooding and gas injection. He received his M.Sc. in Petroleum Engineering from the University of Calgary and B.Sc. with distinction in Mechanical Engineering from Al-Fateh University. He worked for several years as a well testing engineer with Schlumberger Overseas in UAE, Qatar and Libya. Ahmed has lectured at Al-Fateh University and the Petroleum Institute in Libya. He is a member of SPE and the Petroleum Society of CIM. |
| Babacar Seck 
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Babacar Seck has been a Project Engineer with Hycal Energy since September 2007, working in the areas of formation damage study, fluid phase behavior and EOR studies. He holds two Bachelors of Science (Physics and Chemistry - 1997) and the other in Chemical Engineering (2000) from UCAD, Senegal. A Master of Sciences in Chemical Engineering (2003) from Paul Sabatier University in Toulouse, France, and a Bachelor of Applied Petroleum Engineering from Southern Alberta Institute of Technology in Calgary, AB. Babacar previously worked for 1 year in the petroleum industry as a Process Engineer, and is a member of the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE). |
| Michael Otaru 
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Michael O. Otaru is a Project Engineer with Hycal Energy. He completed his Chemical Engineering undergraduate degree (with 1st Class Honors) from the University of Benin (UNIBEN), Benin City, Nigeria. He then obtained his Master of Applied Science Degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Waterloo (Ontario, Canada). Michael has over 5 years of international experience working with various oil and gas companies as a Reservoir Engineer, Process Engineer and Researcher. |
| Colin Thiessen 
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Colin is the Manager of Hycal’s Marketing Department. Colin received his Technical Petroleum Diploma from the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology and has over 20 years of domestic and international experience in the oil and gas industry. His credentials include managing Hycal’s Fluids/Phase Behavior Department for five years and he has fifteen years of extensive international experience involving both fluids and porous media type studies. Colin’s main responsibility as Marketing Manager is to oversee the coordination of domestic sales, which contain all facets of Hycal’s expertise. Colin chairs committees for both the SPE and CSPG.
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| Rick Bujnowicz 
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After achieving a B.Sc. in Chemistry from Concordia University (Montreal), Rick worked for a major water-conditioning firm as an analytical chemist and eventually an applications research chemist. During the next 15 years, Rick has worked for a large oil and gas laboratory services company in laboratory management, technical sales and international sales/services. For the past seven years Rick has worked on the Hycal team. Rick managed a joint venture that marketed/managed laboratory services for Hycal Energy Research Laboratories; and currently Rick is building up Hycal’s business interests in North Africa, The Middle East and The United States. Rick has published and presented papers for the Petroleum Society of the CIM, Libyan Technical conferences and Iranian technical conferences. |
| Mike Regan 
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Mike Regan is a Senior Technical Sales representative with Hycal and has almost 30 years of core analysis, special core and oilfield related experience. Mike has worked with Hycal for over fifteen years and also has prior experience with Continental Labs, Core Laboratories and Maxxam Analytics. The Earth Resources program at Northern Alberta Institute of Technology provided Mike with the necessary skills to begin his oil and gas career as a mud gas engineer working at various wellsite locations throughout Canada and the US. Mike’s wellsite experience combined with years of analytical testing has provided him with the opportunity to assist in the recovery and analysis of core from all areas of Canada as well as many international locations.
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| Carter Clarkson 
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Carter Clarkson is Hycal’s Laboratory Manager. Carter has over eighteen years of oil and gas industry experience, including working on drilling rigs, field operations, plant construction and well-site servicing. Carter has worked on the Hycal team for the past eleven years, initially as a Senior Technologist in Hycal’s SCAL and PVT laboratory. For the past five years Carter has been a valuable member of Hycal’s Domestic Sales team focusing on field sampling, special core analysis and reservoir fluid studies in the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin and various U.S and international locations. In 2007 Carter was promoted to Laboratory Manager.
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| Stan Swacha 
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Stan is the PVT lab supervisor, and has over 20 years of experience at Hycal Energy Research Laboratories. He is a graduate from the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology with a diploma in chemical technology. His responsibilities at Hycal include overseeing all PVT studies to ensure quality and efficiency as well as conducting PVT tests.
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| Trent Smith 
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Trent Smith is a Project Engineer with Hycal Energy. He completed his Chemical Engineering Technology Diploma from the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology in 1999. Trent has over seven years of oil and gas research experience. Trent currently holds the status of a Certified Engineer Technologist with the Alberta Society of Engineering Technologists. Trent’s current role at Hycal is to organize and oversee the progress and quality of assigned projects. Work with Laboratory Staff and Project Managers to achieve the goals and expectations of the clients.
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| Mike McSwiney 
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Mike is the Supervisor of Hycal’s Petrophysic and Routine Labs. Mike has over thirty years of domestic and international experience in the oil and gas industry, with twenty-eight of those years for a large oil and gas laboratory services company. Mike’s main responsibility as Supervisor of Hycal’s Petrophysic and Routine Labs is to oversee and coordinate the preparation of samples for special core analysis lab, electrical properties, capillary pressure, and wettability studies.
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| Will Gibb
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Will is the Machine Shop Supervisor, and he has been employed by Hycal for over twenty-three years. Will received his diploma for Journeyman Heavy Duty Mechanics from the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology and he is also obtaining his Journeyman Millwright diploma. Will assists in overseeing the tool room, building maintenance, and maintenance of laboratory equipment. Most of Hycal’s equipment and equipment that is being used in labs in Libya, Iran, China and the USA have been built by Will. Will is committed to building and designing better products with higher safety standards.
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| Charles Dong
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Charles Dong is the Research Engineer at Hycal’s R&D Group, and he obtained his B.Sc. degree from the Department of Electrical Engineering of the Northwestern Polytechnic University in China in 1983. He also obtained his M.A.Sc. on Automatic Machine Design (Department of Mechanical Engineering) from the University of British Columbia in 1994. Charles has over twenty years of R&D experience on cybernetics, image processing and software development. Since joining Hycal in 2005, Charles has developed the automated GOR system, dual-barrel pump systems and pulse-decay data acquisition system.
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| Yungfeng Hu
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Yunfeng is the Research Scientist at Hycal's R&D Group, and graduated from the Chemical Engineering Program at the University of Calgary in 1994. His main focus is on the advanced technology development, oil compositional analysis and trouble shooting for the Lab Operations. He has over twenty-five years of industry experience, thirteen of which are with Hycal. He has authored and co-authored a number of papers in the area of heavy oil recovery, reservoir fluid property measurements, field applications, well stimulations and natural polymer chemical modification.
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