Grant has over 38 years of leadership and development experience in the chemicals and oil & gas industries. 29 years with Shell included R&D and commercial roles. His final role was leader of Shell Chemicals technical and commercial development of EOR surfactants. More recently, he served as an Operating Partner and advisor for Ara Partners private equity funds working on investment technical due diligence, and advice to portfolio companies.  He has a background in chemical process and product development and business. He has a PhD in Chemical Engineering from UC Berkeley and an MBA from the University of Texas.

Watty has 40 years of domestic E&P onshore and offshore experience in a variety of engineering, operations and safety/environmental roles. Most recently he was Director of EHS for SM Energy, and prior to that had onshore and offshore production engineering roles with Newfield, BP, and Arco in the US. He is very familiar with field operations, and stimulation techniques. Watty has a BS degree in Petroleum Engr from Texas A&M University. Watty will serve as COO.

Isaiah is completing a PhD in Petroleum Engineering at Texas A&M University. For the past four years, Isaiah has focused his research on optimizing and deploying surfactant formulations for unconventional shale plays. His work incorporates laboratory testing, field evaluation, and reservoir modeling towards improving surfactant performance in EOR deployment. Isaiah has a MS in Petroleum Engineering from Texas A&M University and a BS in Petroleum Engineering and Geology from New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology.

Val has over 42 years of leadership experience in the oil and gas industry, including 30 with Shell in various reservoir engineering and operations leadership roles, ultimately leading Shell’s global technology and business development organization for enhanced and improved recovery methods.  He served as an Operating Partner with Bayou City Energy in private equity. Prior to that he was VP of CO2 Source & Transport at Kinder Morgan, where he led the world’s largest CO2 development and supply business for Permian CO2 EOR projects.  Val has a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering and an MBA from University of Texas.

Kirk Raney is a recognized technical expert on surfactants for a variety of applications including surfactants for EOR.  Kirk Raney was a lead researcher for over 30 years in Shell Chemicals surfactant business, and Shell Upstream R&D efforts to deploy EOR technologies. Most recently he has consulted for oilfield services and oilfield chemical companies. He has a Ph.D in Chemical Engineering from Rice University.

David is the Head of the Department of Petroleum Engineering at Louisiana State  University. David is one of the most active academics working in the area of wettability alteration and surfactant injection driven oil recovery in unconventional reservoirs. His research group focuses on geological and petrophysical analysis, wettability determination, surfactant driven imbibition experiments, numerical modeling, reservoir simulation, CO2 and miscible gas injection for EOR. Distinguished Member of SPE 2014. SPE IOR Pioneer Award 2026.   Ph.D. Physical Chemistry, University of Bristol, 1988, B.S. Chemical Engineering, University of Texas, 1984.