Michael (Mike) D. Burnaman
ABOUT MIKE
NTE’s Vice President of Exploration and Development, Mike specializes in interpreting 2D and 3D seismic surveys, opportunity evaluation, prospect development, and integration of geoscience data for oil and gas exploration and production. Mike leads NexTier’s project development and has a proven track record of delivering high-yielding projects to his clients.
From mid-2008 through 2015, Mike was a partner in Harding Shelton Petroleum Engineering & Technology Beijing Limited (HSPET), a consulting firm which provided major Chinese onshore operating companies technology transfers for planning and operations in the first-ever development of wells in China drilled specifically for shale gas and tight oil resources. Rapidly becoming China’s leading expert in the opening up new exploitation areas, Mike led many crucial operations, including vertical and horizontal well drilling design, multi-stage hydraulic fracture design, onsite quality control, wellsite sample analysis, core analysis and interpretation, resource and reserves estimates, development strategies, and training.
Mike remains integrated in the Chinese oil and gas industry through his inclusion as the only non-Chinese judge in the annual All China Engineering Field Development Competition, which fields teams of petrochemical engineers from China’s leading universities which must find the most innovative solution to a hypothetical oil and gas industry problem.
In the mid-2000s, Mike led the geoscience technical analysis for the firm’s joint venture with ExxonMobil and its shale exploration in the Barnett Shale in 2005. Mike oversaw unconventional reservoir evaluation, log analysis, 3D seismic surveys, and applications of horizontal drilling and multi-stage hydraulic fracturing technologies. Mike and Steve bought ExxonMobil’s assets from the joint venture and ultimately sold them to Chesapeake Energy in 2008, yielding a strategic exit worth roughly $500 million.
Prior to the ExxonMobil joint venture, Mike was a technical expert for Mobil Oil Corporation, during which time he lived and worked in over 40 countries, including Indonesia for six years and Azerbaijan for two years. Mike and his team created new software tools and methodology for advanced geoscience interpretation, integrating multiple data sets for 3D reservoir description, conditional simulation statistical analysis for determining reservoir properties and depth conversion, and VoxelView, a 3D environment interpretation software.
A member of the Society of Exploration Geophysicists (SEG) since 1974, Mike has organized and chaired technical sessions at its annual conventions as well as the American Association of Petroleum Geologists and the Offshore Technology Conference. He holds leadership posts in the Indonesian Petroleum Association, Dallas Geophysical Society, and Azerbaijan Society of Petroleum Engineers. He has written countless papers on topics including seismic carbonate exploration, conditional simulation, seismic depth conversion, integration of hydraulic fracture mapping with 3D seismic data, and unconventional resource exploration and exploitation.
Mike earned a masters in Geophysics from the University of Houston and a bachelor’s in Geology, also from the University of Houston.
Most Memorable Job Experience
In the period 1984 to 1985, while living in Jakarta, Indonesia, I led a geoscience technical team that certified an additional 1.1 Tcf gas and 70 mm bbl of condensate by DeGolyer & McNaughton in Dallas for the Mobil Oil Indonesia (MOI) Arun gas field, located in North Sumatra, Indonesia, and discovered in 1971. This increase did not require drilling any additional wells! It was based on a new carbonate depositional concept different from the one that had been used for the initial D&M certification in the late 1970s.
The added 1.1 Tcf gas allowed construction of a sixth LNG liquefaction plant at the MOI industrial and seaport complex at LhokSeumawe in North Sumatra, near the Arun field. No one knew it at the time, but Arun was to become Mobil Corporation’s biggest profit center until it was finally depleted in 2014 (29 years later) after producing 14 Tcf and over 1 billion bbl of condensate and millions of tons of LNG.
In my five previous years at MOI, I had closely reviewed all the Arun field seismic, well logs, and maps that had been made by different geoscientists prior to and since the earlier certification. I also had many discussions with a reservoir engineer and log analyst, also working for MOI, who each had reservations about the pressure assumptions and core analysis used in the earlier certification. We banded together and informed our management of our suspicions and got ready for the avalanche.
There was much debate between local senior and New York senior Mobil management whether the risk was worth taking as the new interpretation could potentially LOWER the certified reserves and compromise the financing of the current five LNG liquefaction “trains” and harm our partner relationships, including lawsuits.
After many interesting discussions and heated technical reviews, the project was approved and funded with a “blank check.” It was completed in 18 months as my team of over 100 geoscience personnel worked on different phases of the project. Technical work was performed in Dallas, Singapore, and Jakarta. I traveled so much during this period that I experienced 13 months of jetlag, most of my Dallas trips had two-week durations, and it took about two weeks to re-acclimate to the 12/13 hour time difference back in Jakarta. There were many phone discussions in the early mornings in Jakarta. There were technical teams for reservoir engineering and lag analysis, but mine was the largest and most complicated.
The team got it done on schedule. I had several meetings with D&M in Dallas explaining what the differences were and why. Finally, the same D&M engineers that had worked on the previous certification agreed to the new concept and volumes.
I completed and submitted the voluminous final report in late September 1985, and four days later my family and I left for our new assignment in Lafayette, Louisiana, after six wonderful years in Indonesia, two years in Medan, North Sumatra, and four years in Jakarta, West Java.
It was over three years before any wells were drilled on the east flank of the Arun field where the new interpretation had over 200 ft net pay where none had existed previously. The result was 300 ft of gas saturated carbonate and the highest condensate content seen to date in the field. During those three years, I and others were under a dark cloud while awaiting the results, but that is another story.
