John Ely

President
B.S. Chemistry
Oklahoma State University

Mr. Ely started his career with Halliburton Co., in 1965, working as a technician for the Analytical group while completing his college work. He graduated from Oklahoma State University in 1968 with a B.S. in chemistry. On returning to Halliburton, Mr. Ely served as chemist and senior chemist in fracturing research before transferring to International Operations in 1973. While in fracturing research, he was instrumental in the development of several fracturing fluids, including high-temperature systems and nonaqueous energized systems. Ely's first assignment overseas was in south Iran as a district engineer. In 1975, he was promoted to technical adviser, Eastern Hemisphere, and transferred to Baharain. He traveled and worked in eleven Mideast countries in this position. In 1976, John transferred to Dubai, U.A.E. The following year, he was promoted to technical adviser, International Operations, and was based in Duncan, Oklahoma where his primary duty was to coordinate all phases of research with international field operations. Ely joined Nowsco Services in 1980 as Engineering Manager. His responsibilities included overseeing chemical and mechanical research and coordinating training for field engineers.

In 1985, John joined S.A. Holditch and Associates as Vice-President of Stimulation Technology. In addition to designing and supervising hundreds of stimulation treatments, he was involved in research on fracturing fluids under the auspices of the Gas Research Institute. Additionally, he served as an expert witness in areas involving completion and stimulation of oil and gas wells.

In May 1991, John with three partners founded Ely & Associates, Inc. This company is dedicated to providing a blend of practical and technical expertise on well completion, stimulation fluids and equipment, and reservoir analysis. John holds several patents and has numerous publications, including a book titled "Stimulation Treatment Handbook/ An Engineer's Guide to Quality Control". He is also a contributing author to the S.P.E. monograph on hydraulic fracturing, writing the chapter on hydraulic fracturing fluids and fracture fluid selection. He is a member of the American Chemical Society, The Society of Petroleum Engineers, and is a fellow of the American Institute of Chemistry.

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Steve Fowler

Petroleum Engineer
B.S. Mechanical Engineer
Texas A & M University

Mr. Fowler began his career at Exxon Company USA in 1980 as a Production Engineer for various East Texas and Texas Gulf Coast oil and gas fields. In this position, he was responsible for preparing completion, recompletion, stimulation and remedial workover procedures for both oil and deep, high pressure, tight gas fields. He provided consultation, support and interpretation services to field personnel during workover/completion rig operations. Steve lectured at Exxon's schools on Hydraulic Fracturing Stimulation Designs and Treatments. During this time, he also designed, implemented and evaluated acid stimulations, massive hydraulic fracture stimulations and gravel pack installations.

In January 1993, Steve joined Ely and Associates, Inc. as a Petroleum Engineer. He is responsible for fracture stimulation designs, field supervision and Quality Control on numerous types of wells. He has been responsible for fracture stimulation design and implementation on numerous wells in West Texas, East Texas, South Texas, New Mexico, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Colorado, and Wyoming. He has also designed and supervised hydraulic fracture and acid treatments for horizontal wells in the North Sea and frac pack and gravel pack operations in the Gulf of Mexico. His diverse background in well completion and acid and hydraulic fracture stimulation makes him a much-valued asset to Ely and Associates, Inc. He is a registered Professional Engineer and a member in good standing of the Society of Petroleum Engineers.

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Ray Herndon

Consulting Engineer
B.S. Electrical Engineering
The University of Texas at Austin

Ray Herndon began his career with Halliburton Services in the summer of 1980 as a Fracturing Equipment Operator, working in Luling, Texas. After returning to school for his final year and graduating from the University of Texas at Austin in 1981, Ray returned to Halliburton in Luling and completed all phases of the Engineer-In-Training program. This program included cement and chemical bulk plant operations, cementing, stimulation, downhole tools and engineering training schools in Duncan, Oklahoma. After completing the EIT program, Ray was promoted to Field Engineer and remained in Luling designing and supervising stimulation and cementing projects.

In 1983, Ray joined Nowsco Services and worked as Field Engineer in Farmington, New Mexico. There, he designed and supervised acid, fracturing and nitrogen stimulation treatments in wells throughout the Four Corners area. Ray's responsibilities also included sales and sales support and operation of the district lab for testing produced well fluids and stimulation fluid compatibilities. In late 1984, Ray was transferred to Abilene, Texas and promoted to District Engineer where he was responsible for all technical functions including design, supervision, sales and sales support of all acid, fracturing, nitrogen and coiled tubing services. Ray upgraded the district lab and wrote software for performing complete API water analyses of produced water. He also developed a database of produced fluids from hundreds of wells for identification of the numerous formations in his area. Additionally, Ray was responsible for overseeing the training program of new engineers.

After the demise of Nowsco Services and the general downturn in the oilfield in 1986, Ray left the oilfield and utilized his electrical engineering degree working for four years as a designer of electrical, electronic, microprocessor and computer controls for printing press accessories. Ray returned to the oilfield in early 1991, joining Nowcam Services in the surface equipment engineering group and helped to design and build the hydraulics, electronic computer monitoring and general deck plan for Nowcam's stimulation/coiled tubing spud boat, the MV Mr. Tausch, for Nigerian operations. After completing the Mr. Tausch, Ray moved to Nigeria to put the boat into operation and to become the resident Stimulation Engineer for Nowcam's Shell contract. As Stimulation Engineer, Ray worked closely with the Shell engineers in selecting candidates, designing treatments and evaluating results of thru-tubing acid stimulation on wells in the Warri and Port Harcourt areas.

Ray returned to work in Houston for Nowcam Services, later renamed Camco Coiled Tubing Services, in September of 1993. Ray worked on numerous projects including development of stimulation monitoring software and hardware; design, development and operations of Camco's coiled tubing directional drilling tool; and pipeline pigging and testing systems. Ray also supported sales in technical aspects of coiled tubing operations and thru-tubing stimulation processes.

Since joining Ely and Associates, Inc. in December of 1998, Ray has performed supervision, design and quality control on numerous projects domestically in Texas, Colorado, Oklahoma, Louisiana and the Gulf of Mexico and internationally in India, China and Venezuela. Ray also works on capillary tubing designs for fluid lifting, salting, corrosion and paraffin control. Ray is a current and long time member of the Society of Petroleum Engineers.


Hack Kirkpatrick

Consultant
B.S. Mechanical Engineering
University of South Carolina

Mr. Kirkpatrick graduated from the University of South Carolina in 1963 with a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering. After serving six years in the U.S. Air Force, his first assignment with Halliburton was in Wichita Falls as a Field Engineer in 1971, primarily responsible for fracture and acid stimulation. In 1973, he was promoted to District Engineer with a transfer to Northern California and was involved with cementing design and supervision for geothermal wells. Hack's first international assignment was in Abu Dhabi, UAE, in 1976, as a District Engineer and was involved with land and offshore stimulation treatments. He was promoted to Assistant Division Engineer in 1978 with an assignment to Iran and on to Saudi Arabia in 1979. He was promoted to District Manager in 1980 with a transfer to Kuwait, then Dubai, UAE, in 1981 and then to Ventura, California in 1986. Responsibilities in Dubai included land acid-fracture treatments and stimulation vessel treatments offshore. He was transferred to Bakersfield in 1990 and was assigned to coordinate international operations on the West Coast for all Halliburton services. Hack joined Secorp Industries, H2S safety services in 1995 and was in Doha, Qatar, for six months coordinating services and equipment for a major western oil company client.

Hack joined Ely & Associates in February, 1997. He was assigned to assist BP in their stimulation efforts in Columbia for over 2 years and is involved in the quality control, execution and designs of stimulation treatments. He has 33 years experience in the petroleum industry, consisting of 20 years domestic and 13 years foreign.


Michael McCoy

Technical Specialist
B.S. Petroleum Engineering
Texas A & M University

Michael McCoy is a technical specialist with over 20 years of diversified engineering experience both domestically and internationally. Michael's areas of specialization include well performance evaluation and completion design, along with stimulation design and quality control supervision. His varied experience includes appraisal and exploration well design and analysis, completion design of vertical and horizontal production and injection wells, downhole tool design, coiled tubing operations, artificial lift design and expert witness testimony.

After graduating from Texas A&M University in 1983, Michael began his career at Getty Oil Company as a Production Engineer in Kilgore, Texas. Michael was responsible for well completion and performance evaluations for wells in East Texas and Northern Louisiana.

In 1990, Michael joined Phillips Petroleum as a Senior Reservoir Engineer, where he was responsible for wells in the Texas and Oklahoma Panhandles. While at Phillips, Michael performed well performance evaluations, economic evaluations, and new completion designs. He was also an integral part of a company-wide task force to improve well completions and to specifically improve hydraulic fracturing operations. Additionally, Michael lectured at Phillip's in-house schools on candidate selection, fracturing operations, and quality control of stimulation fluids.

In 1993, Michael joined Maersk Oil & Gas in Copenhagen, Denmark as a Well Technologist. Michael designed and supervised sand propped hydraulic fracturing treatments and acid treatments on long multi-zone horizontal wells in the North Sea. Michael also prepared various studies including produced water re-injection, extended reach coil tubing operations, under balanced coiled tubing drilling from offshore platforms, downhole corrosion studies, rock mechanics, and proppant flowback studies.

In 1996, Michael worked with Maersk Oil in Doha, Qatar as a Senior Production Engineer involved with the development of the offshore Al Shaheen Field in the Arabian Gulf. Michael evaluated well performance on long horizontal injection and production wells in addition to designing, supervising, and evaluating appraisal well completions and testing. Michael also designed acid fluid systems and supervised stimulation operations offshore in the Arabian Gulf.

Since 2002, Michael has consulted primarily on well completion activities and well performance for operations in the Danish and British sectors of the North Sea. This work also included well design and well integrity studies dealing with sustained annulus pressure on offshore wells.

Michael has been associated with Ely & Associates since 2003. Michael's broad petroleum engineering experience, both domestically and internationally, strengthens Ely & Associates' capabilities in well performance analysis and further compliments Ely's industry leading position in stimulation design and intense quality control.

Michael is a registered professional engineer in the state of Texas. He has been an active member of the SPE and has held all offices of the local section, including serving as Chairman of the Panhandle Section of the SPE. Michael has also worked on several SPE committees including the Reservoir Engineering Committee and the Gas Technology Committee.

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Dan Ryan

Technical Consultant
B.S. Chemistry
Texas A & M University

Upon graduation from Texas A&M, Mr. Ryan began his career as an engineer trainee with the Dowell Division of Dow Chemical (now Schlumberger/Dowell) in 1978 at Victoria, Texas. After training on all types of stimulation and cementing equipment for six months he was transferred to the research facility in Tulsa, Oklahoma for technical training. The third phase of his technical training took place in Farmington, New Mexico where he supervised fracturing, acidizing and cementing operations for nine months. After this period he broke out as a District Engineer in Mission, Texas where he handled all phases of Dowell's technical representation in the area including job design and implementation.

In 1981 he transferred to San Antonio, Texas as a City Salesman where he worked until 1982. At that time he went to work for American Fracmaster as a District Engineer in El Reno, Oklahoma. This position exposed him to a great deal of CO2 foam/assist frac treatments in western Ok.

When Fracmaster closed their US operations in 1984 he went to work for BJ Hughes (now BJ Services) in Bryan, Texas as a District Engineer. He handled the technical functions of the Bryan district, which included both conventional and high rate waterfracs as well as cementing, and acidizing services. He transferred to BJ's Technical Center in Tomball, Texas in 1986 as a Senior Chemist in the Stimulation Technical Services group. Work included coreflow testing, water/solids/hydrocarbon analysis, and other tests for day-to-day problem solving and treatment recommendations for field generated samples from all over the world.

In 1988 he transferred to BJ's Houston sales office as a Region Engineer where he worked on domestic stimulation, acidizing and cementing projects. In 1992 he transferred into the international sales group where he handled the sales effort for US based customers in the international arena. This included a rotational assignment as engineer on BJ's North Sea stimulation vessel, the Vestfonn.

He was promoted to Alliance Coordinator in 1995 where he supervised BJ's in-house engineers and also handled engineering functions for several key accounts including major and independent oil companies.

Mr. Ryan joined Ely and Associates in 2002 as a technical consultant using his broad background, rich in operational and technical experience, in fracturing, acidizing, cementing and coiled tubing applications.


Dennis Strickland

B.S. Mechanical Engineering
University of Oklahoma

Mr. Strickland began his career at The Western Company of North America in June 1974. He served as a service supervisor, district engineer, sales representative and operations manager. In these positions he has worked in Oklahoma, West Texas, South Texas and East Texas where his responsibilities ranged from direct field supervision to design and quality control of treatments. In 1979 he was selected to work as a supervisor with The Western Companies new high-pressure intensifier program.

In February 1983 he went to work for Nowsco Services as a Regional Engineer in Oklahoma City, OK. He was involved in the design and quality control of treatments in Oklahoma and Western Arkansas until he transferred to Nowsco's Houston Engineering staff. While working directly for Mr. John Ely he was involved in quality control of treatments in Farmington New Mexico, South Texas, West Texas and East Texas. He functioned as a liaison between Nowsco's district engineers and their research department as well as taught schools on hydraulic fracturing and energized fluids.

In September 2000 he joined Ely and Associates, Inc. He is responsible for design, execution and quality control of stimulation treatments. His experience has been in both onshore and offshore operations.


Robert Tiner

Technical Consultant
PH.D. Chemistry
University of Oklahoma
B.S. Chemistry/Math
Southeastern Oklahoma State University

Dr. Tiner began his career at Halliburton in the summer of 1964 as a technician at the Research Center in Duncan, Oklahoma. He graduated with a B.S. in Chemistry from Southeastern Oklahoma State University in 1965. He continued to work at Halliburton during the summers while attending graduate school. During this time, he developed the production increase curves for hydraulic fracturing still being used by Halliburton and others. In 1971, Bob graduated from the University of Oklahoma with a Ph. D. in Chemistry and he went to work full-time at Halliburton. As a Senior Development Chemist, he worked in the research of new materials for fracturing fluids. He was involved in the development of several aqueous and nonaqueous fracturing fluids and other additives. In 1973, Bob was promoted to manager over this research group where he not only directed the research efforts, but was also heavily involved in technology transfer of new products and processes, making fracturing treatments throughout the oilfield and coordinating with producing company laboratories.

In May, 1975, Bob transferred to Operations in Midland, Texas where he served as a Technical Advisor, specializing in stimulation. He was promoted to District Manager in 1976 at Brownfield, Texas and to Division Engineer in Dallas in 1979. In this capacity, he was heavily involved in the massive fracturing treatments in East Texas, and their introduction into West Texas. He was also responsible for recruiting, hiring and training engineers for the division.

In 1982, Bob was promoted to Assistant Division Manager in Dallas, and in 1984, was transferred to California in this capacity. 1985 found him as Division Manager of the Industrial Services Division where he was involved in environmental site remediation activities. In 1988, he returned to Halliburton Services Research and Engineering as Vice President where he supervised 650 employees in areas such as stimulation, cementing, sand control, water control, environmental and special tools. In 1992, Bob was assigned the added responsibility of coordinating research activities between the various Halliburton Energy Group companies and their research centers, covering such areas as seismic, logging, directional drilling, completion products, and software development. He served as leader of the Technology and Manufacturing team responsible for bringing these efforts from the nine separate companies into one for Halliburton Energy Services. At the completion of this effort in July, 1993, Bob was named Vice President of Technology for the new company. The technology group at that time consisted of over 1850 employees.

In August of 1994, Bob joined Ely and Associates specializing as a consultant in the design, Quality Control, evaluation, and execution of stimulation treatments.

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Brad Wolters

Petroleum Engineer
B.S. Civil Engineering
Texas A & M University

After graduation in 1982, Mr. Wolters joined Fesco, Inc., as a district engineer. In this position, he was responsible for all aspects of production well testing and well test design, including the supervision of five other engineers. Additionally, Brad was responsible for start-up of Fesco's reservoir engineering department with a strong emphasis on Pressure Transient Test Analysis.

In July 1988, Brad joined S. A. Holditch & Associates, where he became involved in all aspects of production and reservoir engineering, including hydraulic fracture stimulation design, field supervision and quality control, well test design and supervision, pressure transient test design and analysis, reserve evaluation, reservoir stimulation, and formation evaluation. Projects included extensive work on tight gas sands studies sponsored by Gas Research Institute in the East Texas Travis Peak and Cotton Valley formations. This work has included formation evaluation, reserves and performance evaluation, stress testing, and hydraulic fracture treatment design and supervision. Other tight gas sands projects have been performed in the South Texas Wilcox and the Wyoming Frontier formations. He has provided field supervision and quality control on numerous fracture treatments in New Mexico, Alabama, Colorado, Mississippi, Utah, Texas, Oklahoma, and Louisiana.

In May 1991, Brad became one of the original partners in the forming of Ely & Associates, Inc. Brad has coauthored SPE papers on stimulation and quality control of fracture treatments and is a member of the Society of Petroleum Engineers.




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