Well Integrity for Oil, Gas, and Subsurface Storage Operations

Ahmed Alsubaih is a seasoned petroleum engineer with over 17 years of international experience spanning drilling, workover, reservoir management, and production operations. He has led engineering and supervisory roles in major oilfields across the Middle East and North America, including projects with BP, ExxonMobil, Lukoil, and national oil companies. His expertise includes wellbore integrity, geomechanics, well construction optimization, and failure mitigation in conventional and unconventional reservoirs. His career reflects a strong commitment to operational safety, cost efficiency, and high-performance project delivery. Ahmed recently graduated with a PhD degree in Petroleum Engineering from The University of Texas at Austin, focusing on geomechanics and well integrity in energy transition systems, including CO² sequestration, underground hydrogen and methane storage, geothermal wells, and enhanced oil recovery operations. His research integrates field-driven challenges with advanced scientific modeling to improve long-term well performance and sealing integrity. Ahmed has published extensively in peer-reviewed journals and conferences and has taught petroleum engineering courses at the university level. He is also an active trainer and mentor, delivering technical workshops on drilling technologies, HSE compliance, and well integrity best practices. His work bridges the gap between theory and application, contributing to safer, more sustainable subsurface energy operations.

Kamy Sepehrnoori is a Hildebrand Department of Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering professor at The University of Texas at Austin, where he holds the Texaco Centennial Chair in Petroleum Engineering. He has graduated more than 250 MS and PhD students under his supervision. His research interests and teaching include computational methods, reservoir simulation, simulation of unconventional reservoirs, enhanced oil recovery modeling, flow assurance modeling, naturally fractured reservoirs, high-performance computing, and CO2 and hydrogen storage. He has published over 800 journal articles and conference proceedings in his research areas. He has also co-authored six books. Sepehrnoori is the director of the Reservoir Simulation Joint Industry Project at the Center for Subsurface Energy and the Environment. He won the Anthony F. Lucas Gold Medal from the American Institute of Mining in 2022, the Desiderius Erasmus Award from the European Association of Geoscientists and Engineers in 2023, and the Distinguished Alumni Award from the Hildebrand Department of Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering in 2023. He holds BS, MS, and Ph.D. degrees in Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, and Petroleum Engineering from The University of Texas at Austin.