Biography

Roberto Fainstein, Ph.D. Geophysics Advisor & SEG Emeritus Professional Biography: Roberto Fainstein, Ph.D., Rice University 1979, is a Geophysics and Geology Advisor with more than 45years experience with the International Oil Industry, mainly with Petrobras S.A., Atlantic Richfield International and Schlumberger. His career in Petrobras comprised resistivity and seismic exploration in the Brazilian jungles (five years) and several years at sea during the very beginning of offshore exploration. He was Chief Geophysicist of the REMAC Project the first comprehensive survey of the entire Brazilian Continental Margin (1972-1975). At that time, through his work at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution he published the first suite of magnetic maps for all basins offshore Brazil and a series of multi-measurement integration papers on the Equatorial Atlantic Margin and Eastern Brazil Continental Margins. Upon return to Brazil in 1999 he was responsible for the design and implementation of the highly praised 2D/3D Brazil 99/2000 multiclient regional seismic programs that led to the significant discoveries in deepwater offshore Brazil, both in the post-salt and in the pre-salt sequences. Prior to this return program in Brazil he had contributed many oil and gas discoveries in Southeast Asia while with Atlantic Richfield International Oil & Gas Company these in Northwest Java along the Thousand Islands trend and in the East Java Sea, particularly the finding and development of Pagerungan Gas Field, the largest domestic gas provider of Indonesia. Afterwards moving to Schlumberger (Geco-Prakla) he designed and implemented the still very marketable Southeast Asia multi-client portfolio of WesternGeco that led to significant discoveries in the Natuna Sea and Makassar Strait in the Sunda Shelf, and with wildcat discoveries in Arafura Sea and offshore Irian Jaya in the eastern Archipelago deepwater, contributed also with the very first deep-water seismic papers and co-authored the “Seismic Atlas off Southeast Asia and Australia”. In 2002 in the now highly praised interview “Sub-Salt Could be Sweet” that was published by Petroleum Economist he accurately predicted, five years in advance the deep-water Tupi discovery that led to the chain of pre-salt eventful discoveries in the Santos and Campos Basin. This major achievement was based upon his regional deepwater mapping assessment of the Brazil 99/2000 program. His pioneering studies linking the post-salt and pre-salt plays of West Africa and Brazil are described in a number of papers, both in the Equatorial margin basins without salt and in the Atlantic Margin Salt basins proper. From 2007 to 2011 he worked in India having received a ‘Business Innovator Award” for his E & P on the “De-Risking of Deepwater Andaman Sea” and published extensively in sub-basalt areas offshore India and worldwide. Moving to Saudi Arabia he coordinated the UniQ Project a broadband, high-resolution, multi-azimuth, forefront project in rock physics and on seismic inversion in extensions of Ghawar Field (world’s largest oil field) delineating conventional and un-conventional reservoirs. Worked also with the uncovering of the pre-salt sequences of Red Sea. More recently back in India was involved in projects in the East Coast with modern broadband technology. In Academia, he was formerly oceanography and ocean engineering faculty at Florida Institute of Technology, taught Mathematics (Fourier Transforms & Seismic Technology) at Cape Canaveral for Martin-Marietta, and still teaches seismic interpretation courses to oil companies over the entire world (South and North America, Europe, Africa, Siberia, Australia) in association with NExT (Network of Excellence in Training); also taught geophysics at the Institut Teknologi Bandung in Indonesia for five years and taught a highly attended course in Structural Seismic Interpretation and Seismic Stratigraphy at the State University of Rio de Janeiro (UERJ) these courses from 1999 to 2007. Recently, his short-course in “Deepwater Interpretation of Margin Basins” is widely sought by the oil industry.

Research Interest

Seismic exploration, Off shore surveys, Deepwater Reservoirs, Salt Tectonics, Seismic Interpretation of 2D Regional and 3D Prospect and Field Development, Regional Geology, Oil & Gas Risk Economics