Non-Executive Independent Director
Charles has over 40 years of experience in the oil and gas industry and is an accomplished petroleum engineer with strong technical knowledge in operations, field development, and reservoir engineering. He has been an advisor on commercial operations and technologies for independent and major oil companies and an executive responsible for major acquisition programs, financing, and corporate structuring. For the past ten years, Dr. Kohlhaas has been a consultant to new and re-organizing oil and gas companies and financial organizations for strategic planning; financial management; exploration programs; production and reservoir engineering; evaluations and acquisitions; shale gas reservoirs; and international contract negotiations. His most recent technical experiences have been in developing and producing natural gas and crude oil in the Barnett, Niobrara, Cody, and Bakken shale formations. He has advised companies including Chevron, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, Forest, Hamilton Bros., Marathon, Occidental, Pertamina, Royal Dutch Shell, Schlumberger, TOTAL and Tenneco on complex production projects in California, Canada, Texas, Rocky Mountains, North Sea, South America, Middle East and Indonesia. Charles is a leading authority on the development and exploitation of shale-based hydrocarbons as well as onshore and offshore heavy oil resources. He began his career in South Texas and New Mexico for Mobil Oil Corporation as an Area Engineer responsible for reservoir engineering during active development, unitization, and operation of many fields now associated with the Eagle Ford Shale region. Thereafter, he worked for ARCO extensively in California, Texas and Indonesia on reservoir engineering; management and technical trouble-shooting, well completions, reservoir engineering, secondary recovery, sand control, well testing, and stimulation design. He went on, as a Professor of Petroleum Engineering at the Colorado School of Mines, to direct research projects for many oil and gas and service and equipment companies with worldwide operations including heavy oil and tar sand development and production in Indonesia, Italy, Colombia, Argentina, and California, along with advances in hydraulic fracturing techniques in Texas, and Alaska. He also managed research consortia of up to 15 companies; developed commercially-used techniques for stimulation (Foam Fracturing), logging (Mechanical Properties Logs), and sand control (Resin-coated gravels). California was the location of several field trials and introduction of new logging and stimulation methods. Charles holds a Ph.D. in Geophysics and a BS in Petroleum Engineering from the Colorado School of Mines.