Sinclair Petroleum Engineering, Inc.

John Sinclair has over 25 years experience as an engineer working a wide range of projects. He was introduced to oil and gas in 1979 during college summer breaks working on a marine seismic crew in the Gulf of Mexico. Following graduation with BS and MS degrees in Petroleum Engineering from Louisiana Tech (1982) and Texas A&M (1984), he was hired by Mobil as an operations engineer in Ada, Oklahoma for a variety of mid-continent properties including a large waterflood, gas, and stripper oil production. These early years involved preparation of downhole procedures, completions, wellsite supervision, production optimizations, and field operations. In addition, he wrote a production database program and designed and analyzed pressure transient tests for a field study.

In 1988, John began working as a reservoir engineer in the Mobil Denver office assigned to California Sacramento Valley gas and LA Basin waterfloods. Subsequently, he was assigned to Alaska North Slope and Cook Inlet properties where he was involved in JV operations and long-term planning projects. He created a complex cash flow program for Prudhoe Bay to quickly evaluate proposed expansion projects by the operators, assessed reserves on a 3 TCF property, and was instrumental in the identification of 13 MMBO of reserves on a Cook Inlet property that led to a successful drilling program. During a North Slope trip to tour facilities, a side trip to Alyeska pump station one led to an interest with pipeline operations and behavior of engineering materials. As a consequence of that experience, John became a well-versed student on the construction and operation of the Alyeska Pipeline.

In 1990, John transferred to the Mobil office in Bakersfield where he was assigned team leader of a heavy oil development project. He performed reservoir simulation studies in addition to typical duties, i.e., capital budgets, LOE reduction, ad valorem taxes, etc. During a restructuring in 1992, John took a volunteer exit package and returned to graduate school to pursue his interest in material behavior. With a DOE fellowship at Oak Ridge National Labs, these years taught him the importance of experimental methods. In 1999, he earned a PhD in mechanical engineering from Texas A&M. The previous year, he was recruited by KCS Energy for a technical team leader position in their Wyoming office, and subsequently became production superintendent of their Rocky Mountain operations.

In 2001, John formed Sinclair Petroleum Engineering to provide professional services to the oil and gas industry. Since then he has developed expertise with tight gas, coal-bed methane, and shale gas. He is a registered professional engineer in Wyoming, Colorado, Montana, and Utah.