NOCs - Houston Conference

At the Baker Institute conference on "The Changing Role of National Oil Companies (NOCs) in International Energy Markets," government leaders as well as industry and academic specialists will address the changing strategies of the national oil companies and their impact on both their sponsoring societies and the global energy scene.

We will present our major Baker Institute study investigating the long-term geopolitical and economic implications of the growing influence of national oil companies on global energy markets. This special event is designed to give study researchers and authors the opportunity to hear the views of senior industry leaders on the role of the national oil company and to provide input and feedback on the study before it is finalized as a book volume.

The Baker Institute study on national oil companies focuses on the changing strategies and behavior of NOCs and the impact NOC activities will have on the future supply, security, and pricing of oil. The goals, strategies, and behaviors of national oil companies have changed over time and understanding this transformation is important to understanding the future organization and operation of the international energy industry.

Moderator: Amy Myers Jaffe, Wallace S. Wilson Fellow for Energy Studies, James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy, Rice University

Moderator: Kenneth B. Medlock III, Energy Research Fellow, James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy, Rice University

Moderator: Amy Myers Jaffe, Wallace S. Wilson Fellow for Energy Studies, James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy, Rice University

Moderator: Kenneth B. Medlock III, Energy Research Fellow, James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy, Rice University

Ariel I. Ahram
Graduate Fellow for the Center for Democracy and Civil Society
Georgetown University
Ariel I. Ahram is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Government and a graduate fellow at the Center for Democracy and Civil Society at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. He holds an MA from Georgetown and a BA from Brandeis University and is the recipient of Foreign Language Area Studies and the David Boren National Security Education Program fellowships. His writing has appeared in Middle East Quarterly, Middle East Review of International Affairs, Orbis, and Georgetown Journal of International Affairs.

Bader Al-Khashti
Chairman and Managing Director
Kuwait Foreign Petroleum Exploration Company
Bader Al-Khashti is the chairman and managing director of Kuwait Foreign Petroleum Exploration Company (KUFPEC), situated in Kuwait. Mr. Al-Khashti joined KUFPEC in November, 2001, and before working there, he was with Kuwait Oil Company (KOC) as an executive assistant to the managing director of operations responsible for all Kuwait oil production and field maintenance. Mr. Al-Khashti graduated with a degree in Mechanical Engineering in 1977. He was a member of the Kuwaiti team that participated in rebuilding the oil sector after the liberation of Kuwait in 1991; he was responsible for the explosive ordinance device (EOD) clearance in Kuwait, and he founded the Kuwait fire fighting team to address well fires.

Nelson Altamirano
Visiting Scholar at the Center for Iberian and Latin American Studies
University of California, San Diego
Nelson Altamirano is currently a visiting scholar at the Center for Iberian and Latin American Studies at the University of California at San Diego (UCSD) and adjunct faculty of Economics and International Finance at the Graduate Business School of National University in San Diego, California. Dr. Altamirano has taught economics and managerial economics in universities in Peru and Colombia and has been a visiting professor at Tsukuba University in Japan, where he taught Latin American Political Economy courses and coordinated the Latin American Studies Program. He has also been a consultant and researcher at the Peruvian Central Bank, Instituto de Estudios Peruanos, Instituto Cuánto, and the Natural Resource Division of ECLAC on mining, development and energy issues. He has published works regarding mining environmental problems in Bolivia and energy policies in Brazil and Bolivia, and currently focuses his research on oil and gas industries in South America. Dr. Altamirano received his PhD in International Economic Policy and Management from UCSD, where he wrote his thesis on mining, natural resources, the Chilean copper mining industry and copper market strategies.

David Asmus
Senior Partner, Baker Botts L.L.P.
David Asmus is a senior partner at Baker Botts L.L.P. He is in charge of the firm's global oil and gas practice. His practice focuses on oil and gas development projects, acquisitions and divestitures, and energy-based financings. Mr. Asmus' experience with the structuring, documentation, and negotiation of oil and gas transactions ranges from host government arrangements, farm-ins, and acquisitions to shareholder agreements, operating agreements, and unitizations, to EPC, production handling, transportation, and sales contracts and financing arrangements. In addition to serving as president, secretary, and a member of the board of directors of the Association of International Petroleum Negotiators, Mr. Asmus co-chairs the committee that is presently preparing the AIPN Model Form International Unitization and Unit Operating Agreement. Mr. Asmus received Chambers USA's 2006 "Award for Excellence" for his work in the oil and gas sector and was named International Lawyer of the Year 2005 for Oil and Gas by The International Who's Who of Business Lawyers. Mr. Asmus received his JD from Harvard Law School and a BS degree in geology and geophysics from Yale University. Before becoming a lawyer, Mr. Asmus worked as a geophysicist.

Joe Barnes
Fellow, James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy
Joe Barnes has been a research fellow at the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy since 1995. Mr. Barnes is the Bonner Means Baker Fellow at the Institute, and his chief area of interest is international economics with a focus on the geopolitics of energy. In addition to numerous Institute studies, Mr. Barnes’ work has also appeared in the New York Times, the Houston Chronicle, Survival, Z Magazine, Oil and Gas Journal, Energy Markets, the Newsletter of the Royal United Services Institute, the SAIS Policy Forum Series, and the National Interest. He is a contributor to two volumes, Energy in the Caspian Region published by Palgrave Press and United States Tax Reform in the 21st Century published by Cambridge University Press. His work was recently published in Natural Gas and Geopolitics from 1970 to 2040 (Cambridge University Press, 2006). Mr. Barnes is advisor to the Baker Institute Student Forum. From 1979 to 1993, he was a career diplomat with the United States State Department. Mr. Barnes is a graduate of Princeton University.

Daniel Brumberg
Associate Professor of Government, Georgetown University
Daniel Brumberg is an associate professor in the Department of Government and Georgetown University and also serves as a special adviser for the USIP’s Muslim World Initiative in the Center for Conflict Analysis and Prevention. A scholar of politics and social change in the Middle East and wider Islamic world, he is author of Reinventing Khomeini: The Struggle for Reform in Iran (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), and c-editor with Larry Diamond and Marc Plattner ofIslam and Political Change in the Middle East (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004). Dr. Brumberg has taught at the Graduate School of Business of the University of Chicago and Sciences Po in Paris and has also served as a senior fellow in the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He has conducted research in Algeria, Morocco, Kuwait, Egypt and Indonesia, and speaks Arabic, French and Hebrew. Dr. Brumberg received his BA from the University of Indiana and his PhD from the University of Chicago.

Matthew E. Chen
Energy Research Assistant, James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy
Matthew E. Chen is the energy research assistant at the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy. As an undergraduate, he interned twice at the U.S. Department of State and once at the Department of Justice. Mr. Chen’s first article, “Chinese National Oil Companies and Human Rights," was published in the winter 2007 edition of Orbis: A Journal of World Affairs. After studying abroad at the University of London, he received his BA cum laude from Rice University in 2004, specializing in U.S., East Asian, and European history. With one of Rice University’s Wagoner Foreign Studies Scholarships, Mr. Chen studied international relations at the Australian National University, earning a Master of International Affairs (Distinction) with a concentration in global security.

Ambassador Edward P. Djerejian
Founding Director, James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy
Edward P. Djerejian is the founding director of the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy. He served both President George H.W. Bush and President William J. Clinton as Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs and Presidents Reagan and Bush as U.S. Ambassador to Syria. He served President Clinton as U.S. Ambassador to Israel before completing his foreign service career in 1994. He also served President Reagan as Special Assistant and Deputy Press Secretary for Foreign Affairs. He has been awarded the Presidential Distinguished Service Award, the Department of State’s Distinguished Honor Award, and numerous other honors including the Ellis Island Medal of Honor and the Anti-Defamation League’s Moral Statesman Award.

Sumit Ganguly
Rabindranath Tagore Professor of Indian Cultures and Civilizations
Indiana University, Bloomington
Sumit Ganguly is the Rabindranath Tagore Professor of Indian Cultures and Civilizations and a professor of Political Science at Indiana University, Bloomington. Dr. Ganguly’s research and writing interests are focused on South Asia. He has published extensively in the areas of ethnic conflict, inter-state war and defense, and security policy. His most recent work, published by Columbia University Press and Oxford University Press (New Delhi), is entitled Conflict Unending: India-Pakistan Tensions Since 1947. He also recently published The Crisis in Kashmir: Portents of War, Hopes of Peace(Cambridge University Press and The Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 1999). Dr. Ganguly serves on the editorial boards of Asian Affairs, Asian Survey, Current History and the Journal of Strategic Studies. He is also the founding editor of Asian Security and editor of The India Review. Dr. Ganguly is currently working on a book, India Since 1980,under contract with Cambridge University Press. He was previously a visiting fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University and a senior fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars in Washington, DC. Dr. Ganguly received his PhD in Political Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign in 1984.

Victor Zhikai Gao
Senior Vice President and General Counsel/Company Secretary
China National Offshore Oil Corporation, Ltd.
Born in 1962, Victor Zhikai Gao is senior vice president, general counsel, and company secretary of CNOOC Ltd. Mr. Gao is a licensed attorney-at-law in the State of New York, and was a licensed financial advisor with the Securities and Futures Commission of Hong Kong from 1994 to 1999. Mr. Gao’s extensive previous work experiences included services with the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Beijing, the United Nations Secretariat in New York City, Milbank Tweed Hadley & McCloy in New York City, Morgan Stanley in Hong Kong, China International Capital Corporation in Beijing and Hong Kong, and PCCW and Henderson (China) Investment Co., Ltd. Mr. Gao was the China policy advisor with the Securities and Futures Commission of Hong Kong between 1999 and 2000. Mr. Gao graduated from Suzhou University in 1981 with a BA degree in English Literature and from Beijing University of Foreign Studies in 1983 with a MA degree in English Literature. He obtained a MA degree in Political Science from Yale Graduate School in 1990 and a JD degree from Yale Law School in 1993.

Richard Gordon
President and CEO, Gordon Energy Solutions
Richard Gordon is an industry expert in the fields of competitor analysis and business strategy. Currently, he is the president and CEO of Gordon Energy Solutions, a strategic consulting firm that provides research, analytical and advisory services to the leading energy companies. Dr. Gordon holds a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Economics from the University of Missouri at Kansas City and a PhD in Economics from the University of Iowa.

Isabel Gorst
Correspondent, Financial Times of London
Isabel Gorst is a freelance journalist and writer who has been living in Moscow and writing about Russia and the FSU for ten years. She currently reports for the Financial Times from Central Asia and the Caspian and is the Russian editor of the Petroleum Economist. In 1996, she co-authored with former Soviet Oil Minister Lev Churilov and Dr. Nina Poussenkova Lifeblood of Empire: A Personal History of the Rise and Fall of the Soviet Oil Industry. She was educated at Bristol University and the University of Lancaster.

Akira Hanzawa
Deputy Director, Japan Petroleum Energy Center
Akira Hanzawa is a deputy director at Japan Petroleum Energy Center (JPEC). After graduation from Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, he joined Maruzen Oil (currently Cosmo Oil) and was sent to study Business Arabic and Middle East Affairs at American University in Cairo. He has a variety of work experiences in the oil business, both in upstream and downstream affairs, of which 13 years were outside of Japan. He also represented Cosmo Oil in the UAE as a representative and general manager and in the UK as president of Cosmo Oil (U.K.) Plc.. He then moved to Cosmo Research Institute as the general manager of International Energy to cover various fields of research on energy. Mr. Hanzawa has been engaged in the US-Japan Joint Research Project and other jobs since 2004 at JPEC.

Peter Hartley
Professor of Economics, Rice University
Peter Hartley is a professor of Economics at Rice University and Rice Scholar of energy economics for the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy. He has worked for more than 25 years on energy economics issues, focusing originally on electricity, but including also work on gas, oil, coal, nuclear and renewables. He wrote on reform of the electricity supply industry in Australia throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, and advised the Government of Victoria when it completed the acclaimed privatization and reform of the electricity industry in that state in 1989. The Victorian reforms became the core of the wider deregulation and reform of the electricity and gas industries in Australia. Apart from energy and environmental economics, Dr. Hartley has published research on theoretical and applied issues in money and banking, business cycles, and international finance. In 1974, he completed an honours degree at the Australian National University, majoring in mathematics. He worked for the Priorities Review Staff, and later the Economic Division, of the Prime Minister's Department in the Australian Government while completing a Masters Degree in Economics at the Australian National University in 1977. Dr. Hartley obtained a PhD in Economics at the University of Chicago in 1980.

Donald I. Hertzmark
Consultant
Donald I. Hertzmark is an international energy specialist with more than 25 years of experience in oil and gas economics and analysis. He has served as an adjunct professor of Economics at the University of Colorado and Georgetown University, teaching courses on the economics of oil, energy and natural resources, and is currently a professorial lecturer at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University. Dr. Hertzmark has served as an advisor to governments, private companies, state enterprises and international organizations in over 90 countries worldwide to assess markets and projects, provide counsel for energy sector restructuring, design and evaluate energy programs and projects, identify sources of financing, and price energy products. He has taught short courses on energy project development, energy economics and project investment evaluation to the staffs of the World Bank, Asian Development Bank and African Development Bank. Dr. Hertzmark holds a PhD in Natural Resource Economics.

Robert D. Hormats
Vice Chairman, Goldman Sachs
Robert D. Hormats is vice chairman of Goldman Sachs (International) and managing director of Goldman, Sachs & Co. He joined Goldman Sachs in 1982. Mr. Hormats served as Assistant Secretary of State for Economic and Business Affairs from 1981 to 1982, Ambassador and Deputy U.S. Trade Representative from 1979 to 1981, and as Senior Deputy Assistant Secretary for Economic and Business Affairs at the Department of State from 1977 to 1979. He served as a senior staff member for International Economic Affairs on the National Security Council from 1969 to 1977 during which time he was the senior economic advisor to Dr. Henry Kissinger, General Brent Scowcroft and Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski. Mr. Hormats was a recipient of the French Legion of Honor in 1982 and Arthur Fleming Award in 1974. Mr. Hormats has been a visiting lecturer at Princeton University and is a member of the Board of Visitors of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and the Dean’s Council of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a board member of the Irvington Institute for Immunological Research, Engelhard Hanovia, Inc., The Economic Club of New York, and Freedom House. Mr. Hormats is also a member of the Advisory Boards of Foreign Policy and International Economics magazines. Mr. Hormats’ publications include Abraham Lincoln and the Global Economy; American Albatross: The Foreign Debt Dilemma;and Reforming the International Monetary System. Other publications include articles in Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, American Banker and the Financial Times. Mr. Hormats earned a BA from Tufts University in 1965 with a concentration in Economics and Political Science. In 1966 he earned an MA and, in 1970, a PhD in international economics from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.

Amy Myers Jaffe
Wallace S. Wilson Fellow in Energy Studies, the Baker Institute
Amy Myers Jaffe is the Wallace S. Wilson Fellow in Energy Studies at the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy and associate director of the Rice University energy program. Her research focuses on the subject of oil geopolitics, strategic energy policy including energy science policy and energy economics. Ms. Jaffe is widely published in academic journals and numerous book volumes and served as co-editor of Energy in the Caspian Region: Present and Future (Palgrave, 2002) and Natural Gas and Geopolitics: From 1970 to 2040 (Cambridge University Press, 2006). She served as a member of the reconstruction and economy working group of the Baker/Hamilton Iraq Study Group and as project director for the Baker Institute/Council on Foreign Relations task force on Strategic Energy Policy. Ms. Jaffe was among Esquire Magazine’s 100 Best and Brightest honorees in the contribution to society category in 2005. Prior to joining the Baker Institute, Ms. Jaffe was the senior editor and Middle East analyst for Petroleum Intelligence Weekly, a respected oil journal. She received her Bachelor’s degree in Arabic Studies from Princeton University.

Yoshikazu Kobayashi
Researcher, The Institute of Energy Economics, Japan
Yoshikazu Kobayashi is a researcher in the Energy Strategy Department of the Institute of Energy Economics, Japan (IEEJ). Earlier, he was an analyst at Tonen General Sekiyu, an ExxonMobil-affiliated company in Japan, covering crude oil acquisition, marine transportation, and refining operation planning. At IEEJ he is responsible for the research on oil and gas issues in the Middle East as well as energy security in Northeast Asia. Mr. Kobayashi received a BA in social sciences from Hitotsubashi University in Tokyo, and an MA in international economics and international relations from Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS).

Tomiyuki Kudo
President, Japan Petroleum Energy Center
Tomiyuki Kudo is president of Japan Petroleum Energy Center (JPEC). He has been at JPEC since April 1997. He joined the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) in April 1966 and was appointed as director, Research Division, Small and Medium Enterprise Agency in June 1980. Then, he moved to the Chicago Center, Japan External Trade Organization as executive director in May 1981. In June 1984, he served as a counselor (Comprehensive National Security) at the Prime Minister’s office. Mr. Kudo also served as director at MITI’s various agencies from June 1986 to July 1990. After serving as the director-general at Hokkaido Bureau of International Trade and Industry from 1990, he moved to the Japan Small and Medium Enterprise Agency as executive director. He received a Bachelor of Arts (International Relations) from University of Tokyo in March 1963 and a Master of Arts (Economics) from Yale University.

Thomas R. Langford
Global Co-head, Energy Group and Managing Director, Morgan Stanley
Thomas R. Langford is a managing director and co-head of the Global Energy Group. Mr. Langford has responsibility for the major integrated and selected independent E&P and R&M companies. In addition, he is the head of the Houston Office and Southwest Region for Investment Banking. Prior to joining Morgan Stanley, he worked at Exxon and McKinsey & Co. After beginning his career in New York, Mr. Langford spent four years based in Asia where he led several strategic and financing assignments in countries across the region, including the privatization of PTT in Thailand, Sinopec in China, and the Gas Authority of India. In addition, he has spent considerable time in the Middle East. Since returning to N.Y. in 2000, Mr. Langford has been involved in a number of notable strategic and financing transactions including, the Phillips acquisition of Tosco, the merger of Conoco with Phillips, the acquisition of CanHunter by Burlington Resources, Marathon’s acquisition of KMOC in Russia and the acquisition of Unocal by Chevron.

Claire Lawrie
Senior Manager, Accenture
Claire Lawrie joined Accenture in 1998. Ms. Lawrie's expertise is in: strategic planning; country facing strategies; NOC relations; upstream business performance diagnosis and transformation; and, organizational change. She co-authored the Accenture study: "The National Oil Company (NOC) - Transforming the Competitive Landscape for Global Energy". Ms. Lawrie has worked with clients in Angola, Azerbaijan, Angola, Equatorial Guinea, the Netherlands, North Africa, Trinidad & Tobago, the United Kingdom and the United States. Ms. Lawrie has a Bachelor of Science in Economics from the London School of Economics.

Steven W. Lewis
Fellow in Asian Studies, James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy
Steven W. Lewis is the James A. Baker III Institute’s fellow in Asian Studies and professor of the practice in humanities and director of the Asian Studies Program at Rice University. His research interests are focused on exploring the growth of a transnational Chinese middle class, the influence of advertisements in new public spaces in Chinese cities, the development of privatization experiments in China’s localities, and the reform of China’s energy policies, national oil companies, and international energy relations. Dr. Lewis received his doctorate in Political Science from Washington University in St. Louis.

David R. Mares
Adjunct Professor at the School of International Relations/Pacific Studies
University of California, San Diego
David R. Mares is a professor of Political Science and adjunct professor at the School of International Relations/Pacific Studies at the University of California, San Diego. Dr. Mares has been a professor of the Centro de Estudios Internacionales at El Colegio de Mexico, Fulbright professor at the Universidad de Chile and a visiting professor at FLACSO-Ecuador. He is the author of three books, Penetrating the International Market (also published in Spanish); Violent Peace: Militarized Interstate Bargaining in Latin America; Coming in From the Cold: Chile-United States Relations at the Millennium (with Francisco Rojas), and editor of Civil-Military Relations: Building Democracy and Regional Security in Latin America, Southern Asia and Central Europe. Dr. Mares received his doctorate from Harvard University.

Garfield L. Miller III
President and CEO, Aegis Energy
Garfield L. Miller III is the president and chief executive officer of Aegis Energy. Prior to forming Aegis Energy in 1994, Mr. Miller was managing director and co-head of Salomon Brothers’ Energy & Chemicals Group, from 1991 to 1994, and managing director and head of First Boston’s Natural Resources M&A Group, which he joined in 1985. He has over 28 years experience in the energy industry advising natural resource companies on all aspects of corporate finance, and mergers and acquisitions, including defense, divestitures, and general strategic advisories. In addition, he initiated and spearheaded the development of Salomon Brothers’ proprietary energy commodity derivative financing product. His clients are engaged in all facets of natural resources from oil and gas extraction to refining and marketing of petroleum products. Mr. Miller holds a BA in economics from Middlebury College and a MBA from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business.

Edward Morse
Managing Director and Chief Energy Economist, Lehman Brothers
Edward Morse joined Lehman Brothers as managing director and chief energy economist in July 2006. Before joining Lehman, Dr. Morse spent seven years at Hess Energy Trading Co., LLC (HETCo), providing strategic advice on oil and natural gas market trends to the firm, its clients, and counterparts. He received his PhD from Princeton University, where he taught for six years before joining the senior research staff at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). During the Carter and Reagan administrations, Dr. Morse held various positions in the Department of State, including Deputy Assistant Secretary for International Energy Policy, the most senior officer with full time responsibilities in energy. He represented the U.S. at the International Energy Agency, chairing the Standing Committee on Long-Term Cooperation, and various bilateral energy working groups with Norway, Japan, the U.K., Nigeria, and Iran. Dr. Morse currently chairs a task force of the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy on U.S. Energy Security. In the winter and spring of 2001, he also chaired a task force on Energy Security, jointly sponsored by the CFR and the Baker Institute, issuing two reports recommending urgent changes in U.S. domestic and international energy policy. Dr. Morse is the chairman of the New York Energy Forum and serves on the academic advisory boards of the energy programs at Columbia University and Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. He is a member of CFR, the Oxford Energy Policy Club, and the editorial committee of The Geopolitics of Energy.

James J. Mulva
Chairman of the Board and CEO, ConocoPhillips
James J. Mulva is chairman of the board and CEO of ConocoPhillips. Mr. Mulva served as president and CEO of ConocoPhillips from 2002 to 2004. Prior to that, he served as chairman and CEO of Phillips Petroleum Company from 1999 to 2002. He had served as Phillips’ president and chief operating officer since May 1994 and executive vice president since January 1994. He had been senior vice president in 1993 and chief financial officer since 1990, at which time he joined the company's management committee. Mr. Mulva currently serves as a member of The Business Council, as well as the Board of Visitors for the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. He also served as the 2006 chairman of the American Petroleum Institute. Born in 1946, Mr. Mulva is from Green Bay, Wisconsin. He graduated from the University of Texas in 1968 with a Bachelor's degree and a Master's degree in Business Administration Finance in 1969. Immediately after graduating, Mr. Mulva served as a U.S. Navy officer until beginning his career with Phillips in 1973.

Masahisa Naitoh
Chairman and CEO, The Institute of Energy Economics, Japan
Masahisa Naitoh is chairman and CEO of the Institute of Energy Economics, Japan. Mr. Naitoh joined the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) in April 1961, and he held five key posts at the director-general level, including: Minister's Secretariat; Industrial Policy Bureau; Basic Industries Bureau; International Trade and Administration Bureau; and Director-General for Policy Coordination. He also served as director-general of the Petroleum Department at the Agency of Natural Resources and Energy. Since January 1994, Mr. Naitoh served as senior advisor to the Institute of Energy Economics, Japan, as a visiting professor at Georgetown University, and he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Law by Temple University in Philadelphia. Mr. Naitoh has been active worldwide as senior associate at several institutions, including the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Columbia University Business School, CERA (1995-1997), and the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy. In January 2006, he was appointed as the president-elect of IAEE (the International Association for Energy Economics,) and from October 2006, he has been special advisor to the president of IAEE. In addition to his position as Vice Chairman of ITOCHU Corporation, Mr. Naitoh was an advisor to Sanwa Bank, Ltd., an international advisory board member to Elf Aquitaine (Paris), a board member of Meiji Seika Kaisha, Ltd. and has been an independent director (an international advisory committee member) at a number of companies. Mr. Naitoh graduated from the Faculty of Law at the University of Tokyo in March 1961.

G. Ugo Nwokeji
Assistant Professor of African American Studies
University of California, Berkeley
G. Ugo Nwokeji is an assistant professor of African American Studies at the University of California at Berkeley. He has served as a research associate at Harvard University’s W.E.B. Debois Institute for Afro-American Research, fellow at the Gilder Lehrman center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance and Abolition at Yale University, and visiting scholar at the Center for Modern Oriental Studies, Berlin, Germany. He published numerous journal articles and book chapters, co-edited the book Religion, History, and Politics in Nigeria (University Press of America, 2005), and has just finished another book, Slave Trade and Culture in the Bight of Biafra, to be published by Cambridge University Press. Dr. Nwokeji received his doctorate degree in history from University of Toronto in 1999.

Martha Brill Olcott
Senior Associate, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Martha Brill Olcott is a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment and co-directs the Carnegie Moscow Center Project on Ethnicity and Politics in the former Soviet Union. She is also a professor Emeritus at Colgate University. Her research focuses on the problems of transitions in Russia, Central Asia and the Caucasus as well as the security challenges in the Caspian region more generally. She has worked on political economy and security questions in Russia and the states of the former Soviet Union for more than 25 years and has traveled extensively in these countries and in South Asia. Dr. Olcott earned her Bachelor’s degree from SUNY Buffalo and her Master’s and PhD from the University of Chicago.

Nina Poussenkova
Senior Research Fellow, Russian Academy of Sciences
Nina Poussenkova is currently a scholar-in-residence of the Carnegie Moscow Center. She cooperates with WWF-Russia and is a senior policy advisor of its Trade and Investment Program. Dr. Poussenkova is a member of the advisory board of the Greening of Industry Network. She has been involved in the Russian oil industry since 1991. Dr. Poussenkova worked for the Center for Foreign Investment and Privatization, a consulting company, and in equity research departments of Salomon Brothers and Lazard Freres investment banks. She is among the authors of the four-volume research report Russian Oil (Salomon Brothers, 1996) – one of the first major publications about the Russian oil sector. Together with Lev Tchurilov, the last USSR Minister of Oil Industry, and Isabel Gorst, she wrote the book Lifeblood of Empire: A Personal History of the Rise and Fall of the Soviet Oil Industry (PIW Publication, 1996). She participated in the James A. Baker III Institute project Energy Dimension in Russian Global Strategy with a paper “From Rigs to Riches.” Dr. Poussenkova graduated from Moscow State University’s Department of Economics. She defended her PhD thesis in the Institute of World Economy and International Relations of the Russian Academy of Sciences, where she works as senior research fellow.

Ronald Soligo
Professor of Economics, Rice University
Ronald Soligo is a professor of Economics at Rice University. His research focuses on economic growth and development and energy economics. Dr. Soligo was awarded the 2001 Best Paper Prize from the International Association for Energy Economics for his co-authored paper with Kenneth B. Medlock III “Economic Development and End-Use Energy Demand,” Energy Journal, April (2001). Other recently published articles include: “The Role of Inventories in Oil Market Stability,” with Amy Myers Jaffe, Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance (2002); “Automobile Ownership and Economic Development: Forecasting Passenger Vehicle Demand to the Year 2015,” with Kenneth B. Medlock III, Journal of Transport Economics and Policy, May (2002); “The Economics of Pipeline Routes: The Conundrum of Oil Exports from the Caspian Basin,” with Amy Myers Jaffe, in Energy in the Caspian Region: Present and Future, Amy Myers Jaffe, Yelena Kalyuzhnova, Dov Lynch and Robin Sickles, editors, January (2002); and “Potential Growth for U.S. Energy in Cuba,” with Amy Myers Jaffe, ASCE Volume 12 Proceedings, Cuba in Transition (web site). Dr. Soligo is currently working on research on OPEC and the Gas Forum for Exporting Countries. He holds a PhD degree from Yale University.

Thomas Stenvoll
Market Analyst, Hess Energy Trading Company
Thomas Stenvoll is an energy economist and crude trader at Hess Energy Trading Company (HETCo). Prior to joining HETCo, Mr. Stenvoll worked for the World Bank’s Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative. He is a graduate BA (Hons.) in Politics, Philosophy and Economics from the University of York (U.K.), and holds a Masters degree with distinction in International Relations and International Economics from Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies, where he has also been a guest lecturer on the financial oil market.

Koichiro Tanaka
Director, The Institute of Energy Economics, Japan
Koichiro Tanaka is the director of JIME Center, Institute of Energy Economics Japan (IEEJ), Tokyo, Japan. In 1989, Mr. Tanaka started his carrier at the Embassy of Japan in Tehran as a Political Attaché. He served the Japanese Institute of Middle Eastern Economics (JIME) from 1992 as a senior researcher on Iran until the separation in late 1998, which brought him to join the United Nations Special Mission to Afghanistan (UNSMA). Following the completion of his Mission in October 2001, he moved back to Tokyo, and subsequently on June 2004, he rejoined JIME. The merger of JIME and IEEJ in April 2005 has given him the responsibilities mentioned above.

Al Troner
President, Asia Pacific Energy Consulting
Al Troner is the president of Asia Pacific Energy Consulting (APEC), a Houston-based, tactical consulting company focusing on commercial oil and natural gas issues for Asia Pacific and the Mideast Gulf since 1995. Mr. Troner has been a contributor to the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy research program since 1997. He is author to numerous commercial and academic studies on Asia Pacific/Mideast energy issues such as the future of liquefied natural gas (LNG) and gas to liquids (GTL), oil and oil products trade in Asia, Asian oil refining, and Mideast Gulf energy export trends. Mr. Troner was a joint recipient with Amy Myers Jaffe of the 1994 International Association of Energy Economics award for energy journalism; he was also a fellow of the East West Center in Honolulu from 1987 to 1988. Mr. Troner received a BA in History from Stony Brook University in 1977 and a MA from the University of Hawaii in Economic Geography in 1988.

Fred R. von der Mehden
Professor Emeritus of Political Science, Rice University
Fred R. von der Mehden is a professor Emeritus at Rice University and scholar with the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy, for whom he has participated in many energy studies dealing with Asia. From 1957-1968, Dr. von der Mehden taught at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, where he was director of East Asian Studies. From 1968-1998, he was the Albert Thomas Professor of Political Science at Rice University. He has written extensively on Islam in Southeast Asia, and he has completed field studies in the region assessing attitudes in the area towards the Middle East. Dr. von der Mehden earned his doctorate at the University of California Berkeley in 1957.

Yoshiaki Wako
Senior Researcher, Nippon Oil Research Institute Co., Ltd.
Yoshiaki Wako is a senior researcher at Nippon Oil Research Institute Co., Ltd. Mr. Wako studied business management at Tohoku University. After his graduation at the university in 1977, Mr. Wako joined Nippon Oil and has been working for the organization for more than 29 years. He performed tasks abroad in Nippon Oil U.S.A. from 1984 through 1987. Mr. Wako also contributed a great deal to Nippon’s upstream business as Deputy General Manager, Administration & Finance, Nippon Oil Exploration (Malaysia), Ltd from 1990 through 1993.