Argus Global Base Oils Conference

Alicia Logan

General Manager, Chevron Base Oils

In her 33 years at Chevron, Alicia Logan's innovative thinking has built a trail of successes. She grew its convenience store franchise in the west to 800 locations while managing a district with more than 900 petrol stations including Los Angeles, the largest gasoline market in the United States. Under her leadership, Chevron's base oil business has been tackling the dual challenges confronting the industry -- higher performance and lower carbon solutions throughout the value chain. Her first year coincided with the pandemic. By improving agility in the supply chain, Chevron delivered value to lubricant blenders. Logan also turbocharged Chevron's entry to Group III/III+ capacity with the acquisition and integration of the NEXBASE portfolio. Once onboarded she prioritized expanding Group III production to meet evolving specifications and to ensure Chevron offers the right products and services that will deliver the maximum value to customers.

Chris Braggs

Basestocks Sales Manager for Europe, Africa & Middle East, Exxon Mobil

Chris joined Esso Petroleum Company UK in September 2000 as an engineer at the Fawley Refinery near Southampton, UK. He progressed through a number of technical, economic and operations supervisory positions over the next 10 years. In 2010, Chris moved to Fairfax, Virginia where he worked on M&A portfolio projects for ExxonMobil downstream. In 2011, Chris transferred to ExxonMobil Chemicals in Houston where he was Feedstock and Optimization Manager for the North America Aromatics business and in 2013 he became the Business Team Leader for North America Olefins. In 2015 Chris relocated to the Netherlands and was named Technical Manager for the Rotterdam Refinery. In 2016 he was appointed Operations Manager for the refinery. Following the successful start-up of the Rotterdam Gp-II Advanced Hydrocracker project, Chris became the Product Manager for Basestocks and Waxes EAME based in Brussels. In August 2022, Chris became the Basestocks Sales Manager for EAME, where he leads the regional sales team and has cross functional responsibility for the regional Basestocks and Waxes organization.

Ken Hope

Global PAO Technological Services Manager, Chevron Phillips Chemical Company

Ken has over 30 years of experience in the lubricant industry and holds a PhD. In Physical Chemistry from the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Currently, he is the Global PAO Technical Services Manager with Chevron Phillips Chemical. Prior to this, he was a Research Fellow and Team Leader for NAO and PAO Research and Technology responsible for the product development, process improvement and technical service for NAO and PAO product lines. Ken is the currently the immediate Past-President of STLE. He served on the Board of Directors of STLE from 2006 – 2017, STLE’s Treasurer, Secretary, Vice-President and President (2021-2022). He holds a CLS (Certified Lubrication Specialist) and has served on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Lubrication Science and as a Technical Editor for Tribology & Lubrication Technology. He has also presented over 70 technical papers at STLE, NLGI, AICHE, ELGI, UNITI, ACS and SAE meetings and holds 21 US patents.

Michel Sanchez Rivas

PAO Business Development Manager EMEA, Chevron Phillips Chemical Company

Michel (BSc-Chemistry ) has 32 years experience in Lubricant additives, formulations and feedstock base oil manufacturing. Prior to working for CPChem ,Michel worked for Lubricant & fuel Additives as Quality Control Group Leader at Ethyl SA Research & Technical support Rep. for Chemical Intermediates (including Alcohols, Linear Alpha olefins & Polybutenes) at Amoco Chemical Belgium R&D center (Louvain La Neuve, Belgium), TS&D Representative for Linear Alpha olefins & Polyalphaolefins at BP Belgium and later as Market development manager for Ineos Oligomers. Author or co-author of various papers and patents, he is currently Polyalphaolefins Business dev Manager EMEA for Chevron Phillips Chemical.

Frederic Vazzoler

General Manager Base Oils, TotalEnergies Supply & Marketing

Paul Wightman

Senior Director Research and Product Development, CME Group

Paul Wightman is Director of Product Development for US firm CME’s commodity products. Paul has developed a wide range of products across the commodity markets and is heavily involved in some of the latest initiatives around renewables and alternative fuels. Prior to joining CME Group, Paul headed up the commodity sales team for French bank Natixis where he worked with a number of leading commercial clients in the Europe, Middle East and Africa region and advised them on hedging and risk strategies. In a career spanning more than 20 years, Paul has worked for trading platform the Intercontinental Exchange in a product development capacity as well as for leading price reporting agencies in the commodities markets. Paul has an Economics degree from the University of Southampton and speaks French.

Marc Ostwald

Chief Economist & Global Strategist, ADM Investor Services International

Analysing and forecasting the impact of macro / microeconomic trends on a broad range of asset classes, where necessary challenging market psychology and consensus views. The joy of working as a market economist is a constant need to research and learn about the changing landscape of the way that the world works, well beyond the limited scope of economics and financial markets. The desire is to enable and facilitate critical & lateral thinking perspectives on global economic, political and asset market trends; to convey these ideas enthusiastically in terms that are accessible and thought provoking. Having spent much of his childhood in Libya and Iran, Marc has a particular interest in the Middle East, is passionate about music of all genres, and a regular guest on TV & Radio, and widely quoted in the media.

Mark Lord

Managing Director, Aztec Oils

Mark is approaching 40 years in the lubricant industry. Mark is the founder and CEO of Aztec Oils Ltd, an independent lubricant blender based in the UK and established in 1995, supplying Automotive and Industrial lubricants through a worldwide distribution chain.

Dennis Eijdenberg

Technical Support Manager, Axel Christiernsson

Dennis Eijdenberg is Technical Support Manager at Axel Christiernsson, the world’s largest private label lubricating greases manufacturer. Within this role he is the linkpin between the technical, development and commercial side of grease-manufacturing and -application. Dennis has a focus on sharing knowledge, and finding practical solutions for technical challenges and inquiries. Recently he has successfully led the attribution of the EU Ecolabel to the Dutch Axel grease manufacturing site, and has been certified as Certified Lubrication Specialist by STLE. He is currently involved in the field testing of several extreme heavy duty EALs (Environmentally Acceptable Lubricants), as well as supporting the lithium transition at Axel Christiernsson and its customers

David Wright

Director General, UKLA

Since 2014 David has managed the UKLA’s operations in Europe providing effective management, leadership and development of UKLA’s Secretariat team; he is constantly developing and maximising membership of the UKLA; delivering quality focused membership services and ensuring efficient, effective management and administration of the organisation. David is also currently the Company Secretary for the Verification of Lubricant Specifications (VLS, a subsidiary of the UKLA). David is an established and experienced senior leader with extensive experience within a variety of association, membership and public sector, not for profit charitable organisations (ExxonMobil and Chartered Institute of Educational Assessors), operating in challenging, fast-moving politically sensitive and regulated environments at board level including leading organisations in senior roles involving defining and setting industry standards, working in partnership with government on programmes of change, and partnering with key industry stakeholders on lobbying and influencing the policy agenda of the day.

Siddharth Sachdeva

Managing Director, Trinity Lubes and Greases

After gaining his Bachelor's and Master's degrees in CS Engineering from Warwick University, UK, Siddharth then went and gained his MBA from IIM in Bangalore, India. Further, he pursued a strategic marketing programme from the University of Michigan, US. Using his education experience, Siddharth drove the technology changes within the family business and focused on corporate culture within the group upgrading the same to the level of being one of the great lubricant and grease companies worldwide. The group is known for its dedication and attention to detail which has brought the world's greatest brands to their doors and they can boast customers such as Castrol, Shell, Mobil, Valvoline, Fuchs, Indian Oil, as well as Timken and SKF to name but a few. With four plants in India the family looked to expand abroad and under Siddharth's leadership the group built and commissioned their new plant in the UAE, a technological state-of-the-art lubricant and grease plant on the inner harbour of the Hamriyah Free Zone. This is the first of its kind in the region, being a fully automated, PLC controlled grease and lubricant plant run on ABB technology.

Torsten Knipping

Sales Manager Base Oils & KAM

Inga Hermann

Sales Manager and Sustainability Lead, Ergon International Inc

Inga Herrmann has been in the lubricant industry for about 28 years and has a unique perspective from professional and strategic selling, key account management and evaluating sustainability concepts for the lubricant industry. Inga has a bachelor’s in business administration and holds a degree as certified professional for lubricants technology. Inga is currently Sales Manager and Sustainability Lead at Ergon International Inc. Before joining Ergon Inga was Head of the Lubricant Department at the German Lubricant Manufacturers Association responsible for establishing a European sustainability standard for the lubricant industry. She worked as technical key account manager for industrial lubricants at Shell Deutschland GmbH more than two decades and was responsible for different industrial segments. Inga is also member of different sustainability committees globally

Mathew Cole Evans

OEM Manager, Lubrizol, Lubrizol

Mathew Cole-Evans is responsible for engaging with European passenger car OEMs to understand their engine oil specifications & requirements and managing Lubrizol’s engine oil OEM product approvals. Mat has been with Lubrizol for seven years, originally joining the Mechanical Testing department and developing Lubrizol’s EV testing capabilities. Prior to joining Lubrizol, Mat worked in Engine Design and Development. Mat is a Chartered Engineer with IMechE and graduated from Loughborough University in 2014 with a Masters degree in Automotive Engineering.

Jayanta Chatterjee

Global Base Oil Procurement Director, Castrol

Jayanta is an accomplished leader with close to 3 decades of leadership experience in Supply Chain across multiple functions – Planning, Procurement, Manufacturing, Customer Fulfilment and Business Process Implementation – in Asia Pacific, India, ME, KSA and now currently in Global businesses. Jayanta has progressed through roles of increasing responsibility in Supply Chain and is currently based out of the HQ of Castrol business in the UK as the Global Base Oil Procurement Director. Prior to moving to the UK, he was in the Board of Castrol India Limited as an Executive Director (Supply Chain). Jayanta has a diverse international experience in leading teams and operations across geographies and brings in end-to-end supply chain leadership and insight - from strategy development till implementation - across the value chain – from procurement to manufacturing and customer service - through building of strong processes, teams, and systems.

Nikhil Agarwal

Managing Director, Globestar Energy FZE

Mr Nikhil Agarwal is a dynamic, result oriented leader with a rich experience of 25 plus years in Fortune 500 organisations. He is an engineer and holds an MBA (Marketing & Sales) and MBA (Energy Management) from University of Houston, Texas and Indian Institute of Management. Mr Agarwal used his deep industry knowledge, strong educational background and commercial acumen to set up Globestar Energy FZE, a highly reputed name in base oil trade. Globestar is successfully trading all base oil grades and petrochemicals in MENA, Far East Asia, India and Africa. His past work experience includes senior sales and marketing positions at Elf Lubricants, TotalEnergies India, Reliance Industries and Diamond Petroleum.

Joris van der List

Technology Manager, Q8 Oils

Joris van der List is educated as a Mechanical Engineer (MSc) at the University of Twente in the Netherlands. Joris has over 20 years of experience in the lubricants industry with a strong background in product development and innovation management. Joris started at Q8Research/KPR&T as a research scientist responsible for the development/formulations of lubricants and is currently Technology Manager at Q8Oils, head of the technology department. leading a team of product line managers and sales engineers. Joris is responsible for the global management of the energy, MWF, automotive, and general industry lubricants. On top of this, Joris is the dedicated global lead within Q8Oils on sustainability and a member of the UEIL Sustainability Committee and leads the UEIL Sustainability Downstream workgroup. Also member of the board of the VSN, the Dutch Lubricants Association.

Gabriella Twining

Global Editor - Base Oils, Argus

Gabriella is the global editor of Argus' Base Oils publication, leading the global editorial team and publishing the weekly report. She previously worked as a reporter in IHS Markit’s Maritime & Trade department covering all areas of shipping. And prior to that worked for several years at a ship management company in the Safety Security and Environment department.

John Dietrich

Base Oils Market Reporter - North America, Argus

John Dietrich is the base oil reporter for the Americas at Argus. He has covered the base oil market for the past two years and has covered commodity markets for 12 years. John is a product of the University of Missouri’s journalism school and is based in Houston, Texas.

Guo Harn Hong

Global Lead Base Oils, Argus

Guo Harn graduated from the National University of Singapore with First Class Honours in Economics. He was on the university’s Dean List in 2014/2015 and 2016/2017. Guo Harn also holds a diploma with highest distinction in Business Information Technology from Temasek Polytechnic. He was on the institute’s Director’s Honour’s List in 2009 and 2010.

Irina Vinogradova

Senior Manager - Consulting, Argus

Irina is a Senior Manager Consulting in the London office of Argus. She is responsible for the bespoke consulting work in the crude and refined products segment, including specialty products, with a focus on Europe and Africa. Irina has over 9 years’ experience in the oil and gas industry. Prior to Argus, Irina was heading the European gas events portfolio of Fleming Group. Irina has an MSc in Energy, Trade & Finance from Cass Business School and wrote her master’s thesis together with Gazprom Marketing & Trading on small-scale LNG.

Catherine Caulfield

Business Development Manager— Oil Markets, Oil Markets, Argus Media

Catherine is responsible for coordinating Argus’ business development strategy for base oils, marine fuels and bitumen. For base oils, her role involves engaging with market participants to explain the benefits of using Argus base oil spot prices to facilitate risk management. From London, she works closely with the global editorial team to develop awareness and understanding of Argus Base Oils in global markets. Prior to her current role, Catherine was responsible for European base oils market coverage at Argus: contributing spot prices, market commentary and analysis to Argus’ weekly global base oils report. Catherine holds an MSc in Petroleum Geoscience from the University of Aberdeen and a BA in Natural Sciences from Trinity College Dublin.