Conferences

Argus Rio Crude Conference

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
May 2025
Pre-register for 2025
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Speakers

Thank you to our expert speakers for their contributions to the agenda.

For speaking opportunities on the 2025 agenda, please contact:

Bhuvam Patel
Conference Producer
bhuvam.patel@argusmedia.com

2024 Expert speakers

Rodrigo Soares
President of Shell Energy Brasil, Shell Energy Americas

Rodrigo has had extensive experience across Latin America and has a background in Mechanical Engineering from Universidade Federal Rio De Janeiro. He has served at Shell Group in various roles and currently leads development of strategy and execution of gas, energy and environmental products in Chile, Brazil and Argentina.

Agustin Rebello
Executive Manager, YPF

Patricia Daiane Marques
Co-ordinator- Climate Change & Decarbonisation, Petrobras

Patrícia holds a degree in Chemical Engineering from Unicamp University, complemented by a Master's in Production Engineering from PUC-RJ and another Master's in Corporate Responsibility from Steinbeis Hochschule-Berlin. With a career spanning over two decades at Petrobras, she currently serves as a Coordinator within the Portfolio, Value Chain, and Product Decarbonization division of the Climate Change and Decarbonization unit, under the Energy Transition and Sustainability department. Presently, her responsibilities center on spearheading initiatives related to Supply Chain Decarbonization and facilitating the Just Energy Transition within the operational framework.

Bruno Amorim
VP- Energy, Transportation & Infrastructure-Global Investment Research, Goldman Sachs

Todd Dillabough
CEO, Ocean Point Terminals

Todd has 40+ years of experience in the energy operations and financial restructuring sectors. He has served worldwide for Texaco, ExxonMobil, BNP Paribas and more. Todd has led two Exploration and Production companies as President and CEO and has a bachelor's degree in Geology from the University of Calgary.

Victor Bomfim
Chief Executive Officer, Vast Infraestrutura

Graduated in mechanical engineering from Escola de Engenharia Mauá, Sao Paulo, with an MBA in Management from COPPEAD-UFRJ, Victor has a vast experience in the oil and gas segment. In over 30 years at Subsea 7, he was responsible for several projects, focusing on deepwater technologies. For 17 years he has been the company leader for South America, responding directly to the executive team and board of Subsea7 in Europe. Since 2017 he has been CEO of Vast Infraestrutura, a Prumo Group company dedicated to providing infrastructure and logistics solutions for liquids for the energy market. Victor also serves as Board Member at Porto do Açu, DOME, Oceânica S/A and as Advisory Board member of COPPEAD-UFRJ.

Liu Kai
Head of the Crude Oil Dept - Americas Region, Petrochina

Gustavo Hooper
Head of Trading & Shipping, PRIO

Gustavo Hooper is head of trading and shipping for Prio, the largest independent oil and gas production company in Brazil. He has more than 15 years’ experience in the sector, with international roles in multinational companies such as Shell, Raizen, Sinochem and PetroChina. Gustavo has a master’s degree from PUC-Rio and a BSc degree in economics from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro and Salamanca University in Spain. He is also a graduate of the Coppead Business School in Rio de Janeiro.

Matt Smith
Head Analyst- US, KPLER

Matt started his career at Royal Bank of Canada in London, England, working his way up to portfolio manager in the investment management team. He then moved to the US and spent 8 years as a Global Commodity Analyst at Schneider Electric / Summit Energy, before becoming Director of Commodity Research at ClipperData for 6 years, leading a team of analysts across a variety of energy commodities.
Matt joined Kpler in September 2021, and as Head Analyst, US, he is focused on producing research and providing counsel to key clients on the energy market.

Pablo Gristo
Head of Exploration and Production Energy Transition, ANCAP

Pablo Gristo Savornin is the head of Exploration and Production, Energy Transition at ANCAP (national oil Company of Uruguay). For the last 17 years, he worked as a professional, team leader or supervisor in several projects for exploration and production of mineral resources, onshore and offshore Uruguay, Argentina and Venezuela. He has also collaborated in the planning and technical supervision of several petroleum contracts (exploration, multicliente and services). Pablo is a Chemical Engineer from the School of Engineering at Universidad de la República, Montevideo (2001), post graduated in exploration and production of hydrocarbons training organized by YPF and Petroskills, Buenos Aires (2009), and a Master in Petroleum Engineering at Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh (2017). He is a member of SPE, EAGE and AIQU.

Monica Lesmes Martinez
Manager- Crude Oil Trading, Repsol

Mónica Lesmes has developed most of her career in Repsol. After a 3 year period working for BP Chemicals in London, she joined Repsol Trading in 2003 as products Operator. She moved to Petrochemicals trading in 2007 and then Middle Distillates Trading in 2010. In 2015 she joined the Crudes Desk where she traded Sweet, Brazil and West Africa crudes. In 2018 Mónica was appointed Crude Oil Trading Manager. The team focuses on supplying the Refining System as well trading Brazil, WAF and Sour crudes.

Francisco Imperatore
Manager- Trading & Origination, Pan American Energy

Stefanos Kazantzis
Commercial Director, Mcquilling

Stefanos Kazantzis is the Commercial Director for McQuilling Services, LLC. McQuilling Services is one of the world’s leading independent marine transportation advisory firms, providing a wide range of market particpants analytical reports, market studies and data services. Stefanos brings to McQuilling Services over 22 years of broad experience in the maritime and finance industries. Leading the company’s research and consulting team, Stefanos is regularly communicating McQuilling’s market views to national and major oil companies around the world, commodity traders, public and privately held shipping companies as well as institutional investors with shipping exposure.
Prior to joining McQuilling, Stefanos held a senior position with Bank of America focusing on the investment and relationship management of the bank’s high net worth clients. Additionally, he held the position of buy-side equity analyst and investment associate with a New York based registered investment advisor. Stefanos received his Master of Business Administration (M.B.A.) degree from Fordham University’s Graduate School of Business and obtained Bachelor Degrees in Finance and Economics from Rutgers University where he was recognized as the school’s scholar athlete of the year for his performance in the classroom and the soccer field.

Raquel Filgueiras
Project Manager, Innovation Norway

Vanessa Viola
Senior Vice-President, Latin America, Argus

Vanessa Viola is the Senior Vice-President of Latin America at Argus. She rejoined Argus in 2011 as our Brazil Country Manager and is now working to expand the company’s business across Latin America. Vanessa initially joined Argus in 2001, working as Deputy Editor of the Argus European Products report and Editor of the Argus International LPG report before leaving in 2005 to work as an LPG broker with Gibson in London. Prior to her assignments in the UK, Vanessa worked as a political and financial correspondent for Reuters (Brasilia, Sao Paulo), as a financial reporter for Brazil’s leading news agency Agencia Estado and as a press relations officer with energy engineering company Asea Brown Boveri, also based in Sao Paulo. A graduate from Brazil’s Casper Libero University with a BA in social communications, Vanessa has a master’s degree in international journalism from London’s City University. In addition to Portuguese and English, she is fluent in Spanish.

Alex Younevitch
Head of Freight, Argus

Gus Vasquez
Argus Americas Senior Crude Editor, Argus

Gus Vasquez has been the Argus Americas Crude Editor since the beginning of 2008. Prior to that he was a member of Argus’ European crude team, based out of London, where he covered the North Sea, Mediterra¬nean, Russian and west African crude markets. Before joining Argus in 2006, he spent four years as a market analyst for Venezuela’s national oil company working out of their London office.

James Gooder
Vice-President, Crude, Argus

James is responsible for business development in southern Europe and Africa. James has been with the company since 2004 performing several editorial roles, including editing European electricity and emissions market publications. From 2007-10, he was the editor of the daily Argus Crude report, managing a global team of reporters and developing new crude price assessments. Prior to joining Argus, James worked as a teacher, speechwriter and journalist. He holds a bachelor’s degree in English and American literature from Manchester University and a master’s degree in international journalism from City University, London.

Vlasios Voudouris
Chief Data Officer, Argus

Vlasios joined Argus from Standard Chartered Bank where he was the head of the quantitative modelling and analytics team. He has expertise in data science for commodity markets and uses insights from data to illuminate trading, hedging and risk management for crude markets. He is the co-author of two books — one on applied data science and one on energy markets. Vlasios holds a PhD from City, University of London.