Hans van den Berg 

Experience & Keys Skills Set

Hans is a Production Chemist with a BSc in Physics. In his 40 years with Shell E&P he worked in a great variety of disciplines; Started as lab technician in Production Services he gained practical and theoretical knowledge in Reservoir Fluid phase behaviour. He was promoted to Researcher dealing with numerous EOR-related projects (core flood- and slim tube tests with CO2, N2, natural gas, surfactants, polymers, IFT measurements and asphaltene precipitation studies).This was followed by eight years in Rock Mechanics working on borehole stability and hydraulic fracturing widened and deepened his knowledge in this field.

Late 90’s Hans was posted to Gabon as head of Shell Gabon’s PC labs in Gamba and Rabi. He deployed his passion and skills in dealing with bigger data sets by developing and implementing a robust, simple to maintain Lab Information System based that was highly appreciated by Operations and Petroleum Engineering. After 15 years this system is still in use. He also developed a model to optimize demulsifier dosage to individual oil producing wells, based on BS&W and emulsion levels, leading to accelerated dehydration at reduced cost.

Early 2000 Hans entered the Drilling Fluid subject matter by joining Shell’s Global Impairment Prevention and Stimulation Team. In those years, he developed another tool, this one to design an optimal Bridging Agent particle size distribution, based on available formation properties and available Calcium carbonate particle size distributions. For 5 years he chaired the API/ISO Drilling Fluids workgroup that updated and developed related Industry Standards.

In 2005 he became a member of the team that developed Shell’s sophisticated On-site core flood apparatus. Data obtainable with this equipment yields crucial information for the design of an economic (produced) water flood: injectivity decline rate versus level of water treatment.

Due to a reorganisation in 2009 Hans’ career was transferred to Well Construction/Completion R&D for a couple of years. A great opportunity to take Shell’s famous Well Engineering course, providing a wealth of knowledge and insight. He was involved in various zonal isolation projects, including Swellable Elastomers and gelling behaviour of various fluids.

In his last 4 years with Shell he was posted to Oman, responsible for the performance of Chemical Applications within the Marmul field (polymer flood) and Harweel field (5% H2S) in South Oman. As LEAN Practitioner, he and his team developed the Standard Operating Procedures with clear, easy to interpret visual representations of chemical dosage and operational figures versus related performance. This streamlined the complex workflows and relations between Operations, Reservoir Engineering, Production Chemistry and with these multi-million operations: Contracts & Procurement.

During this time, he developed a tool to set optimal Wax Inhibitor rates. The implementation resulted in an 80% reduction, representing a ChemOPEX saving in excess of $750,000 per annum.

In 2016 Hans retired and now acts as an Independent Production Chemist.