Executive Viewpoint: It was the best of times

Andy Howell is the Chief Executive Office of KBC, a Yokogawa Company. He is responsible for KBC’s overall business and is a member of Yokogawa’s global Digital Enterprise Business Headquarters executive team. Prior to this position, Mr. Howell managed KBC’s technology business. He started his career with BP Exploration in the UK, after which he joined Hyprotech where he managed technology development. Following acquisition by AspenTech, he moved to Schlumberger, holding senior management positions related to oil and gas development and production engineering. Mr. Howell earned an MS degree in chemical engineering from the University of Cambridge, UK, and several patents in integrated asset modelling and digitalization.

Russell Byfield is the Global Simulation Business Leader for KBC, a Yokogawa Company. He has more than 25 yr of international experience in the oil and gas, petroleum and process industries. He has been directly involved in field development, reservoir engineering, process facilities design, commissioning and operations, fabrication and construction. Over the past two decades, Mr. Byfield has focused on the modelling, analytics, digitalization and optimization of conventional and unconventional oil and gas development and operations. He earned a chemical engineering degree with honors from Adelaide University, is a Fellow of Engineers Australia, a Chartered Professional Engineer, RPEQ Petroleum and Process Engineer and is the past chair of the Queensland Branch of the Society of Petroleum Engineers.