MEET THE TEAM
Bill Wilks PhD
Managing Director / Principal Geophysicist
Bill has over 35 years of broad global experience in exploration and appraisal, with the majority spent with operating oil companies. Geologically driven seismic interpretation at all scales – Exploration/appraisal evaluations and portfolio build – Structural interpretation – Play based exploration – Integration of rock property modelling – Integration of non-seismic methods for opportunity de-risking – New ventures evaluations and screening. Previous Employment: Petroleum Development Oman | Sarawak Shell | Shell UK | Maersk Oil and Gas | BG | Ikoda | Scott Pickford
Helen Bone
Chartered Geologist / Director / Geoscience Division Manager
A Chartered Geologist with over 25 years global industry experience gained in both operating and consulting companies across the whole E&P life cycle. Reservoir analysis and model building - Prospect evaluation - Petrophysical analysis - Geological drilling support - Volumetric determination - New ventures evaluations and screening Previous Employment: iTec Resource | Fairfield Energy | Zeta Petroleum | Granby Oil & Gas | Regal Petroleum | Troy-Ikoda
Fiona Lawrance
Business Administration Manager
Fiona has worked in the oil industry for over 30 years and has a BSc in Geology. One of the founders of Merlin, Fiona carries out the key roles of Company Secretary, Bookkeeper, Office Administration and HR. Fiona advises on data loading issues, drawing on her many years of experience as a technical assistant. Fiona also ensures we operate best practice HSE procedures. Previous Employment: Clyde Petroleum | Hunt United Corp. | Neste Exploration Ltd.
Eleanor Oldham
Senior Geophysicist / Rock Physicist / New Ventures Manager
A Geophysicist with over 15 years of experience, having a thorough background in a range of geophysical techniques and a specialism in rock physics. Training lead for Essentials of Rock Physics and Seismic Amplitude Interpretation Course. Rock physics and quantitative seismic interpretation - 2D/3D seismic interpretation and depth conversion.
Philip Copestake PhD
Principal Geologist / Stratigrapher
A petroleum geoscientist / stratigrapher with over 40 years of global oil and gas industry experience, with operating companies and in the service sector, in both technical and management capacities. Petroleum geoscience - Applied sequence stratigraphy -Biostratigraphy - Active researcher with significant publication record. Previous Employment: IHS | IEDS | BP | Britoil | BNOC | Robertson Research
Benjamin Adillah
Senior Reservoir Engineer
A Reservoir Engineer with over 10 years of experience of offshore and onshore fields, covering exploration, prospect maturation, development and brown fields' operations. Carbonate & clastic reservoir analysis - Dynamic & probabilistic modelling - Development & reservoir management plan delivery. Previous Employment: PETRONAS | Sarawak Shell
Andy Sims PhD
Chartered Geologist
A Chartered Geologist with over 38 years of experience in exploration, development and production geoscience in UK and international petroleum areas. Reservoir description, quantification & model building – Petrophysical analysis and volumetric determination – Geoscience application and IT support. Previous Employment: Clyde Petroleum | Britoil
Georgina Lockham
Geoscientist
Graduated in 2018 with an MSc in Petroleum Geoscience from the University of Manchester. Geophysics - 2D/3D seismic interpretation – Well ties - Coordinate Reference Systems and location reviews - GIS - Data audit, QC, Loading and project set-up support - Marketing support.
David Whitworth
Junior Geologist
Graduated in 2020 with an MSc in Petroleum Geoscience from Royal Holloway, University of London. PhD underway in sedimentology and carbon storage. Geological interpretation well logs – Sedimentology - Stratigraphy - Geomodelling - Energy transition including CCUS & Geothermal.
Jay Lydon-Johnston
Data Assistant
A grounding in technical roles ranging from training individuals in the charitable sector in the use of databases, to general computer advice for home clients. An avid fan of the sciences, holding a BSc in Environmental Resource Management.
Merlin Associates
Merlin has a team of associates that we can call upon to complement our in-house skills.
- All our associates are well known to us, and come highly recommended.
- We will not propose an associate for a project unless we are convinced that they will provide top class results, backed up by a track record of project delivery.
- Merlin will typically involve trusted associates on a project where their specialist skills are required, or when a 'chinese wall' is required to protect client confidentiality.
Belltree Ltd.
Merlin has a long standing alliance with Belltree Ltd. This alliance allows us to deliver projects that require Engineering workflows. Belltree provide industry leading Reservoir Engineering and Petroleum Engineering consultancy. Belltree’s complementary services include:
- Benchmarking studies, employing bMarkTM.
- Reservoir Engineering.
- Mature Field Rehabilitation (LTRO).
- Simulation Modelling.
- Commercial advisory and independent reports
Find out more on their website.
Malvern Geochemistry Services LTD.
Our alliance with Malvern Geochem extends Merlin’s geoscience capability to include geochemistry and petroleum systems support for clients. Established relationships with industry-leading analysis providers means that we can deliver tailored data and interpretations needed to address business needs across the full E&P lifecycle. Example applications include:
- Reservoir Fluid Property Assessment (including Contaminants, Non-Equilibrium Gradients…)
- Production Surveillance and Geochemical Production Allocation.
- Well Integrity Assessment and Abandonment Support.
- Geochemistry Training and Mentoring.
Quintessa Ltd.
The Merlin and Quintessa alliance brings together two groups of technical professionals with deep expertise in geosciences, data management & analysis, decision support, mathematical & geochemical modelling and software development skills.
Combining the skillsets of Quintessa and Merlin provides support to clients in a range of areas including carbon capture and storage (CCS), geothermal energy utilisation, hydrogen production and storage, natural gas storage, and the decommissioning of oil and gas production facilities.
Find out more here.
Third Party Providers
Merlin works with a group of hand-picked third party companies to deliver value-adding specialist solutions to our clients. The project management is taken care of by the Merlin team to ensure that the client enjoys a seamless multi-disciplinary service that is bespoke to their needs.