Management
Our core management group is a blue-ribbon assemblage of talented individuals with specialized expertise in catalysis, process design, project execution and opportunity development.
Steven T. Wolf
Managing Director, Extiel Holdings, LLC
Steve Wolf is a founding member and Managing Director of Extiel Holdings, LLC, and President of Land And Natural Resource Development, Inc. (LNRD) an Alabama-based oil and gas company formed in 1987. LNRD drills and operates wells in the Paleozoics of the Black Warrior Basin in central Alabama and Mississippi, and the Cretaceous and Jurassic targets of the Salt Basin of southern Louisiana, Mississippi, Florida and Alabama.
With LNRD he initiated and developed a $400 million coalbed methane project, which became a recognized field with over 500 wells. He has developed, funded, and managed the successful execution of $20-$50 million drilling and secondary recovery programs.
Steve was a co-founder of Petrosakh U.S.A., which initiated development of a field on Sakhalin Island that became a 100-million-barrel field. In 2009, LNRD supervised the design, engineering, fabrication, construction and commissioning of two gas processing plants in Kazakhstan. Early in his career he developed exploration Joint Ventures for the Eastern Exploration Region of ARCO Exploration Company. He earned a BBA in Accounting with honors (1977) and a JD Law (1979) both from the University of Texas, Austin.
Greg Carr
Managing Director, Extiel GPG, LLC
Greg Carr is a founder and Managing Director of Extiel GPG, LLC., as well as founder and President of Gulf Process Gases since 2009. He has 33 years’ experience in industrial gases technology and business development, overlapped with 23 years of successful tech-company start-up work. Early in his career, he founded two information technology companies, Kinetiks and US Minerals. As President & CEO, Greg led Kinetiks to its successful NASDAQ IPO, and US Minerals to its acquisition by Oracle Corporation.
Greg joined H2Gen in 2004, a Hydrogen/Syngas venture-backed startup focused on Steam Methane Reforming (SMR) and Pressure Swing Adsorption (PSA) technologies (both integral components of the GTL process). H2Gen was based on downsizing proven large-scale hydrogen plants so that a business could make its own hydrogen from available natural gas rather than buying expensive bottled gas from large producers. He spearheaded the company’s successful drive to build its first 40 units, at which time; Air Liquide acquired H2Gen. Greg patented key industrial & process gas application developments while at Air Liquide and H2Gen.
Greg earned a BS in Chemistry and a MS in Engineering from Southern Illinois University where he performed four years of catalytic hydroprocessing research and pilot unit operations. He completed Air Liquide’s Executive Management Business Program at INSEAD in Fontainebleau, France.
Mark McKinley
Director, Extiel Holdings, LLC
Mark McKinley is a founding member and Director of Extiel Holdings, LLC. He is manager of MKCA, LLC, a private independent oil company focused on the exploration and development of onshore oil properties in the San Joaquin and Santa Maria Basins of California and has served as Managing Partner of MK Resources LLC, a private oil and gas development company specializing in unconventional resources.
For more than ten years he has served as a director of Buckeye GP, LLC, owner and operator of a diversified network of integrated assets primarily for the transportation, storage and marketing of liquid petroleum products.
Since 2015, he has been a director of Anadarko Petroleum Corporation, one of the world’s largest independent oil and natural gas companies.
Mark is also a founder of Labrador Oil Company (LOC), a private oil and gas exploration and development firm that has owned interest in approximately 500 wells, primarily in the Black Warrior and San Juan Basins. LOC was one of the early participants to gain expertise in the development of coalbed methane properties.
Michael O’Brien
Executive VP, Extiel Holdings, LLC
Michael O’Brien is a founder, Director and Executive Vice President of Extiel Holdings, LLC. Michael is also founder and President of Stranded Gas Services, Inc (SGS), formed in 2008 to develop technologies to monetize economically stranded gas that is currently capped or flared. Michael has executed approximately fifty projects involving natural gas, associated gas, biogas, landfill gas, and synthesis gas streams resulting in the beneficial use of stranded resources.
In 2009 through 2011, SGS participated in the project management, process design, engineering, fabrication, construction and commissioning of two gas processing plants in Kazakhstan that recovered wasted flare gas for beneficial use.
In 1995, Mr. O’Brien founded and served as President of South Coast Clean Air, Inc. (SCCA), a company dedicated to developing “end of pipe” environmental compliance strategies for a wide variety of manufacturing processes.
Michael’s past experience includes senior technical and business positions for GE Energy, NATCO Group and Wheelabrator. He has authored and presented numerous technical papers at industry conferences focused on gas conditioning and environmental compliance.
Michael holds a BS in Natural Gas Engineering (1984) from Texas A&M University, Kingsville, TX.
David De Villiers, PhD
Senior Scientist
Dr. David De Villiers is a globally recognized expert in the Fischer-Tropsch (F-T) gas-to-liquids industry. He spent five years at GTL industry leader SASOL in South Africa as a Principal Scientist helping to advance state of art F-T catalysts and kinetics.
David served as a Senior Research Chemist for five years at Sud Chemie (now Clariant) where he was involved in the design, testing and commercialization of catalysts for F-T, syngas, refinery and petrochemical applications. He holds patents in F-T catalyst technology and has authored a number of peer reviewed papers and book chapters on GTL.
David is working to optimize the design and selection of the full range of catalysts used in Extiel Gas to Liquids plants, including the front-end SMR, F-T synthesis step and back-end finishing section. Dr. De Villiers earned his PhD in Physical Chemistry from the University of Stellenbosch in South Africa.
Mark Forsyth
Project Control Manager, Extiel Holdings, LLC
Mark Forsyth brings a wealth of experience in asset management, reliability and project control. He has consulted across multiple industries on asset utilization solutions, including High Reliability Organizational (HRO) principles and Reliability and Asset Management transformation.
At Chevron, Mark worked across the company’s global network to drive reliability and implement best practices company wide. He managed a $3.1 billion power project for Tengizchevroil (TCO) in Kazakhstan, creating the structure for hiring, training, and certifying 700 personnel, including operating and maintenance procedures to ensure reliable and safe operation of a planned $34 Billion expansion of the TCO facilities.
Mark served as Managing Director of UMS Group Sourcing Solutions, a business designed to provide outsourced process support for Asset Management, Asset Investment Strategy, Performance Management, Strategic Resource Management, Supply Chain Strategy and core Maintenance and Reliability processes. As Principal Consultant for the Asset Management Practice at UMS Group, Mark led the development of product templates, assessment guides, training programs, and information technology tools to support Strategic Asset Management.
Mark graduated with honors from Excelsior College with a BS in Nuclear Engineering Technology (1996).