John B. Gerstenlauer
Chief Operating Officer
John Gerstenlauer joins Gulf Keystone from BASF's Wintershall Nederland Group, The Hague, where he was Managing Director. A US citizen, Mr Gerstenlauer holds Bachelor of Science degrees in Marine Biology, Civil Engineering and a Master of Science degree in Ocean Engineering. He has written numerous technical papers on Petrophysical topics and drilling techniques. Mr Gerstenlauer's oil & gas industry career began when he joined Shell Coastal Division, New Orleans, as a Petrophysical Engineer in 1979. Over subsequent years, he assumed increasingly senior production engineering and drilling engineering roles within various New Orleans-based Shell operating divisions including Coastal, Onshore and Offshore until joining Shell Oil subsidiary Pecten Cameroon Inc as Engineering Manager in 1985, where he was responsible for 50,000 of operated offshore production, and a further 120,000 bopd of non-operated offshore production. Mr Gerstenlauer returned to Shell's Offshore East and Coastal Divisions, New Orleans in 1989 as Production Superintendent before transferring to Shell Oil subsidiary Pecton do Brasil Ltd as Engineering Manager in 1990, and then in 1993 he was seconded to Canadian Occidental Yemen ("CanOxy Yemen") as Operations Manager. At CanOxy Yemen Mr Gerstenlauer managed the project from start-up to full production of 210,000 bopd. In 1996, Mr Gerstenlauer joined UMC Petroleum firstly as International Engineering Manager and then International Operations Manager focussed mainly on offshore West Africa. Following UMC's planned takeover by Ocean Energy in 1998, Mr Gerstenlauer joined Wintershall AG, Kassel, Germany as Project Manager then Consultant before becoming Managing Director of Wintershall Nederland Group, The Hague in 2003.
