Robert E. Johnston
Senior Staff Geologist, Vice President
Robert E. Johnston joined DeGolyer and MacNaughton in 2010 as a wellbore- to regional-scale integration specialist. Prior to joining D&M, Johnston held production, exploration, and new ventures roles at ExxonMobil and BHP Billiton and worked for an industry-recognized consulting firm.
Johnston graduated with a bachelor’s degree in geology from California State University in Chico, California in 1995. He completed a master’s degree in geology at the University of California at Los Angeles in 1997. He is a member of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists and a registered Certified Petroleum Geologist.
Geographical Experience
- Algeria
- Angola
- Argentina
- Australia
- Azerbaijan
- Bahrain
- Barbados
- Brazil
- Brunei
- Cameroon
- Canada
- China
- Colombia
- Ecuador
- Egypt
- Ethiopia
- Equatorial Guinea
- Gabon
- Grenada
- Hungary
- India
- Iraq
- Ireland
- Israel
- Kazakhstan
- Kenya
- Kurdistan
- Kuwait
- Liberia
- Libya
- Madagascar
- Malaysia
- Mexico
- Mozambique
- Myanmar
- New Zealand
- Nigeria
- Norway
- Pakistan
- Philippines
- Poland
- Romania
- Russia
- São Tomé and Príncipe
- Saudi Arabia
- Seychelles
- Somalia
- South Africa
- South Sudan
- Suriname
- Tanzania
- Thailand
- Trinidad & Tobago
- Tunisia
- Turkmenistan
- Turkey
- Uganda
- Ukraine
- United Arab Emirates
- United Kingdom
- United States
- Uzbekistan
- Vietnam
Topical Areas of Expertise
- Regional and prospect resources estimation and risk analysis
- Regional- to wellbore-scale data integration
- Prospect generation
- Unconventional hydrocarbon play analysis, resources estimation, and risk analysis
- Structural analysis
- 2–D and 3–D seismic interpretation
- Well to seismic ties
- Seismic attribute generation and analysis
- Subsurface mapping and reservoir characterization
- Hydrocarbon system basin modeling
Major Projects
Johnston’s background includes experience recommending workovers and near-field wildcats to frontier basin new ventures exploration projects, generating complete hydrocarbon system models that incorporate all elements from plate tectonic paleogeography, potential source and reservoir deposition, trap, source maturity, migration timing, and trap preservation. Given the increasing importance of unconventional reservoirs, Johnston has incorporated unconventional play analysis, geochemistry, and basin modeling analysis into his work. His graduate work emphasized structural geology, and he was recognized as a subject matter expert in the fields of structural analysis and seismic interpretation at ExxonMobil.
