Steve Begg is a professor and former head of the Australian School of Petroleum, University of Adelaide. His focus is on tools and processes for asset and portfolio investment decision-making under uncertainty, including psychological factors in eliciting expert opinions and uncertainty assessments.
Previously he was director for Decision Science and Strategic Planning with Landmark Graphics (a Halliburton company), where he was responsible for leading improved economic evaluation and decision-making for both Landmark and its customers.
He also was with BP for 13 years, the last six of which were spent in a variety of senior geoscience and engineering operational assignments in Alaska, which spanned production-forecasting, economic evaluation, petroleum engineering and reservoir characterization roles. He spent seven years as a researcher and project manager with BP Research, where his focus was on risk and uncertainty assessment related to reservoir modelling.
Begg has published numerous papers on topics such as investment evaluation/economics, decision-making, psychology of expert judgements and reservoir modelling. He co-authored a book, “Making Good Decisions,” commissioned by the SPE, and was the lead person in starting SPE’s Economics & Management journal. He is the recipient of SPE’s Asia-Pacific regional award (2012) and top international award (2016), for the Management and Information discipline.
Begg is a frequent speaker at industry conferences and delivers in-house short courses on decision-making, uncertainty, psychology of expert judgements and economic evaluation topics. In 2003 he was a Society of Petroleum Engineer (SPE) Distinguished Lecturer with the topic, “I Would Rather Be Vaguely Right Than Precisely Wrong: A New Approach to Investment Decision-Making,” and again in 2011 with the topic “Reliability of Expert Judgements and Uncertainty Assessments.”
In 2000 he chaired an SPE forum, “Adding Value by Leveraging Risk, Options and Portfolio Management,” and later chaired the SPE Forum Coordinating Committee. He currently sits on the SPE M&I Discipline Committee and its Distinguished Lecturer Committee. In 2014 he was elected to the Board of the Society of Decision Professionals.
Begg, an AAPG member, holds a doctorate in geophysics and a bachelor’s degree in geological geophysics, both from Reading University, England.
Steve holds a PhD degree in Geophysics and a BSc degree in Geological Geophysics from Reading University and has taken executive education courses at MIT and University of Texas.
Australian School of Petroleum-University of Adelaide, Adelaide, SA, Australia
Steve Begg is Professor of Petroleum Engineering and Management and Head of the Australian School of Petroleum at the University of Adelaide, where he specializes in tools and processes for improved business performance. His focus is on asset and portfolio economic evaluation and decision-making under uncertainty, including psychological and judgmental factors.
Before joining the University of Adelaide in 2002, Steve was Director of Decision Science and Strategic Planning for Landmark and prior to that he worked for BP for 13 years: in a variety of senior geo-science and engineering operational assignments in Alaska, and as a reservoir characterization researcher and manager with BP Research.