UT PGE Recognizes 2017 Distinguished Alumni Honorees

The award is given annually to UT PGE alumni who are leaders in the oil and gas industry — educators, executives, innovators and entrepreneurs with unmatched industry expertise. Distinguished Alumni recipients are selected by a committee of UT PGE alumni, including past award honorees.

Meet the 2017 Distinguished Alumni Honorees:

Malcolm Abel

B.S., Petroleum Engineering, 1947

Malcolm D. Abel was born September 10, 1924, the oldest child of William Chester and Annie May Powell. He was born in Bosque County, Texas. He graduated Valedictorian from Plains High School at age 15 in 1940.

He worked in the oil fields of West Texas and started his college education at Texas Tech University. He entered The University of Texas at Austin in 1944 and was in the U S Navy V-12 Program, and was commissioned as a Lieutenant and served in the Pacific in 1945. He graduated from UT Austin with a degree in petroleum engineering in 1947.

Abel married Verna May Kelly in 1946. They moved to Midland after he graduated from UT Austin. He was employed by Plymouth Oil Company and was responsible for the exploration operations in West Texas. He was later a drilling supervisor for BBM Drilling Co., where he was responsible for 48 active drilling rigs. In 1956, he went to work for W.E. Bakke Oil Co., an independent oil and gas exploration company. He formed Abel and Bancroft in 1961 and explored for oil and gas in South and West Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, and Alberta, Canada. He started M.D. Abel Co. in 1964, which is still an active company today. He was also the executive Vice President of UNC Texas a wholly owned subsidiary of United Nuclear Corporation from 1973 to 1983 which conducted exploration in Texas, New Mexico and Kansas.

While residing in Midland, Texas, he was active in the Boy Scouts of America, the Confederate Air Force (now Commemorative), and was on the board of advisors for the Petroleum Museum. He was past President of Texas Independent Producers and Royalty Owners Association, and was recognized as Mr. Tipro in 1983, he was active in this organization for over 30 years. He was recognized as a distinguished Graduate of the University of Texas in 1975. He was on the Engineering Board Foundation from 1967 until his death in 1996. He established the Malcolm D. Abel Centennial Endowed Scholarship in Petroleum Engineering in the department at The University of Texas at Austin.

Abel passed away in February of 1996. He is survived by his three children, four grandsons, two granddaughters (one deceased), nine great-grandchildren and one great-great-grandchild. He was a proud supporter of UT football.

Fraser H. Allen

B.S., Chemical Engineering, 1941
Ph.D., Petroleum Engineering, 1947

Fraser H. Allen had a distinguished career in the international petroleum industry. He received his B.S. in chemical engineering from the University of Toronto in 1941.

He continued his studies at The University of Texas at Austin with an M.S. in 1943 while working as a roustabout for Standard Oil. After serving in the US Navy at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, DC, during WWII, he returned in 1947 to complete his dissertation and was awarded the first Ph.D. in petroleum engineering by UT Austin.

After completing his studies, he returned to work for Standard Oil, holding a series of engineering assignments in the US, and was appointed Chief Engineer for the company in 1960. His next assignment for the company, now called AMOCO, was Coordinator of Crude Oil Production, Purchasing and Transportation. In 1966, he joined Amoco International Oil Company, working on the UK’s North Sea, Iran and in other countries of the Middle East. As President of Amoco Argentina beginning in 1970, he rebuilt the company’s nationalized-asset operations after they were returned to private hands. In 1972, Allen then moved back to Chicago as Vice President of Production for Amoco International. During this time, he led the Amoco team negotiating with governments in such diverse countries as Algeria, Trinidad and Tobago and Venezuela for exploration and production rights.

Allen was appointed President of Amoco Canada Petroleum Company in 1975. His 10 years in Canada were marked by the rapid growth of the company’s exploration and production. He served as the Chairman of the Canadian Petroleum Association in 1979-80, appearing frequently on TV and taking on many speaking engagements on behalf of the petroleum industry.

After his retirement from Amoco, he founded Petro-Economics, Incorporated and continued to be active in negotiations between governments and various oil producers. He developed and taught the short course Economics of Petroleum Production, which was presented to various firms, individual clients, and the National Security Agency through Oil and Gas Consultants International of Tulsa. His book titled Economics of Worldwide Petroleum Production, coauthored with Richard Seba, was published in 1993. He was also a distinguished lecturer for SPE.

Allen passed away in 1997, followed by his wife, Eloise, in 2006. They are survived by three children, six grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. He enjoyed scuba diving, golf, and canoeing at his cottage in Ontario during summer vacations.

Helge H. Haldorsen

M.S., Petroleum Engineering
Ph.D., Reservoir Engineering

Helge H. Haldorsen is CEO of Wichmann WH&M Advisory. Previously, he was vice president of investor relations for Equinor, general director of Statoil Mexico, and vice president of strategy and portfolio for Statoil North America.

Before Statoil, Haldorsen worked with Norsk Hydro E&P in various roles, including chief reservoir engineer, vice president of technology and competence, vice president of exploration and research, senior vice president of international exploration and production, and president of Hydro Gulf of Mexico. He also held various positions at BP, Sohio and ExxonMobil in Anchorage, London, San Francisco, Stavanger and Houston. He was a second lieutenant in the Royal Norwegian Navy and a professor of industrial mathematics at the University of Oslo.

Haldorsen earned an M.S. in petroleum engineering from the Norwegian Institute of Technology in Trondheim (now NTNU) and a Ph.D. in reservoir engineering from The University of Texas at Austin, with Professor Larry W. Lake as his Ph.D. committee chair. He served on the Offshore Technology Conference Board of Directors for five years and currently serves on the Cockrell School of Engineering External Advisory Board (EAC).

Haldorsen also served on the Society of Petroleum Engineers’ (SPE) Board of Directors for three years. He has been an SPE Distinguished Lecturer and an SPE Distinguished Author. Haldorsen has authored a large number of technical papers and articles on reservoir engineering and other E&P themes, and he has given frequent E&P industry keynotes throughout his career. Haldorsen was the 2015 president of the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) with 165,000 individual members in 144 countries. He was awarded the 2013 Rhodes Petroleum Industry Leadership Award by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME).

Gabe Muoneke

B.S., Petroleum Engineering, 2000

Although Nnadubem Gabriel Muoneke “Gabe” was born in Michigan in 1978 to Igbo Nigerian parents, it did not take him long to land in Houston, where he would be molded into the individual we see today.

While growing up in Houston, Muoneke attended St. Christopher’s Private Catholic School, which included Latin, French and German in the curriculum. Muoneke attributes this foundation to the genesis of his desire to be a true Renaissance man. From that point on, he was fascinated with the idea of doing, if not the impossible, the extremely difficult.

Muoneke participated in multiple and seemingly unrelated areas of expertise just because in his mind, they were the exact same thing. As a child in elementary school, Muoneke started learning two languages on his own while learning the piano and saxophone. Even today, Muoneke is still determined to learn more in multiple areas and considers energy solutions no different than learning a language, mathematics, martial arts or basketball. Muoneke speaks seven languages, including Hebrew, which he still studies.

Muoneke lived by this mentality and pursued basketball relatively late in life at 13; his father (at the time completing his Ph.D. at the University of Houston) introduced him to a Nigerian and UH alumnus, Hakeem Olajuwon. This determination guided Muoneke through high school as an all “A” student (5.9/6.0 GPA, Cypress Falls) while being one of the most sought-after high school seniors in the state of Texas and the US. Muoneke enrolled at The University of Texas at Austin with a basketball scholarship and majored in petroleum engineering.

As a four-year starter for The University of Texas Men’s Basketball Team during 1996 to 2000, Muoneke would rise in the university’s history books to reach the top 20 in scoring, rebounding, games started and played while finalizing his degree in petroleum engineering.

Muoneke would enjoy a near 10-year professional basketball career, mainly overseas and with short stints in the NBA and the NBA’s Developmental League, where he would prove he was not average in anything he did. He would retire early to pursue a career in oil and gas and shortly start MTX, an African-Based Energy Company. Today, MTX is engaged in multiple energy projects in Africa, including a $200M gas project that will increase the host country’s power capacity by 30 percent.

Muoneke has been married to Lenea Muoneke for 15 years, and they have four children. 

Tim Taylor

B.S., Petroleum Engineering
M.S., Petroleum Engineering
Ph.D., Petroleum Engineering

Tim Taylor was born in Jacksonville, Texas. While in the first grade, his father started work for a pipeline company, and they followed pipelines across many states.

This required frequent moves, and Taylor attended as many as five schools a year. This probably accounts for his inability to focus on anything for very long. After several years, they returned to East Texas, where Taylor graduated from Maydelle High School, the first in a class of eighteen.

His degree in petroleum technology from Tyler Junior College whetted his appetite for the oil industry. He entered the Department of Petroleum Engineering at UT Austin, where he earned B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. degrees. He worked for the Gulf Oil Company in Louisiana and, later, in Midland, Texas, where he met his wife, Barbara. They have three children: Travis, Laura and Matthew. Taylor formed a consulting firm in Tyler, Texas, with his mentor, Dr. Ben Caudle, and ran that reservoir engineering company for seven years before joining Snyder Oil Company in Ft. Worth, where he helped form an international subsidiary resulting in a listing on the London Stock Exchange.

Taylor and his wife moved to England, where, as Chief Operating Officer of SOCO International, he managed assets in Russia, Tunisia, Yemen, Mongolia, Viet Nam, Australia and several other countries, as well as Southern England. After a stint in Calgary, Canada, he and Barbara moved back to East Texas, where he declared himself retired. After a year of playing golf and fishing, Barbara told him she “married him for better or worse, but not for lunch”. So, he joined the PGE faculty at UT Austin, which he considers the highlight of his career.

After retiring from UT Austin, Taylor joined Texas American Resources in Austin as Chief Operating Officer. Later, he joined NextEra Energy Resources in Houston as Chief Technical Officer, where he built a reservoir engineering department and worked in all the major US basins. He retired from NextEra in 2015.

Taylor is a member of the Society of Petroleum Engineers, the Society of Petroleum Evaluation Engineers, and is a Licensed Professional Engineer and currently serves as Chairman of the External Advisory Committee for PGE. He continues to consult and teach occasional short courses. He and his wife live in their lake house on Lake Palestine in East Texas. After working in 18 countries and three retirements, he is now focused.

Peyton Yates, Jr.

B.S., Petroleum Engineering, 1965
M.S., Petroleum Engineering, 1966

Peyton Yates, Jr. was born and reared in Artesia, New Mexico. He graduated from Artesia High School in 1959 and attended The University of Texas at Austin, receiving a bachelor’s degree in petroleum engineering in 1965 and a master’s degree in petroleum engineering in 1966.

After completing his master’s degree, Yates served two years in the U.S. Army with a tour in Vietnam. He achieved the rank of First Lieutenant. Following his military service, Yates worked for Chevron Oil Company in Vernal, Utah, as a Petroleum Engineer. He then joined his family’s business in Artesia in 1970. For nearly 40 years, Yates worked as a key executive in family businesses. He currently serves as President of Santo Petroleum in Artesia, New Mexico.

Yate’s civic involvement includes serving as the past president of the New Mexico Academy of Science. He was the first President of the Independent Petroleum Association of New Mexico. He has also served as a member of the Department of Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering Advisory Board at The University of Texas at Austin. He was recognized as a Distinguished Engineering Graduate of The University of Texas at Austin, Cockrell School of Engineering in 2003.

Because of his passion to help educate New Mexico’s residents, Yates was honored as the first “Executive in Residence” with New Mexico State University’s College of Business. Yates is a past President of Artesia Main Street. He currently serves on the Boy Scouts of America Conquistador Council Trust Committee, and he has attained the rankings of Eagle Scout and Silver Beaver in the Boy Scouts of America.