Ms. Chris Summers
Senior Associate Consultant

• Experience Summary

Experienced environmental, regulatory & assurance professional specializing in analyzing emerging regulations and developing compliance and assurance procedures. 26 years of leadership experience with ability to deliver implementation plans for regulatory and corporate compliance. Strengths include industry analysis, planning, forecasting, communicating and negotiating.

PROVEN ABILITIES AND RESULTS

• Represented BP on joint-industry work teams with regulatory or environmental focus, including an API Taskforce to understand and influence federal regulations on operations that may impact protected marine species. Results include successful negotiation to change terms of proposed Incidental Take permit for seismic operations
• Developed comprehensive compliance procedures to meet federal and state requirements for permitting upstream oil industry operations, including sources of data, key business contacts, formats and schedule of submissions. These standardized procedures resulted in reducing paperwork non-compliances by 83%.
• Worked with client groups to document and streamline their permitting and reporting, further reducing operational reporting non-compliances by 40%.
• Key member of BP's Dive Assurance Workgroup formed after a commercial diver fatality. Coordinated writing standards and HSE procedures/policies for contracting commercial dive services. Trained dive contractors to prepare them to meet BP expectations. Presented BP's procedures to trade associations, resulting in similar efforts starting at Shell and Chevron/Texaco, and plans for including dive safety at a joint safety symposium in fall 2003.

• Recruited environmental and regulatory specialists to staff newly-formed Compliance team, resulting in overhead savings of 25% by eliminating reliance on contractors. This in-house team met an aggressive ISO certification schedule and achieved improved regulatory client satisfaction.
• Resource Unit Leader in BP's Incident Management Team, for oil spill response or other Safety or Environmental incidents. BP's high levels of incident preparedness led to being the first 3-time winner of the MMS's national CARE award.
• Directed divestiture activities, including: ranking, strategy, data preparation, presentation, and transfer of mature Shelf fields, resulting in improved average unit lifting cost.
• Led multi-disciplinary petrotechnical teams and managed exploration program and capital budget resulting in successful lease sale acquisition of over 750 Gulf of Mexico (GoM) leases.

• Commercial analyst and Business Plan Coordinator. Developed interactive Excel-based database to compile 5 dozen case files to characterize key performance indicators of the portfolio under multiple scenarios.
• Participated in formulating BP's GoM Deepwater Strategy, resulting in ultimate development of the Mars, Ursa, and Diana/Hoover field hubs.
• Participated in formulating BP's Global Deepwater Strategy, integrating "local knowledge" of BP discoveries, competitor activity, F&D costs, and "corporate knowledge" of future energy demands, resource availability, and likely trends in regulations. Resulted in securing larger share of corporate capital for GoM and West Africa assets.

Communicated statistical and technical information to regulators, non-government agencies, and other non-technical audiences. Coordinated internal and external presentations of BP's Health, Safety and Environmental Compliance performance. These reviews reflected BP's performance relative to corporate expectations as well as relative to competitor's performance in the same areas.
• Negotiated with partners to screen prospects for bidding strategy and select drilling locations for optimal exploration program, resulting in a wildcat success rate of 20%.
• Prepared corporate and government approval documents for appraisal and development of Gulf of Mexico fields in the Norphlet, Shelf, and Deepwater trends, developing combined reserves of 1.8 billion barrels of oil equivalent.
• Led BP's functional network of Regulatory Coordinators from all four GoM Business Units to foster sharing best practices, and to ensure common understanding and distribution of new regulations that affect offshore operations.
• Coordinated BP's Biodiversity Work Group, which recommends company support for environmental education and research using company resources. This program won BP national recognition and was named first place 2001 EPA Gulf Guardian Award.

• Education

Post Baccalaureate courses in Biological Sciences, Houston Baptist University, Houston TX

Post Baccalaureate courses in Economics, University of Houston, Houston TX

BS Geophysics, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX

• Special and Professional Activities

Gulf Coast Environmental Affairs Group -

Marine Technology Society -

BP's Representative member in Association of Dive Contractors and International Marine -

Contractors Association -

• Professional Experience

BP Exploration and Production, Inc. 1982-2003

Positions held include Environmental and Regulatory Team Leader, Commercial Analyst, Exploitation Team Leader and Exploration Geophysicist.

Exploration Geophysicist, Shell Oil Co. 1977-1982