Julian Salazar
Senior Engineer
Julián Salazar joined DeGolyer and MacNaughton in 2024 as a petroleum engineer. Salazar has experience in several disciplines in the oil and gas upstream industry, from frontier exploration to brownfield development projects. Prior to joining D&M, he worked at Occidental Petroleum and SierraCol as an engineer, geoscientist, and petrophysicist for exploration and development departments. He has 12 years of experience in the industry.
Salazar graduated from Universidad Nacional de Colombia in 2013 and 2014, where he received bachelor’s degrees in chemical engineering and petroleum engineering. He also graduated from Heriot-Watt University in 2021, where he received a master’s degree with distinction in applied petroleum geoscience. He is fluent in Spanish, English, and Portuguese.
Geographical Experience
- Afghanistan
- Algeria
- Angola
- Australia
- Colombia
- Ecuador
- India
- Indonesia
- Iraq
- Mexico
- Myanmar
- Namibia
- Nigeria
- Saudi Arabia
- South Africa
- Suriname
- Ukraine
- United Arab Emirates
- United Kingdom
- Uzbekistan
Topical Areas of Expertise
- Reserves and resources evaluations
- Play and prospect evaluation
- Field development planning
- Volumetric and material-balance calculations
- Probabilistic resources estimation
- Production performance analysis
- Quantitative petrophysical interpretation
- Seismic interpretation and mapping
Major Projects
During his time at D&M, Salazar has conducted reserves, contingent resources and prospective resources evaluations for clients across the world. He has broad experience across the oil and gas life cycle, from frontier exploration studies in offshore deepwater Suriname and Namibia, to reserves evaluation in mature fields in Ukraine and Indonesia.
Salazar began his career in the industry with Occidental Petroleum in Colombia as a reservoir engineer, where he proposed development drilling, workovers, and water injection optimization activities in the Llanos Basin. He later transitioned into a petrophysicist role, supporting exploration and development projects across basins in Colombia and Ecuador.
As an exploration geoscientist for SierraCol Energy, he was involved in a fully probabilistic technical and economic evaluation of the company’s exploration portfolio and delivered a 5-year optimized investment plan. He also led a multidisciplinary team of geoscientists, land professionals, environmental experts, drilling, and facilities and operations engineers in drilling an exploration well in a socially and environmentally complex area.
