Oana Niculita is the Head of Sales and Marketing of John M Henderson, the Scottish engineering company, one of the world’s leading suppliers of Coke Oven Machinery.
Oana has been working in the coke making industry for more than a decade and has had the opportunity of visiting many Coke Making plants in the world, witnessing firsthand the technical and operational challenges of the coke making operators worldwide. Oana’s main interests lie in the environmental and technological aspects of the coke-making, with special focus on developing technological solutions for improving the quality of the air and life for people working and living near the coke batteries.
Oana is a Chartered Manager and a member of the Coke Oven Managers Association in the UK, as well as a regular speaker at coke making congresses worldwide. Professional qualifications include an Honours degree in Business Administration, Masters Degree in Economics from the Universities of Freiburg, Germany and Lisbon, Portugal and a PhD in development with the University of Dundee, Scotland. She has worked as a business consultant for major multinational companies and has published a number of books and papers in the areas of strategic marketing.
Global research lead for Coal, Metals & MiningJames Stevenson is Senior Director and Research Lead for Coal, Metals and Mining within IHS Markit. Previously he headed up analysis of Global Coal and before that North American coal. Dr. Stevenson's expertise includes supply-demand dynamics of the North American and international thermal and metallurgical coal markets, coal price forecasting, coal mining and transportation costs, and coal export logistics and infrastructure. He also has extensive experience in trading, asset due diligence, and integrates his analysis into related commodities power, natural gas, dry bulk freight, and the steel and iron ore sector.
Prior to joining IHS Markit, Dr. Stevenson spent five years in coal trading, most recently as Vice President, Coal Analysis at Mercuria Energy Trading, and before that as Coal Strategist at Louis Dreyfus Highbridge Energy. He also worked in the energy trading team, buying coal and selling power, at Eraring Energy in the Australian utility industry.
Dr. Stevenson holds undergraduate and master's degrees from the University of Sydney in Australia, and a PhD from Yale University.
In 1986 he graduated Faculty of Technology and Chemical Engineering of the Silesian Technical University - Gliwice (Poland) and obtained Ph. D. at the same University in 1993. The main interest of his research works include coke making technology and thermal processing of solid fuels and wastes.
At present he is Director of the Institute of Chemical Processing of Coal in Zabrze. He is a member of Polish Standardisation Commission, expert of Polish Ecological Chamber and member of European Coke Committee.
His is an author of more then 100 scientific and technical papers and 10 patents.
Jim Truman is the Director - Global Metallurgical Coal Markets with Wood Mackenzie. He is a geologist by training, having attended West Virginia University and the University of South Carolina. Prior to joining Wood Mackenzie, he worked for a number of major coal companies and has specialized in the evaluation of the Central Appalachian coal industry. He now focuses on trends in global metallurgical coal trade.
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Dr. Bristow has been actively involved in the steel and steelmaking raw materials industries for over 22 years. During this time, he has led numerous investigations in coal and iron ore technical and market research, minerals strategy development, and market planning for BHP’s coal business, and was Chief Analyst for BHP Billiton’s Carbon Steel Materials Group, leading the Market Intelligence Group in Singapore.
His key expertise in steel, metallurgical coal, iron ore, and manganese ore and ferroalloys, coupled with strategic vision and long term analysis on future directions in emerging markets, saw him as an early proponent of the rebirth of the global steel industry, the rise of China and of coal’s growth story, together with a strong belief in China’s emergence as a major seaborne metallurgical coal importer. He has been a strong advocate for India’s growing coal demand.
In April 2009, he formed H&W Worldwide Consulting, putting his strong market analysis and strategy skills to good use across bulk commodities, including iron ore and coal –for both coking and thermal.
As an internationally recognized expert in areas of steel and steelmaking raw materials, long term trends and scenarios, he has written and presented numerous publications at highly respected international conferences and meetings.
Jorge Caldeira has been actively involved in the ironmaking and ironmaking raw materials industries for 40 years. He is a graduated Metallurgical Engineering from the Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro in 1977 and got a Master´s degree in Coal Science at the Pennsylvania State University in the USA in 1981. Had an extension program with Professor Harry March at the University of Newcastle Upon Tyne in the UK in 1985.
As a professional, he worked for CSN- Brazilian National Steel Co. for 16 years (12 years at their R&D Centre leading coal & coke projects and 4 years as General Manager Coke Oven and By-Products operations as well as Head of the Central Laboratories.
Since 1993, he has started his own consulting company – COALBIZ - and has rendered technical and commercial services to various coal suppliers from Australia, USA and Canada and to end user from various countries such as Brazil, India, Vietnam and Thailand. For the last 24 years, he has also been with the Australian Jellinbah Group where he currently serves as their Manager Technical Marketing.
Alessandro Sciamarelli holds the position of Senior Economic Analysis Manager at the European Steel Association (EUROFER) based in Brussels, where he carries out economic research and analysis linked to the steel sector. Prior to joining EUROFER he has held for over ten years equivalent positions at other Brussels-based European Associations (namely in the residential mortgage sector and the cement sector) and, before that, he has worked for the Economic Studies Office of a leading cement and construction group in Rome and for the European Institute of Public Administration (EIPA) in Maastricht. He holds a PhD in Economics (1999) and a Degree in Political Science (1995) from the University of Pisa, Italy.
Dr. Ahmed Shah Firoz served as Chief Economist at the Economic Research Unit of the Ministry of Steel till recently, studied Economics in India’s prestigious Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, to acquire is his Masters (MA) ,M.Phil. and Doctorate (Ph.D.) degrees. He worked on the problems of disequilibrium states of the market specifically involving consumer behavior in shortage economies of the erstwhile USSR, Hungary and Poland. He also worked on the concepts of soft budget constraints in investment decisions in both centrally planned and market economies.
Firoz is currently a member of the Expert Group in the government project Mining 2035 undertaken under the auspices of Niti Aayog, the government’s most important think tank and policy driver. He is a Member of the Governing Body of Thought Arbitrage Research Institute ( TARI), a professional research body. He is also member of the Advisory and Governing Body of Steel User Federation of India ( SUFI). He continues to advise the government on various policy and strategic matters related to the iron and steel and coal and other related sectors. He is also seen as the architect of India’s new steel policy.
Jeffery Lu is S&P Global Platts Managing Editor, Metallurgical Coal, based in Singapore. Jeffery has been in the international commodity business for more than 10 years and has hands-on experience with building supply and demand models, analyzing trade flows as well as producing price forecasts. Before starting his career in the metals business, Jeffery spent the past decade in agriculture as research analyst with some time spent as a trader, for some of the largest commodity firms globally including Noble Group, Czarnikow Group and RCMA Group. Jeffery has a master’s degree in intercultural business communication.
Huub Schulte is currently Works Engineer at the Coke and Gas plants at Tata Steel in Ijmuiden. In this role he is responsible for maintenance and engineering at these plants. He also manages the investment program aimed at life time extension of the Coke Batteries in IJmuiden. This program involves through wall and end flue repairs in an operating plant using techniques ranging from classical brick to modular cast block build.
Huub has a broad experience in the steelmaking industry. He has worked with Tata in several roles for over 25 years, both in the Netherlands and in the UK.
Jan Soonius is the Managing Director of HeaTeQ, where he is active in Engineering, Project/Site Management & Construction Projects in Iron & Steel, Non-Ferrous, Aluminum & other Heavy Industries.
Key Activity is Refractory Installation Work. Soonius has been with in this position since May of 2009.
Prior to joining HeaTeQ, Jan was a member of the Lizmontages Group and both Project manager and managing Director for Prison Refractories. Soonius began his career with 23 years of service as Construction manager at Hoogovens/Corus, where he built his expertise in Refractory Engineering & Construction of Blast Furnaces, Hot Blast Stoves and Coke Batteries.
