Testimonials from Industry
Gordon Salahor, VP Commercial Operations, Mistral Energy Inc.
"Dr. Laughton's methods and approach provide a 'new' and compelling framework with which an analyst can greatly improve his or her understanding of the economic impact of risk and uncertainty, and it's tailored specifically to individual industries, in my case, the petroleum industry."
"You can't just pick up a book and acquire this on your own; Dr. Laughton integrates a number of modern and established financial analysis tools into a study of oil industry evaluation problems."
"If that's not enough, as you learn and work with these concepts, you start to really understand the limitations (and pitfalls!) of the commonly used evaluation methods in the industry. That alone justifies the time and money for a course, because it makes for a more valuable analyst in the broadest sense."
Bill Bailey, Schlumberger
"I attended a two-day course that Dr. Laughton gave in 2002, and it very successfully laid the foundation for a productive consulting relationship that he has had with us since."
"In both his teaching and consulting, he is rigorous and challenging, thorough and clear. He obviously knows the field of asset valuation inside out, and can convey the big ideas in a concise and digestible format as well as deal with the technical nuances and organizational issues raised by "real world" applications."
"He has become our expert of choice in this important and evolving field, adding value to our endeavours in a variety of ways, and we have been happy to introduce him to other parts of Schlumberger and to our clients so that they might benefit from an association with him."
Scott Dalton, Encana Corporation
"On behalf of PRMIA [Professional Risk Managers' International Association] Calgary I would like to thank you very much for preparing and delivering the [real asset valuation] seminar on Friday."
"I thoroughly enjoyed the presentations and was impressed by the amount of material you managed to fit into a single morning."
"I felt that by simplifying the quantitative aspects of the subject matter you kept the audience thoroughly engaged as most did not have a quantitative background."
"The case studies were relevant and insightful. The questions and comments generated were a good indication of the high level of interest among audience members."
Rick Hyndman, Former Senior Policy Advisor, Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, Former Deputy Minister, Alberta Ministry of Energy
"Dr. Laughton's teaching and consulting is based on an in-depth knowledge of the theory and art of asset valuation. He consistently provides novel and important insights, difficult to obtain in other ways, not only for those responsible for private sector commercial decision-making but also for those involved in public policy development."
"His work has been especially useful, in my experience, where the value or policy drivers include uncertain energy prices, technology and the climate impacts of CO2 emissions."
"In addition to his technical knowledge, he brings to the table the ability to organise, and work in, productive multi-disciplinary, multi-institutional and multi-sector groups to deal with complex matters."
Steve Letros, Shell Canada
"The work that Dr. Laughton did for one of our evaluation teams gave us new insights into our investment opportunity. What I found interesting about the team's reaction was that they 'recognised' and accepted the results, despite the novelty of methods involved, because of the manner in which Dr. Laughton 'packaged' his findings."
Soussan Faiz, Former Head of Global Valuation Services, Texaco
"Dr, Laughton has worked relentlessly and successfully to increase our understanding in industry of "market-based" valuation. His body of work and real-life applications demonstrates the significance of this approach for both asset valuation as well as asset management."
Frank Koch, Former Decision Analysis Practice Leader, Chevron
"I have helped to organize several SPE [Society of Petroleum Engineers] activities. The valuation workshop organized by David Laughton is the one that I have enjoyed the most. Usually, in these situations, I am giving. In this one, I actually got as much as, if not more than, I gave. Some of the concepts we discussed are inherently difficult. There is no way around it. It takes several exposures over a period of time for them to sink in. But it is definitely worth the time and effort."
A senior planning manager at a large multinational energy corporation
"We have spent a significant amount of time and money on investigating academic work in 'option pricing' because we believe that the use of an 'options pricing' approach to evaluation may give us, in some significant circumstances, superior insights into the effects on asset value of risk and the possibilities for managing responses to uncertainty...."
"The detailed approach that Dr. Laughton is taking to it, and the materials he is using to explain it, are, in the opinion of many of my colleagues, the most useful that we have seen..."
"In three days, Mr. Laughton gave us a grounding in the ideas behind this field of endeavour, the details of the calculations involved, and the scope of possible implementation issues..."
"Several times in the past we had tried to understand this area of academic research, and, for the first time, we appear, as result of Dr. Laughton's work, to be on a path to doing so. Moreover, for the first time, we think that we may be able to implement some version of these ideas in our organisation."
A senior commercial analyst in the petroleum exploration arm of another multinational energy corporation
"Thank you for your most thorough tutorial on modern asset pricing methods... The feedback I have had from participants put high value on the clarity of your examples... I found our working session very useful too, as it helped me to focus on what is likely to make a difference to our organisation... Your work helps provide a way forward, although there are many issues that must be addressed if the approaches are to be accepted widely... I look forward to our next conversation on these issues."
The former CEO of a large Canadian-based multinational corporation in the petroleum industry
"Dr. Laughton showed me the tools that he has developed to help a group of managers to discuss their models of oil price uncertainty and the current valuation of oil to be received in the future. We also went through the exercise together of building and using a model of the potential development of oil resources in a section of the Canadian Arctic..."
"He has created a very interesting and very useful way of modelling the interaction between the uncertainty in oil price movements, the uncertainty in the oil reserves, possible patterns of resource delineation activities to reduce the reserve uncertainty, and the timing for the building of the pipeline and for the subsequent development of the resources."
