Mohamed Soliman
Editor's note: This profile is part of Hart Energy's 50th anniversary Hall of Fame series honoring industry pioneers of the past 50 years and the Agents of Change (ACEs) who are leading the energy sector into the future.
A holder of 50 patents, co-author of more than 250 technical papers and Society of Petroleum Engineering Legend, Dr. Mohamed Soliman is no stranger to hard work. But what makes his 60+ years in the industry even more impressive is that he is self-taught. In fact, he never even intended to enter the fracking side of the oil and gas industry.
Initially working with produced water in both Cairo and the Bay Area in California, Soliman transitioned to fracking when he was hired by Halliburton in 1979. He never looked back.
“Halliburton’s main business is fracturing, so I looked and said, ‘Well, if you’re going to survive in this company, I need to know the main business.’ I started looking at fracturing on my own and, before long, I was writing papers on the subject and I was going to the field to run fracturing tests,” Soliman told Hart Energy. “I trained myself in fracturing and ended up doing a lot more fracturing than anything I’ve studied.”
Soliman was motivated by Henry Ramey, his favorite professor at Stanford University and the father of modern well test analysis. Soliman credits Ramey with teaching him perseverance and instilling in him a true love of learning and the oilfield. This passion has been present in Soliman’s life ever since his Stanford days. Friends and colleagues still see it now, some 60 years later.
“Most of the people think about what they’re doing is what it does for themselves,” fellow SPE Legend and good friend Ramesh Main, told Hart Energy. “But right now, [Soliman]’s staying at University of Houston mainly because if he stays at the university, he’ll be able to continue with the plans and that will allow him to make more contributions to the education of his students … he’s staying in there and doing what he’s doing, not only because of his technical interest, but also because he believes that the industry needs that.”
Despite all the major projects he’s worked on, papers authored and awards received, Soliman says his greatest accomplishment and proudest achievement is guiding his students toward their master’s and doctoral degrees in his role as professor and department chair of the University of Houston’s petroleum engineering program. As of 2023, he had graduated 15 Ph.Ds, with two more doctoral candidates set to graduate in 2024. And he’s not done yet.
“Mostly, what I’m trying to do is to improve the ranking of the department,” he said. “When I came in here seven years ago, we were not ranked at all. Now we’re No. 9 and I think we deserve to go even higher.… I would like to see us going to the top five.”
—Jaxon Caines, Technology Reporter