Jim Hnat is currently a Team Lead for Deepwater Exploration, where he leads a group of geoscientists focused on finding new opportunities in the Gulf of Mexico using exciting new technology and sound geologic principles. Jim has only recently joined the offshore business, having spent the bulk of his career in the onshore U.S., having worked as an exploration manager in the Permian Basin, focused on appraising and developing new opportunities; an exploration geologist in Shell’s Appalachia Asset in Pittsburgh, where he appraised unconventional opportunities in the Ordovician and Devonian rocks of the Appalachian Basin; and as a development geologist, where he evaluated prospects of Oligocene sands in the conventional gas fields of South Texas. Jim has also led a number of field trips, taught internal classes, and has contributed to multiple internal and external publications in his time at Shell. Jim holds a Ph.D. in geological sciences from the University of Michigan (2009) and a B.S. in geology from Clarion University of Pennsylvania (2003). Jim resides in Fulshear, TX with his wife Amanda.
