Economides

North America will become the largest natural gas exporter by 2040 from growth in unconventional production, with oil exports predicted by 2025, ExxonMobil Corp. is forecasting in its “Outlook for Energy: A View to 2040.”

Michael Economides, 64, a University of Houston (UH) energy expert, died of a heart attack on Saturday. Economides was the founding director and chief scientist of the Global Petroleum Research Institute at Texas A&M University before becoming a chemical engineering professor at UH. As a consultant, Economides worked for Chevron Corp., Royal Dutch Shell plc and Petroleos Brasilerio (Petrobras), as well as in Russia and China. He published more than 300 journal articles and more than a dozen books, including The Color of Oil, which he co-authored. He also founded and was editor-in-chief of Energy Tribune, an online publication. In 1969, Economides, then 19, moved to the United States from Cyprus as a Fulbright scholar at the University of Kansas. He became a U.S. citizen in 1982 and went on to receive a doctorate from Stanford University in 1984. He is survived by his wife Christine Ehlig-Economides, also a petroleum engineering expert, and two sons.