Oil man loved opera, Munster rugby – and a great party host, lived life to the full

Jeremy Gilbert obituary: Born April 21st , 1941. Died December 12th, 2017

Jeremy Gilbert, who has died after a long struggle with cancer at the age of 76, was an Irish mathematician who became a leading reservoir engineer in the global oil industry. As BP’s resource and development manager, he was responsible for its worldwide petroleum engineering performance, including its fields in Alaska and the North Sea.

Gilbert was the last western oilman to get out of Iran during the revolution against the Shah of Iran’s regime, barely escaping with his life by hitching through the desert where his fluency in Arabic proved a lifesaver as a he bluffed his way across the border into Iraq. In what amounted to an interrogation by an Iraqi official who said he would give him a visa if he apologised for the “sins of his Irish brothers”. The diplomat then ordered him to get down on his knees and kiss his beautifully polished shoes. He did.

Later, as manager of the company’s associated research and development programmes, he was responsible for 400 engineers, guiding them in their careers and encouraging them to combine professionalism with a sense of fun. A lover of opera, Munster rugby and a great host at parties, he lived life to the full. Endowed with boundless curiosity, he enjoyed fishing in Alaska, peering at grizzlies in the wilderness, skiing in Colorado where he and his second wife Diana had a condominium, or commuting across the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco in what his son Rory described in a eulogy as a “comically large vintage Oldsmobile coupé”.

Born in Malahide, Co Dublin, he went to Mountjoy school . A graduate of Trinity College, he gained a degree [DM1] in mathematics. Loyal and generous, despite being separated from his first wife, Heather, they remained friends to the end. That was also true of his friendship with Mike, Diana’s ex-husband, who subsequently married Heather, thus keeping the two families and their four children together in a remarkable friendship.

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After joining BP in 1964, he quickly climbed the managerial ladder. Working as a production engineer in Libya where he learned to speak Arabic, he helped introduce the new technique of reservoir simulation to improve the efficiency of BP’s extraction. Gilbert then worked in Kuwait, the US and Abu Dhabi prior to spending eight years in Iran until the revolution broke out.

From 1979, he supervised BP’s North Sea reservoir engineering and later managed all its UK petroleum and reservoir engineering activities. Moving to San Francisco, he was appointed vice president of BP Alaska Exploration before returning to the UK in 1987 as technical manager for the development of the Wytch Farm field, Europe’s largest onshore oil find.

Appointed BP’s chief petroleum engineer in 1988, he was responsible for the company’s worldwide petroleum engineering performance. In subsequent posts, he worked on a range of staff development, equity and major legal issues in London, Houston and Anchorage.

In 2001, Gilbert retired from BP, setting up Barrelmore Ltd., providing technical audit, training and consultancy support to the worldwide oil industry, organising international conferences and giving lectures on the industry’s future involvement with several universities. This included teaching, plus membership of various boards at Heriot-Watt University (Edinburgh), Imperial College (London), the University of Alaska (Fairbanks) and Robert Gordon’s University (Aberdeen).

Twenty years ago, the Gilberts settled in West Cork where they had a bookshop which still flourishes in Schull today.

He is survived by his wife, Diana, stepson Andrew, stepdaughter Emma, sons Tom and Rory, his former wife, Heather and her husband, Mike.