Our Team
With our many years of combined experience, the Novus team is well equipped to support your vision, reduce your emissions, and help fuel the future.
Executive and Management Team
Managing Director
James Tauchnitz
HE / HIM
James founded Novus Fuels in 2022. He has more than 15 years of experience holding senior leadership positions in both upstream exploration and production companies and executive management roles with tech start-up’s focused on commercialising new services within the Australian gas industry. James has established a reputation as a trusted advisor to executives, boards and non-for profits. As Managing Director of Novus Fuels, James personally leads all client engagements. He is a member of SPE and the Australian Institute of Company Directors.
COMMERCIAL AND SUSTAINABILITY MANAGER
Daria Korobchuk
she / her
Daria is an accomplished Senior Petroleum Engineer with more than five years of experience in the mining and coal seam gas industries. Daria’s focuses on assisting our clients with subsurface reservoir characterisation, reservoir simulation and field development planning. Daria also spends time at our client’s assets supporting field engineering and project management.
General Manager – Technical Services
Prof. Ray Johnson Jr.
he / him
Prof Raymond Johnson Jr brings more than 40 years of experience to the role of Novus General Manager – Technical Services, after holding numerous senior technical and management positions in service, operating and consulting companies in the USA and Australia.
Ray provides technical discipline leadership and assurance in the fields of reservoir engineering, production technology, well engineering, well stimulation and emissions reduction.
Prof Johnson is a globally recognised authority on unconventional reservoir developments, well engineering, and production technologies. Ray co-serves as Professor or Well Engineering and Production Technology in The University of Queensland, Centre for Natural Gas formerly directing the Petroleum Engineering curriculum at the university and supervising higher degree research students. Ray is widely published and a detail of his research and publications are available on the UQ Researchers website.
He has a PhD in Mining Engineering, MSc in Petroleum Engineering, a Graduate Diploma in Information Technology, and BA in Chemistry. Prof Johnson is a Life Member of the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE), past Queensland SPE Section chair, twice
co-chair of the SPE Unconventional Reservoir Conference Asia Pacific, 2019 co-chair and 2021 Advisor of the URTeC Asia Pacific Conference, Technical co-chair of the 2023 Asia Pacific SPE Unconventional Reservoir Symposium, twice recipient of the SPE Regional Technical Award (Production Operations and Management and Information) and 2023 Regional Service Award. Prof Johnson is a Fellow of Engineers Australia.
Wells, Reservoir, and Facilities Manager
Phillip Dooley
he / him
Phillip brings 18 years of experience in the mining and coal seam gas industries in his role as Wells, Reservoir and Facilities Manager. Having held roles in engineering, HSE and operations, Phil harnesses his well-rounded industry experience to deliver our projects within the field.
HSE & Systems Advisor
Rachel Zerk
she / her
Rachel is a people-first health and safety professional with five years of experience in the Australian mining and coal seam gas industries to support our people and clients in their safe execution of work. Rachel leverages her experience in system implementation and assurance to ensure the seamless integration of safe operations, governance and compliance for Novus clients.
Principal Petroleum Engineer
Dr. Vahab Honari
he / him
Dr Vahab Honari brings over 16-years’ experience in reservoir engineering, production data analysis, well test analysis, and petroleum engineering to Novus. He has a PhD in Reservoir Engineering, MSc in Oil & Gas Engineering, and BSc in Mechanical Engineering.
Dr Honari has served in numerous reservoir and petroleum engineering positions in service and operating companies. He was a lecturer in Petroleum Engineering MSc programme at The University of Queensland. Vahab served on staff at The Centre for Natural gas, where he participated on several CCS projects (I.e., UQ-SDAAP project, Shaanxi Yanchang Petroleum (YP) and China University of Mining and Technology (CUMT) Ordos Basin CO2 CCUS Project). Dr Honari is a member of SPE, served in several executive roles in the Queensland SPE Chapter, and has been an active member of the technical committees for recent SPE APOGCE and Asia Pacific URTeC conferences.