PESGB January/February 2020
Plus much more inside
The year ahead
Having been a member o
f the PESGB for more than 30 years I have often read the opening editorial of a new President and marvelled at the unfailing optimism for the year ahead, not because I have ever felt that it was misplaced but rather I marvelled at just how resilient we all are in an industry that has more ups and downs than most…….and now it is my turn!
Let me start by thanking my predecessor, Martin Durham for his stewardship of council in 2019 and Maria Iredale for her ongoing work leading the office. Last year was not an easy one for the PESGB but Martin and Maria worked hard to ensure we are on a sound footing for the New Year with new ideas to add value to members. We are always pleased to hear from you, positive or negative as this organisation exists for your benefit and I was happy to be able to speak to many of you at PROSPEX in December, where I am pleased to report that we had a little over 800 attendees. This was slightly increased on 2018, which is encouraging. Attendees enjoyed keynotes from the OGA on the status of exploration in the UKCS, CNOOC on their Glengorm discovery and Hurricane on 6 months of production from Lancaster. Around half of the talks this year were international, which is perhaps no surprise given that according to Offshore Energy, of the 18 largest discoveries made in 2019 only one was in the UK (Glengorm) with Guyana topping the table with four discoveries made by both ExxonMobil and Tullow. The only other European discoveries to make the list were the Aker BP discovery at Froskelar Main in Norway and the Exxon Glaucus-1 discovery, offshore Cyprus.
PROSPEX was followed by the Presidents evening, held in a new venue at Grays Inn, which I know many of you enjoyed. In Aberdeen the Granite City Reception was held at the Brewdog in Castlegate with an exploration quiz and some beer tasting which I understand proved very popular! Both of these events also rely on key sponsors and we are grateful for their support.
Moving on to 2020 I was drawn to the recent announcement from the OGA concerning the publication of the Interim Findings of the UKCS Energy Integration report. This report is looking into integrating oil and gas with renewables offshore and found that multiple offshore integration concepts are not only technically feasible but could also be used to reduce the oil and gas industry’s carbon footprint. The timing of the announcement was interesting as hopefully many of you will have had a chance to read our January e-bulletin which has information about a new Special Interest Group (SIG) that we hope to start this year entitled ‘Wider Energy Search’. This SIG will look at the impact of the wider energy search on the petroleum industry and I urge those of you with interests in this area to email sam@pesgb.org.uk to register your interest. The other new announcement for 2020 concerns training. We are hoping to start night school classes for those members who struggle to get approval from their organisations to attend courses in the day, or whom would simply prefer training outside other commitments that they have during the day. The classes will be for a couple of hours one night a week for four weeks in our training room in Victoria (5 minutes walk from the station). We will email out more information once these are established and of course, on our website. If night school proves successful we will look at the feasibility of running similar courses in Aberdeen
A quick reminder that PETEX will return in 2020 and exhibitor space is already proving very popular. The call for abstracts will go out this month. DEVEX will also take place in May and so please do look at the website for more information on both events and many others taking place throughout the year.
Finally let me close by thanking you all for your support and wishing you all a happy and prosperous 2020.