With less than two weeks to go until the conference, let us introduce the technical committee who have kindly lent their support to make the 16th African E&P Conference a success!

 

 

Chair of Technical Committee

Helen Doran

Helen has explored the African margins for over 15 years with BP and Ophir Energy. Her current passion is trying to understand heat flow around the continent and match observations of high heat flow in the distal domains to a plausible model. The first step to becoming predictive and open up the large YTF of the distal domain. The conference should address some of these issues and create a springboard for future workshops and discussions on the current enigma. 

 

 

Richard Blight

Shell

Richard currently works for Shell, where he is Regional Exploration Advisor for Portfolio & New Business (aka, helping people do New Ventures). His Africa experience dates from his time as Exploration Team Leader for BG Tanzania, although he has also worked the Atlantic conjugate margin in the Brazilian Santos Basin. Partnering with Ophir in Tanzania was the ideal excuse for Helen Doran to strong-arm him onto the Technical Committee.

 

 

Harry Davis

Delonex Energy

Harry has been involved in multiple successful African projects for >16 years with African-focussed operators such as Tullow, Perenco and Delonex. As a geologist he has worked Frontier Exploration through to Late-stage Development Projects in Gabon, Congo B, Congo K, Uganda and Kenya. He has significant New Ventures and New Business experience, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa including new country entries into Chad, Kenya and Mozambique. Non-Africa direct experience includes successful Exploration and Development projects in Venezuela, Colombia, Guatemala and UK.

 

 

Louise Hornby

Woodside Energy

Louise currently works for Woodside Energy as a senior geologist in their London office working on sub-andean geology in Peru and in their global new ventures team. Prior to that she held various positions with Tullow Oil in the global basin screening and new ventures, North African (Mauritania/Guinea) and Kenya regional teams. Before this role Louise joined Hunt Oil as a junior geologist in their new ventures team working on Europe, Middle East and Africa and as the sole asset geologist working their offshore Senegal acreage. She gained a BSc from University of Aberdeen in Petroleum Geology, followed by an MSc in Basin Evolution and Dynamics from Royal Holloway, University of London. Louise was approached by Helen Doran and due to her love of the African continent was unable to turn down the role on the technical committee.​

 

 

Jerry Jarvis

Tullow Oil

Jerry gained a B.Sc. from the University of Dundee, followed by a Ph.D. from Imperial College in 1985 and has been working in the industry ever since.  For the last 12 years he has been at Tullow Oil as New Ventures Manager and latterly as the Manager of Geoscience Competitive Intelligence, focusing on Africa and Latin America. Prior to Tullow, Jerry was working on North Africa at Sipetrol for 3 years and Enterprise Oil for 5.  He lived in New Zealand for 4 years in the 90’s and prior to that was at Sun Oil in London.

 

 

Toya Latham

Drillinginfo

Toya Latham is a Senior Commercial Analyst at Drillinginfo. As part of the team, she provides global coverage of fiscal, commercial, and economic changes. Prior to joining the company, she was an Exploration Geoscientist at P.D.F. Limited focussing on assets in Africa and Eastern Europe. She holds an MSc degree in Petroleum Geoscience from Royal Holloway and an MSci degree in Geology from Durham University.

 

 

Fabio Lottaroli

ENI

Fabio is a geologist with a background in depositional processing understanding and 25 years of working experience in exploration with ENI. He is currently acting as a Global geology advisor for ENI Exploration and Development Depts. For North and East Africa. He has spent all of his career working on Africa exploration, with a main focus on regional assessment and Play analysis of new/emerging Plays and Basins.

 

 

Duncan Macgregor

Macgeology

Duncan Macgregor is a consultant petroleum geologist specialising in regional African exploration and training. I first had a 20-year employment with BP, working largely in the Far East and thereafter have worked and consulted for a number of independent companies and consultancies, mainly on new ventures and play fairway scale studies in Africa. I am currently a mentor and product auditor at Halliburton-Neftex and spend the remainder of my time conducting workshops and training programmes. I’ve been involved with the Africa conference since its initiation and recently handed over to Helen as Technical Chair.

 

 

Ken McDermott

ION

Ken McDermott was awarded his Ph.D from the University of Birmingham, UK in 2013 for his work continental hyper-extension at magma-poor rifted margins; and a B.Sc in Geology from University College Dublin, Ireland in 2007. Since 2014, Ken has held the position of Structural Geologist at ION Geophysical’s E & P Advisory group focussing on the tectonostratigraphy and petroleum potential of the North and South Atlantic conjugate systems, the East African, and the Australian continental margins. From 2012 – 2014 Ken held a postdoctoral research position at University College Dublin, working with the NAG Consortium to create a new tectonostratigraphic atlas for the N. Atlantic. Ken is also a fellow of the Geological Society of London and a member of the PESGB.

 

 

Madeleine Raven

Nexen

Madeleine Raven received a BSc in Earth Sciences from Leeds University and a PhD from Nottingham University on the diagenesis of Carboniferous limestones from S. Wales, UK.  She currently works as a Senior Geological Advisor on carbonates at Nexen Petroleum UK Limited and is currently focused on the MSCGB margin.  On leaving university she worked for Robertson Research, undertaking numerous reservoir description studies on Middle Eastern and North African carbonates and was involved with regional field work in the Anti-Atlas of Morocco, looking at Infra-Cambrian and Devonian carbonates.  Subsequently, she worked for Maersk Oil where she was involved in the development of the Al Shaheen Field, Qatar, both as an operations geologist and undertaking reservoir description studies.  She then moved on to worked on exploration projects in Brazil and Angola, in particular focusing on pre- and post-salt carbonates.

 

 

Jason Sutton

Cairn Energy

Currently Principal Geophysicist for Cairn Energy, primarily working in the International West Africa Asset Group. Studied Geology, and Petroleum Geology & Geophysics to MSc level. Career spanning seismic acquisition through seismic disciplines to well log interpretation. Special interests have been in AVO, Depth Conversion, 3D Visualization, and currently Seismic Geomorphology. Africa and particularly West Africa are a main focus of Exploration while at Chevron, Anadarko and Cairn Energy. Active within the PESGB, being co-chair of the PESGB Geophysics Conferences for the past 7 years. Participated in presentations, papers and posters for the SEG, EAGE, PESGB, HGS and SEPM.

 

 

Matt Warner

BP

Matt Warner has worked for BP, Chevron, Tullow, and as a consultant. In Africa he has worked mainly in the west, working drillout in Angola and BP’s recent new venture deals in NW Africa. He has also worked the Albertine Graben for Tullow, with other roles in Australia, India, and Russia. He currently leads BP’s Africa New Ventures team.