As in previous years, the PESGB will be recognising the best technical contributions to the conference with its prestigious awards, awarded by a respected judging panel of experienced working explorationists.

With less than three weeks to go until the start of the conference, let us introduce the judges that have kindly volunteered to share their expertise for the 16th African E&P Conference!

 

Chair of Technical Judging Panel

Kevin Dale

Sasol E&P International

Kevin graduated with a BSc in Geology from the University of Wales, and went to work both offshore UKCS and shore-based in Aberdeen. He took a year out in 1988 to complete an MSc in Petroleum Geology at Imperial College, London. His subsequent career spans diverse geotechnical work; with the oilfield service sector, for independents, like Perenco & Roc Oil and majors Marathon, Oxy & Repsol. However for more than the last decade has been in the oil and gas division of Sasol, the Johannesburg-headquartered large diversified Energy & Chemicals company.

 

John Austin        

Aust IA

John is a Director of AustIA Limited, a consultancy offering advice to IOC’s, NOC’s and government institutions on E&P management, Business Development, Stakeholder Relationships and Training. He has over 35 years of experience in the oil industry. Following degrees in Physics and Geophysics at Bath and Durham Universities, John started his career as a Geophysicist at Western Geophysical and Texaco. He then spent 14 years at Enterprise Oil in a variety of technical and management roles working North Sea, Italy, SE Asia and Middle East, and 4 years with RWE Dea UK as Exploration & New Business Manager. In 2006, John joined OMV in Vienna as Head of International Exploration, then Regional Exploration manager for NW Europe and Africa, and moved to London as Managing Director of OMV UK in 2008. From 2013 to early 2017, he led OMV’s entry and establishment of new businesses in Sub-Saharan Africa. John was also President of the Petroleum Exploration Society of Great Britain in 2013.

 

Brent Boyd          

Anadarko Petroleum Corporation

Brent Boyd is the G&G Manager for Frontier Basins in Anadarko Petroleum’s International New Ventures group in Houston, Texas. He has been in the oil industry since graduating from Texas A&M University in 1985 with a degree in Geophysics. He came to Anadarko in 2000 after 15 years with Atlantic Richfield and Vastar Resources. His assignments in Anadarko were first in Exploration, primarily West Africa. Later, he was a part of the development work of Anadarko’s Algerian assets. He is now a part of the team looking for new opportunities around the world for Anadarko.

 

Richard Dixon          

BP

• Dr Richard Dixon PhD, BSc, FGS : Sedimentologist with BP Exploration based in Sunbury
• 32 years experience (29 years with BP)
• Global experience, but significant time spent working in Africa, notably North Africa (Algeria, Tunisia, Libya & Egypt) and also West Africa (Angola, Gabon, Mauritania & Senegal)
• Has been a regular at PESGB Africa (though more often in London than Houston) since 2006
• Visiting Professor School of Earth & Environmental Sciences, Basin Studies & Petroleum Geoscience Group, University of Manchester since 2013

 

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.​

 

Andreas Kayser

Statoil

Andreas is a Project Leader in Exploration New Ventures, W- & S- Africa & Latin America for Statoil. Andreas graduated with a PhD from Philipps-University of Marburg in Germany, and went to work in Cambridge with Schlumberger Research before moving to BP in 2006. Since 2009 he has been based in Stavanger with Statoil working in numerous senior technical posts across the company’s global portfolio.

 

Anders Madsen           

Maersk Oil

Anders Ø. Madsen is a lead geoscientist at Maersk Oil in Denmark with more than 16 year industry experience currently working on exploration in the East Africa Rift System (EARS) in Kenya. Anders has previously worked for Maersk Oil in Qatar and United Kingdom, Max Petroleum in Kazakhstan, Blueback Reservoir in Norway and Dong Energy in Denmark on various exploration, development and production projects. He received his M. Sc. Degree in geology from Copenhagen University in 2000.

 

Duncan Rushworth

Svenska Petroleum Exploration AB

Duncan is the Vice President of Business Development of Africa-focused Svenska Petroleum Exploration, a role he has held since 2007 after joining from Anadarko Petroleum. He is a geologist by background and had previously worked with Hardy Oil and Gas and Lasmo in a variety of UK North Sea and International technical roles. Duncan has also worked in a commercial advisory capacity, most notably with Deloitte where he specialized in transaction support and strategy development. He currently manages exploration new ventures and portfolio management at Svenska. Duncan holds a Master of Laws degree with Distinction in Petroleum Law and Policy from Dundee University. He also holds a MSc with Distinction in Sedimentology and a BSc in Geology from the University of London.

 

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.

 

Steve Tucker      

FAR Limited

Steve has 16 years’ experience as a Petroleum Geologist in the international oil and gas industry. He began his career with Conoco in Aberdeen (Scotland) working on development and near field exploration projects in the North Sea before transferring to the ConocoPhillips Perth (Australia) Office in 2007. He then spent the next 8 years working the Australian North West Shelf and was Lead Geologist on project teams that lead to the discovery and subsequent appraisal drilling of a number of multi-TCF gas discoveries (Poseidon, Kronos & Barossa). He joined FAR Ltd as a consultant in 2016 following the discovery of the SNE and FAN Oil Fields. He was an integral member of the companies senior technical team, providing input into the design of the JV’s two successful appraisal drilling campaigns (2016 & 2017). Steve is a Fellow of the Geological Society and a member of both PESA and the PESGB. He has a First Class (Hons) BSc Geology degree from the University of Leicester and a MSc in Basin Evolution and Dynamics (with Distinction) from Royal Holloway College, University of London.

 

Paul Wilson         

Glencore

Paul’s current position in Glencore’s exploration team working on their assets in Chad and offshore Cameroon means he has a keen interest in African E&P.  He started out by graduating with a BSc in Geophysical Sciences from the University of Southampton before going on to gain an MSc in Applied Geophysics and a PhD on the structural architecture of the ocean-continent boundary at an oblique transform margin, Equatorial Guinea, West Africa from the University of Birmingham.  Upon graduating, his first job in the industry was with Scott Pickford (part of the ECL Group and more latterly RPS Group) exposing him to a wide range of exploration and production projects from the North Sea to the East China Sea.  This was followed by 5 years working exploration projects on the Norwegian Continental Shelf for RWE before returning to the UK and taking up his current role with Glencore.

 

To find out more about the awards and ceremony, please click here.