Review by Jay Sahota, Jay Sahota & Associates, UK, Chamonix & Mohali-Chandigarh)
jtsahota@hotmail.com

The  “3C’s” PESGB Regional Group comprises Bucks, Berks and Oxford shires, the launch of which took place at the Three Tuns pub in Henley-on-Thames on 12 May 2016. Some beers had already been pulled (mostly by those of us who trying to set up the projection system), before the arrival of the attendees for the 6:00pm kick-off talk. Somehow, the projection worked perfectly well, and the speaker for the evening’s talk and President of this Regional Group, David Johnstone, thanked the PESGB representatives for attending the Launch; Maria Iredale (Executive Director) Barbara Thomas( Membership Manager), Rosy Chirayath (Marketing Manager); they were alert and enthusiastic – despite having been stuck in traffic for 1.5 hours.

The background to all this is that several months ago, over a few beers, three of us (David Johnston, John Clark and I) had discussed forming a PESGB Regional Group “out this way”. Within the Bucks, Berks and Oxon counties, there are several oil industry companies and individuals, hence this would be an excellent informal forum for geoscientist to meet, exchange ideas and gain insights.  Our proposal had been quickly, enthusiastically and ably supported by the PESGB.

We had decided that rather than having only a drinks evening, we would hold a gathering every 2 months based around a talk. The problem with this ‘idea’ is the danger of not being able to find an inexpensive and suitable venue; the notion of holding the talks in a school room, or similar facility is wholly unappealing and would not be in the spirit of a sociable evening. However,  trying to find an amenable pub, which has all the attributes of being walking distance from the station, with scope for adequate seating, along with facilities for plugging in the projection kit, appropriate lighting etc., which would be cheap to hire, was not easy task to explore for. Hence it was a great relief that a couple of months ago one of us (John Clark), who had worked on the acreage some years previously, negotiated a farm-in with the Three Tuns pub which was so cunning that not even Blackadder could have done any better.

Thus, on 12 May some 45 people filled the Stable bar to listen to David Johnstone’s talk “A Source Evaluation of the Rovuma Basin, Mozambique”. This was very well presented, illustrated and purposefully short (approximately 20minutes). The talk touched on the several years of work that has been done on attempting to unravel the source rock story of the Rovuma Basin, which has had important gas discoveries over the last decade in various play situations. A variety of themes were considered, which included that in Tanzania, geochemistry indicates the sources as being Jurassic, but in the Rovuma, basin modelling of Middle Jurassic source rocks require trap formation in the Cretaceous, whereas the structuration of the delta is Cenozoic. The scenario of an oil phase being cracked to gas was discussed, along with consideration that the multiple Cretaceous source rocks are also candidates and these may be charging the gas discoveries. The occurrence and nature of onshore oil seeps in Mozambique were also discussed. The time allocated for questions within the forum was well utilised, it being clear that there was considerable scope for much discussion as alluded to by the Speaker.

Following the talk, full use was made of the bar and the beer garden area which was reserved for the convocation as part of the venue booking. Here, David Johnstone was being lightly grilled in the sunshine on Mozambique source rock contrafibularities by enthusiasts, while others were being nicely lubricated by the local Brakspear beer (or the fizzy stuff for teenagers). There was much conversation ranging from deep, profound, erudite aspects of G&G to the current plight of Wolverhampton Wanderers FC. Happily unjacketed the crowd meandered on to curry houses, hostelries or the train station. It was a very fine evening in all aspects.

All are welcome to join us for the next meeting. We thank ERCL Ltd for not only sponsoring the venue but also a limited refreshments tab.
We are looking forward to anybody to sponsor the next meeting in July – just email us regarding further details (our email addresses are on the PESGB web-site: http://pesgb.org.uk/pesgb/pages/society/groups-and-branches/branches). We eagerly await informal proposals for talks.