Owain is leading the development of natural hydrogen as a commercial and clean resource for the future. With over 25 years experience in resource exploration for Consultancies, FTSE100 organisations and National Energy Companies he is now CEO of H2Au, a British based hydrogen explorer with a portfolio of assets in the USA and Africa.
Debora is a postdoctoral researcher with the Drifters Research Group at the Andalusian Earth Sciences Institute (IACT–CSIC). She holds an MSc in Petroleum Geosciences from the University of Lisbon and earned her PhD from Royal Holloway, University of London. Her research focuses on margin structure, syn-sedimentary tectonics, deep-water processes and marine gateways development. Recently, she’s been working on the Western Iberia and Moroccan continental margin’s deep-water deposits, with a particular focus on their connection with the oceanographic circulation across the Atlantic Ocean throughout its evolution
Nick is the co-founder of Carbon Catalyst, an independent UK company dedicated to delivering innovative Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) solutions for large-scale decarbonisation. Established in 2020, Carbon Catalyst is advancing two UK carbon transport and storage projects, Poseidon and Orion. Notably, Poseidon is subject to UK's first offshore CO₂ injection test with operations currently ongoing.
Previously, Nick served as Chair of the UK Subsurface Task Force, a collaborative forum of subsurface experts, scientists and senior professionals from industry and academia. The forum works closely with regulators, policymakers and other key stakeholders to support an orderly transition to Net Zero by 2050.
Nick's earlier roles include Managing Director of North Sea operator Azinor, Exploration Director at US independent Endeavour Energy, board member of Offshore Energies UK (OEUK) and President of the Geoscience Energy Society of Great Britain (GESGB).
Paul is a Visiting Professor of Information Science & Technology at Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen. A Geoscientist and Computer Scientist by background, he has worked in exploration Digital Geoscience for over 30 years for large multinationals, small independents and technology companies. He founded his own AI startup in 2018 focusing on Natural Language Processing (NLP) which received the King's Award for Enterprise Innovation in 2023.
Amine is a passionate Geophysicist with over 22 years of experience spanning seismic technology innovation, R&D, and business leadership. He began his career at Veritas-DGC before taking a pivotal role in BP’s UK-based R&D team, where he led numerous projects that demonstrated the value of high trace density seismic for land assets globally.
A fervent advocate for dense seismic acquisition and its transformative impact on subsurface understanding, Amine has been at the forefront of seismic innovation throughout his career. As a founding member of the team behind STRYDE, he played a key role in making dense seismic more accessible and affordable across energy, mining, and infrastructure industries.
In his current role as Chief Geophysicist at STRYDE, Amine is focused on advancing seismic imaging solutions for the renewable energy sector, driving faster, more accurate insights to support the global transition to sustainable energy.
A driven and focused Chief Executive Director and skilled explorationist with over seventeen years of oil and gas experience in Africa, which includes three years’ experience in the helium sector. Has successfully led AIM-listed Helium One Global Ltd through its successful drilling programme in the southern Rukwa Basin, which delivered the first helium discovery in Tanzania from the Itumbula West-1 well that flowed 5.5% helium to surface during an extended well test and measured up to 7.9% helium. This significant discovery is classified as “green helium” as it has no association with hydrocarbons or CO2 unlike many other helium projects globally.
Transitioned Helium One Global Ltd to a leading operator through the acquisition of the Company’s onshore drilling rig that will accelerate and streamline Company’s drilling programme and development of Tanzania’s helium sector. The Company has recently submitted its first Mining License and is looking forward to working with the GoT to move this exciting helium project forward and into development and production.
Prior to joining Helium One, Lorna previously held a number of Senior Geologist roles with Delonex Energy Ltd, African Petroleum Corp Ltd and Tullow Oil plc, leading numerous exploration drilling campaigns in East and Central Africa, through her extensive geological knowledge of the East Africa Rift System.
Graeme is currently Head of Global Exploration & Appraisal for Westwood Global Energy providing deep technical insight to help companies understand their exploration and appraisal performance and how to improve it. Prior to joining Westwood in 2017 Graeme was Head of Exploration Technology and Capability with Maersk Oil in Copenhagen and before that spent 30 years with BP in variety of subsurface technical and leadership positions in UK, Egypt and South America. Graeme has participated in global events for the AAPG, SEG, EAGE, PESGB and Frontier Energy Network. Graeme graduated from Oxford University with an MSc in Petroleum Exploration Seismology.
Edward has over 20 years of global upstream experience having worked extensively in West and East Africa, Australia, South East Asia, Oman and India in a variety of technical roles across the whole upstream value chain. Projects have varied from remote onshore exploration in Africa and Australia to frontier deepwater exploration in Africa, South East Asia and Australia.
Edward is a member of the small team at Impact Oil & Gas which was jointly responsible for the discovery the giant Venus oil field in ultra-deepwater Namibia. In Australia, Edward was responsible for the discovery of a number of significant gas fields including a play opening discovery.
Edward has a BSc (Hons) in Geophysics from Durham University, England and a MSc in Petroleum Geology from the University of Aberdeen, Scotland. He is a Fellow of the Geological Society of London.
Karyna is an Oxford University graduated Petroleum Geoscientist with over 30 years of multidisciplinary technical experience in global exploration-inclined projects. She possesses diverse experience from her time at PEMEX, BG and other major oil companies, where she worked closely with high level management to develop their strategic portfolios. She currently works at Searcher as part of a high performing team dedicated to identifying, pursuing, and realizing new ventures to support efforts in optimizing exploration for oil and gas in mature and frontier basins around the globe.
Mike Powney is the Geoscience Manager for Geoex MCG working on their global multi-client portfolio. Having begun his career at Subsurface Resource Consulting working on projects across West Africa, Mike joined Geoex MCG around 4 years ago. Here he continues to develop global projects, provide subsurface understanding for Geoex MCG’s existing portfolio and also leads the companies activities in Carbon Capture and Storage and Natural Hydrogen. Currently Mike is the project manager for an ambitious seismic acquisition and reprocessing campaign in Venezuela which is the topic of his talk
Arnout Everts is a broad-skilled geoscientist with a PhD in Geology from VU University Amsterdam, 34 years of energy-industry experience with Shell, PETRONAS, Murphy Oil, THREE60 Energy and since 2022 through his private consultancy AEGeo. His areas of expertise include techno-commercial project due-diligence, oil- and gas-field (re)development, resource assessments, geothermal resources, CO2 and hydrogen underground storage, and natural hydrogen. Through his career, Arnout has participated in and/or led over 100 energy projects spanning the entire project life-cycle, from frontier exploration to late field-life including conventional and unconventional hydrocarbons. In recent years his focus has shifted away from oil and gas and towards energy-transition opportunities and challenger pertaining to the uptake of renewables and underground storage. Arnout is an Active Member of AAPG, EAGE and GSM (Geological Society of Malaysia), a Professional Member of AGA (Australian Geothermal Association), member of the Hydrogen Science Coalition (https://h2sciencecoalition.com/) and he has authored or co-authored over 30 research papers in international scientific journals. As EuroGeologist title holder (EFG1435), Arnout is entitled to sign off on Company Reserves and Resources reports submitted to regulatory bodies.
Area of hydrogen expertise: natural hydrogen, underground hydrogen storage.
Jens has 30 years experience in corporate finance and capital markets and loves helping junior oil companies navigate the world of finance; what types of finance are available and where to go to find it.
Rosa Nieto is the Project & Engineering Director of Enagás since March 2023.
Her responsibilities include the engineering and construction of the Enagas infrastructures: natural gas , hydrogen and CO2
She has developed his entire professional career in Enagás in different management positions as Technical services Director, Asset Management Director, UGS Director and previously as Underground Storage Project Manager.
She is algo chairwoman of Saggas (Sagunto LNG Terminal) and the Musel Energy Hub ( Musel LNG Terminal)
Rosa is a Senior Energy, Fuel and Mining Engineer at the University of Oviedo and has completed a PDD (management development programme) at IESE and an Advanced Management Programme at ESADE.
Jonathan has over 25 years’ experience in both the hydrocarbon, mining and energy transition industries. Starting work with the acquisition and processing of potential field data, then moving onto interpretation, Jonathan has expertise in the integration of potential field data, with complimentary datasets and particularly seismic data, to produce combined geological and geophysical solutions. As well as completing numerous projects in a range of geographical and geological settings, Jonathan has also been heavily involved in academic and R&D work, acting as an external project supervisor with universities and assisting with advances in the non-seismic method developments .
Jonathan has a Geology/Physical Geography degree from Manchester and a MRes in Earth Sciences from University of London.
Richard Morton has 25 years of experience in exploration, production, development and management in the oil and gas industry. Originally a highly qualified geophysicist, he has expanded his portfolio of skills progressively into operational and asset management. He has worked in a number of challenging contracting and operating environments, including as Centrica Energy’s Exploration Manager for Nigeria. He has been with Panoro Energy since 2008 with responsibilities for project and technical management of Panoro’s African exploration and development assets. Richard obtained a B.Sc. in Physics from Essex University in 1989 and went on to complete a M.Sc. in Applied Geophysics from the University of Birmingham the following year. He is a British citizen and resides in London, UK.
Thirty-eight international E&P experience including seven years in service companies, 20 years with a major operator (BG Group) and the last eleven years as an independent consultant. Global G&G experience in 94 countries across most geological settings. Key skills include frontier basin evaluation, creation of new play concepts, carbonate geology, fieldwork and, geoscience problem solving. Seventy-eight publications in peer reviewed journals on various aspects of petroleum geology including 33 papers on Southeast Asia.
Matt graduated from the University of Manchester in 1999 with a BSc in Geography and Geology before obtaining a MSc in Petroleum Geology from Oxford Brookes University in 2000. After graduating, Matt worked for Fugro-Aperio as an engineer before joining Aceca Geologica as a geologist working on North Sea well log stratigraphy and mapping. He joined TGS in 2006 where he was responsible for geoscience interpretation in Canada and Brazil, including a placement in Apache’s Brazil exploration team, before joining the TGS Africa group as lead geologist where he worked on new ventures and interpretation projects. Matt joined PGS Reservoir in 2015 as Africa Coordinator responsible for geoscience and business development tasks. In 2018 he was promoted to Angola New Ventures Manager and then in 2019 became Chief Geologist for Africa. Matt completed his PGS career in PGS Equity, a part of the Strategic Projects group, where he appraised block & field asset investment opportunities. Matt joined Trois Geoconsulting in 2020 where he is VP Business Development. At Trois, Matt supports their partners; Shearwater Geoservices, GeoPartners Ltd, Xcalibur Smart Mapping and Geofizyka Torun throughout Africa.
Bruce worked as a geoscientist in the oil and gas, mining and environmental sectors before joining Enverus. He has extensive industry experience working in locations such as Trinidad & Tobago, Mongolia, Sierra Leone, Australia and Uganda. Bruce holds a B.A. in Geology from Trinity College Dublin and M.Sc. in Land Management from Cranfield University.
