All posts tagged petroleum people

By Marshal Gungubele, in Windhoek

Kgosientsho ‘Sputla’ Ramokgopa, the South African civil engineer appointed as his country’s new minister of electricity, has a mandate that reaches way beyond solving the crises at Eskom, the one-time largest power utility in Africa.

Ramakgopa was appointed in the context of the national state of disaster, declared in February 2023 by President Cyril Ramaphosa, “to respond to the electricity crisis and its effect.”

The escalation of the crisis would allow the government to implement “practical measures that we need to take to support businesses,” President Ramaphosa had declared.

The state of disaster mode would allow the government to remove red tape for energy projects, the President said. It will enable the exemption of critical infrastructure such as hospitals and water treatment plants from crippling power outages, which had held down economic growth for 15 long years.

Mr. Ramakgopa will be expected to facilitate the coordination of the numerous departments and entities involved in the crisis response, work with the Eskom leadership to turn around the performance of power stations, and accelerate the procurement of new generation capacity.

That means he will be performing some of roles that ordinarily would have been the remits of the Minister of Public Enterprises (Pravin Gordhan) and Minister of Mines and Energy (Gwede Mantashe).

Weeks before Ramakgopa’s appointment, Mr. Mantashe, himself a powerhouse in the ruling party ANC, had described the role of the would -be-Minister of electricity, as “project manager”, focusing exclusively on power outages. President Ramaphosa apparently thought differently. “To effectively oversee the electricity crisis response, the appointed minister will have political responsibility, authority and control over all aspects of the Energy Action Plan,” Ramaphosa said in the speech making the appointment.

South Africa experienced more than 200 days of power cuts in 2022, the worst on record. Eskom is saddled with $26Billion of debt, along with an ageing, lack-lustre- performing, fleet of power generating plants.

Ramakgopa, 48, was, prior to the new role, head of the Investment and Infrastructure Office in the Presidency. He was formerly the member of the executive committee (MEC) in charge of Economic Development and Agriculture in Gauteng, the province which hosts Johannesburg and Tshwane (the city formerly known as Pretoria). Between 2010 and 2016, he was the mayor of Tshwane.

Marshal Gungubele is the new Southern Africa correspondent for Africa Oil+Gas Report.

The South African accountant, Calib Cassim, has been appointed interim group Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Eskom, the state owned electricity utility.

Cassim served as Eskom chief financial officer in November 2018.

“He is a registered chartered accountant with a master’s degree in business leadership”, Eskom said in a statement.

“With over 20 years of service in Eskom, his qualifications and extensive experience have provided Mr. Cassim with a deep understanding and appreciation of the Eskom business and the electricity industry, especially regarding the challenges facing the financing of operations and future expansion of the industry,” spokesperson Sikonathi Mantshantsha said.

Eskom’s board of directors a had earlier in the week, moved to oust the outgoing CEO, Andre de Ruyter, after he gave an explosive interview, talking about his time at Eskom, exposing the depths of corruption at the state-owned power utility.

Geoplex Drillteq has, in the last 24 months, extended its business outboard of the oilfield service specialization, for which it is widely known. The Nigerian owned firm acquired a fleet of five land rigs from KCA Deutag; grabbed a technical partnership stake in the Nigerian operations of Yinson Holdings, which owns the Abigail Joseph FPSO, producing crude on Anyala field. Geoplex holds a 40% equity in Ndibe, one of the newly awarded marginal fields and, the company tells us, it has won a contract in the Electricity Supply Industry to build sub stations. What else does it not do? Geoplex is even thinking of embedded power generation.

In an interview with Africa Oil+Gas Report, we felt we had to find out from WOLE OGUNSANYA, the company founder and Chief Executive, how he spotted the opportunity…

AOGR: Do you want to give us a bit of a background history on how you got into the oil and gas business?

Geoplex MD: I graduated from the University of Lagos in 1987 and I went to Schlumberger to do my National Youth Service. After one year, I was offered a job as an engineer trained in different places in electric wireline. I also managed those businesses either as a field service manager or as an operations manager for the country. I worked basically all over the world but mostly in Africa, Europe and the Middle East. After a while, I thought it was time to leave. I left Schlumberger with some of my colleagues to start Geoplex. I spent about 13 years and we established this company in 2002 and we started our first operation in 2004. It took us two years to look for work, raise fund and buy the first set of equipment. From there, the rest is history in terms of us growing from one service to the other. That made us to have these multi-service portfolios which culminated in us acquiring the KCA-Deutang rigs and services in Nigeria in March 2022. I hope that is short enough for you.

AOGR: No, it’s not enough: how did you spot that opportunity because 13 years is really a short time because, relatively, people hang on to companies for a long time.

Geoplex MD: Schlumberger, in our own time, went round the world in the countries that they operate and hired the best engineers that they could find. In those days, you are just one engineer with your two technicians and you would be working for 2-3 days without sleeping. The job was extremely difficult and the attrition rate was high. Some of us had that attitude that we were going to do our job to the best of our abilities, but we also thought, if they were going to ask us to go, then we were prepared to go. There was never a strong mindset to seek a career in Schlumberger. The mindset was to do your job very well, have experience and try and save as much as money as you can so that if they ask you to leave…

This is a teaser…Watch this space for the full interview…

Chevron Corporation has announced that Mark A. Nelson, executive vice president, Strategy, Policy & Development, has been named vice chairman and executive vice president, Strategy, Policy & Development, effective February 1, 2023.

In this new corporate officer role, Nelson will continue leading Chevron’s Strategy & Sustainability, Corporate Affairs, and Business Development functions, and take on additional corporate responsibilities.

“Throughout his career, and as a senior leader, Mark has made significant contributions to the company’s success,” said Michael K. Wirth, Chevron’s chairman and chief executive officer. “He has worked in every segment of our business, and his results-driven approach positions him well to help execute our strategy and represent Chevron more broadly.”

Nelson previously served as executive vice president of Downstream & Chemicals, vice president, Midstream, Strategy & Policy, and vice president of Corporate Strategic Planning.

The Nigerian geologist Nosa Omorodion, has been announced as the winner of one of the most distinguished awards given by the American Association of Petroleum Geologists AAPG).

The award is Michel T Halbouty Outstanding Leadership (MTHOL) Award, given “in recognition of outstanding and exceptional leadership in the petroleum geosciences”.

The AAPG is the world’s leading professional society for petroleum geoscience, with over 30,000 members worldwide.

The MTHOL Award is named for Michel T Halbouty, an American geologist, petroleum engineer, and wildcatter who was credited with discovering more than 50 oil and gas fields.  In a long, storied, life (he died in 2004 at the age of 95), Halbouty twice declared bankruptcy, but came back each time to regain wealth. He authored hundreds of technical articles on petroleum geology, and two book-length histories of famous oil fields. Halbouty is often described, including in his New York Times obituary, as “legendary.”

The award is one of the top two of the 12 awards announced for 23 geoscientists from across the world for 2023.

The honorees, approved by the AAPG Executive Committee, “were selected based on service to the profession, the science, the Association and the public”, the AAPG says on is website.

Most on this year’s award list are American; but there are also Canadians, Italians and Nigerians.

Apart from Mr. Omorodion, who is an Executive Director at the Nigerian operations of Schlumberger (the giant, global oilfield services company), there are three Nigerians on the list, including Akinwande Oluseye Ekun, who is an earth scientist in Chevron’s Houston offices and Mimionitu Opuwari, a professor of geosciences at the University of Western Cape, Cape Town, South Africa. Ekun and Opuwari are honoured for “Distinguished Service” to the profession, the science, the Association and the public.

Philip Ajaebili, a reservoir geophysicist at Shell Nigeria, is honoured with a “Young Professionals Exemplary Service Award”.

Mr. Omorodion, who counts, in his profile, 34 years of post-graduation experience in the oil and gas industry, is one of those individuals you could describe as keen enthusiasts of professional associations.

He is a former President of the Nigerian Association of Petroleum Explorationists (NAPE) and has been bullish on AAPG, the world’s largest grouping of earth scientists. He has been on the Distinguished Lecture Committee (International); , he has been Secretary/Treasurer AAPG Africa Region; Membership Coordination and Communication, AAPG Africa Region; President, AAPG Africa Region; General Co-Chair, AAPG-NAPE Deepwater West Africa Conference; General Co-Chair, AAPG Africa/Europe Joint Conference, Marrakesh, Morocco; on the Technical Committee, AAPG International Conference and Exhibition, Istanbul, Turkey.

The full list of the AAPG 2023 honorees is as follows:

• SIDNEY POWERS MEMORIAL AWARD
  • Kitty Milliken, Bureau of Economic Geology, Austin, Texas
• MICHEL T. HALBOUTY OUTSTANDING LEADERSHIP AWARD
  • Nosa Omorodion, Schlumberger, Houston, Texas (Africa Region)
• HONORARY MEMBER
  • Robert D. Hatcher Jr., University of Tennessee, Oak Ridge, Tenn.
  • Cynthia Huggins, Aera , Bakersfield, Calif.
• NORMAN H. FOSTER EXPLORER AWARD
  • Linda Price, ExxonMobil, Houston
• ROBERT R. BERG OUTSTANDING RESEARCH AWARD
  • Thomas E. Ewing, Frontera Exploration Consultants, San Antonio, Texas
  • Amy Fox, Enlighten Geoscience Ltd., Calgary, Canada
• DISTINGUISHED SERVICE AWARD
  • Rebecca Caldwell, Chevron, Houston
  • Joseph R. Davis, BKV Corp., Dallas, Texas
  • Raffaele Di Cuia, Delta Energy Ltd., Ferrara, Italy
  • Akinwande Oluseye Ekun, Chevron, Houston
  • Mimionitu Opuwari, University of Western Cape, Cape Town, South Africa
  • Douglas N. Valleau, Strategia Innovation and Technology Advisors, Spring, Texas
• GROVER E. MURRAY MEMORIAL DISTINGUISHED EDUCATOR
  • Virginia Sisson, Yellowstone Bighorn Research Association, Houston
  • Robert Trentham, University of Texas-Permian Basin, Odessa, Texas
• HARRISON SCHMITT AWARD
  • Kirsten Siebach, Rice University, Houston
• PUBLIC SERVICE AWARD
  • Neal and Inda Immega, HMNS, Houston
• PIONEER AWARD
  • William A. Ambrose, Bureau of Economic Geology, Austin, Texas
  • Dan J. Hartmann, DJH Energy Consulting, Fredericksburg, Texas
• YOUNG PROFESSIONALS EXEMPLARY SERVICE AWARD
  • Philip Ajaebili, Shell, Port Harcourt, Nigeria
  • Andrea Lopez Vega, Total Energies, Luanda, Angola
• VLASTIMILA (VLASTA) DVOŘÁKOVÁ INT’L AMBASSADOR SERVICE AWARD
  • William P. Bosworth, Apache, Cairo, Egypt