All posts tagged petroleum people

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

The Natural Resource Governance Institute (NRGI) has appointed the Ghanaian development specialist, Nafi Chinery, as interim Africa director. In this role, she will oversee the activities of NRGI’s Africa team and provide strategic leadership for NRGI’s work in the region and globally.

Ms. Chinery will combine the work with her current role as West Africa regional manager(Anglophone) at the Institute, where she supervises the design, implementation and coordination of NRGI’s strategic engagements and programmes in Anglophone West Africa.

The phrase: “Interim” suggests that NRGI is still scouting for the permanent occupier of the office, a search that has been ongoing since 2016. The Africa director, in NRGI’s description, is one “who can build relationships with a diverse range of critical partners and harness the strengths of the organization to advance accountable and effective governance in Africa”. The institute says that the role is a unique opportunity “to cohesively improve natural resource governance across Africa.

“Reporting to NRGI’s Chief Operating Officer and as the senior-most representative in the region, the position will define strategic engagements and target agents of change”. Central to the role will be to oversee the successful execution of NRGI’s country strategies, ensuring that lessons learned from the organisation’s engagement and the changing political economy inform its work. “The person will also design and implement a regional strategy, that capitalizes on our engagements in priority countries and seizes new opportunities for reform as they emerge”.

Nafi Chinery has over 20 years of experience in development work. Prior to joining NRGI, she worked with Oxfam GB and the African Women’s Development Fund (AWDF), a pan-African grant-making foundation for women’s rights. She has a longstanding career in organizational development and transformative and strategic leadership. For 17 years, Nafi has worked to develop and strengthen credible well informed women’s rights organizations and leaders to accelerate the respect for women and rights of marginalized groups across Africa.

She holds a master’s degree in social development and sustainable livelihoods from the University of Reading, U.K., and a bachelor of arts and diploma in education from Cape Coast University, Cape Coast, Ghana. She was also a 2014 Aspen New Voices Fellow.