Join this SIG
The first GESGB Special Interest Group meeting was a one-day event held in 1998 on West Africa the success of which led to a second one-day conference on Southern Africa and the Falklands in 1999 at which a PGS paper identified the prospectivity of the Rovuma Basin. It is surprising that it took so long to develop this promising hydrocarbon target.
In order to build on the success of our Africa SIG and establish our conference as an annual event, a link with the Houston Geological Society was proposed whereby the venue would alternate annually between London and Houston. This association has proven to be very successful with both sides benefiting in terms of organisational improvements and reaching out to a larger delegate base. The first joint GESGB/HGS meeting was held in London in 2002. In 2007 the London Africa Conference re-located for that year only to Cape Town and presented, for the first time, a field excursion to examine the Tanqua Karoo turbidites.
Africa Conference
The Africa SIG has been responsible for the organising and running of the hugely successful bi-annual Africa Conference since 2002. The 22nd iteration of the conference in 2023 saw a welcome return to an in-person format with over 250 Africa focused geoscientists congregating at the Kia Oval Cricket Ground in leafy SW London in late September for 2 days of technical talks, posters, exhibitors and of course networking! The number of attendees may have been down on previous years which reflects the recent changes within our industry but the nonetheless the quality of the technical content remained as high as it ever has been.
Day 1 began with a sense of anticipation and the speakers did not disappoint with excellent talks on Congo, Gabon, Angola and South Africa along with a dedicated session on tectonics. Engaging speakers and lively questioning by the audience made for a successful day despite the slight challenge of the cricket ground PA system being piped through the speakers during one of the talks! Swift intervention by Lydia from the GESGB ensured that this was a one-off incident. Inclement weather, which is unusual in the UK, meant that the networking drinks were held indoors in the exhibition area which ensured that everyone got to see the stands and catch up with people who for a number of years only existed on screen.
Day 2 took attendees on a trip to Northern and Eastern Africa along with a session on how to unlock value from the fruits of our exploration efforts. In keeping with recent trends, the New Energies session showed the vast potential of Africa to power its future with talks on geothermal, CCUS and Hydrogen studies. The conference ended with awards for best talk (Alex Ball from Perenco), poster (Ahmed Abdel Aal from TGS) and student (Iwan Setiawan University of Rennes) with each of them taking home a piece of North Sea core (we couldn’t find African core so if you have some you don’t want then let us know).
Attendee feedback indicated that the conference was a success once again but it wouldn’t have been the success it was without the help and dedication of a number of people including the GESGB team, the technical committee, the sponsors and exhibitors. It is fair to say that without the work and support of these people over the years the conference would be a pale imitation of itself.
Organisations wishing to sponsor the Africa SIG should contact: gesgb@ges-gb.org.uk
To join this Special Interest Group you must be a GESGB member. Please visit https://www.ges-gb.org.uk/membership/ to find out more about becoming a member.
