Back in October after a two year wait excitement was building for the 2025 Africa Conference; there was a bulging technical program, a keynote speaker primed and a world class venue booked so would the event deliver? Thankfully the resounding answer was yes!

The main lecture theatre at the Royal College of Physicians was packed with over 225 attendees to hear Bryan Ritchie (VP Exploration at BP) give an engaging opening keynote that set the tone for the next couple of days. Talks from operators, service companies and academia covered four corners of the continent with a welcome return of talks on Libya going down particularly well. The scope of the talks covered field development, new technologies along with plate tectonics, exploration stories, state of the business and new energy. In addition to the talks, a good number of posters were on display upstairs and prompted lively discussion during the breaks.

Judging for the Bates-Danforth prize for best talk kept the technical committee busy over the two days with Raymond Komori from SASOL coming out on top with his talk on estimating porosity using LWD during operations on the Pande-Tamane Fields. Great to see a development/ops geology talk going down well in an exploration conference perhaps a sign of the time? The best poster prize went to Corneliu Cosovanu from Corelab who presented on reservoir quality offshore Cote D’Ivoire. Both prize winners became the proud owners of piece of core although they had to make do with a certificate on the day due to the core being left behind in Aberdeen…

Overall the two days were a great success with a noticeable positive vibe surrounding the event perhaps reflecting the renewed interest in Africa and also exploration in general. The feedback was that the conference had gotten its swagger back and that the GESGB team had really nailed the brief with the location which perfectly matched the needs of the conference. Remote presentation technology was available but this didn’t quite go to planned but is something that we will be encouraging in future editions.

A huge thank you is required to the presenters, exhibitors, attendees, the GESGB team and to the sponsors (Perenco, RISC and Thunder Exploration) without whom the conference would not have been the success it was. The 2026 event will be held in Houston with the HGS leading the charge on that one ably led by Bill Dickson and his committee. So the best of luck to them and keep an eye out for the call for abstracts.

 

Gavin Elliott (Africa 2025 Tech Committee Chairman)