Archives for October 2025

October 2025

Vale Rowley Butters

22/10/2025 Posted by Helen

Article prepared by Don Poynton who first met Rowley in 1972

(Accompanying photo from PESA News No 75, April/May 2005)

PESA Meritorious Service Awardee, Rowley Edward Butters passed away peacefully on Sunday 12 October, aged 87.

In the April/May 2005 issue of PESA News, newly elected PESA Federal President Dave Cliff wrote, “The biggest change for PESA will be the retirement of Rowley Butters as the society’s Secretariat. Rowley has been with the organization since its inception as the APEA Profession Division in 1968 when he was press-ganged into being WA Branch Treasurer”.

Rowley joined the industry as accountant with WAPET in the mid-1960s.

AEGC 2025 – Another Success for the Co-Convening Societies

13/10/2025 Posted by Rachel

PESA were thrilled to welcome nearly 1400 participants to the Australian Exploration Geoscience Conference (AEGC) 2025 in Perth at the beginning of September across the exhibition, technical program and training courses offered.

The conference is the largest geoscience conference in Australia and is hosted by AIG, PESA and ASEG. Originally developed in response to member feedback that they would like a collaborative event, the current format evolved from the 2016 ASEG-PESA Geophysics conference.

Geopitch Winner Courtney Berry Reflects on AEGC Experience

13/10/2025 Posted by Rachel

The PESA AEGC Student Travel Bursaries have been designed to provide financial assistance to students and early career geoscientists to attend the AEGC by helping to cover travel expenses and conference registration fees. Open to PESA members giving an oral, poster or Geopitch competition presentation, they offer a member per state the chance to attend this conference for a significantly reduced price.

This year, Courtney Berry, a student at Curtin University currently based in Brisbane was one of the lucky winners of the award. Read on to hear more about Courtney’s experience at AEGC.

“The highlight of my AEGC experience in Perth this year was taking part in the GeoPitch competition.

Notice of Membership Fee Increase

10/10/2025 Posted by Rachel

The PESA board advises that there will be a small membership fee increase, effective from December 2025. The fee increase of approximately 2.5% will account for CPI increase and will ensure that PESA can continue to provide members with a range of high value services. Small fee increases, consistent with inflation, ensure that larger more impactful fee increases are not required in the future.

The fees below will apply to both new and renewing members.

Please note that there are no changes to Retired or Graduate membership fees, and Student membership will continue to be free.

Australian Natural Hydrogen Conference 2025

10/10/2025 Posted by Helen

It’s a crucial year for the potential commercialisation of natural hydrogen, and the second Australian Natural Hydrogen Conference October 21-23 in the Adelaide Hills promises to shed new light on this emerging energy source.

With a handful of companies worldwide having confirmed high levels of natural hydrogen in the ground, all are now racing to prove they can commercialise the zero-carbon resource, and the conference, put on by the Natural Hydrogen Association of Australia, has some of the industry’s heavyweights fronting attendees.

Since the inaugural Natural Hydrogen Association of Australia conference in 2024, the game has changed.

Carbon Loop #13

10/10/2025 Posted by Helen

Read the full newsletter here

Hello and welcome to The Carbon Loop — a newsletter by the CCUSNA dedicated to highlighting the Australian carbon capture, utilisation and storage industry

The Federal Government has dropped a suite of Net Zero strategies covering key parts of the economy: transport, resources, industry, built environment, agriculture and land, and electricity. Together with the overarching Net Zero Plan, these reports provide the most detailed picture yet of how Australia expects to meet its emissions commitments.

There’s a bajillion pages to get through and I’m a long way from having an informed opinion, but my initial hot take is a bit: Hmm.. really?

OPINION PIECE – Climate Change and the Demise of PESA – By Dennis Morton

10/10/2025 Posted by Helen

By Dennis Morton - Member NSW branch https://www.linkedin.com/in/dennis-morton-a7587121/

Australia’s petroleum exploration and production industry has been in decline for decades and professional societies like PESA-Australia are suffering. Membership is falling, meeting and conference attendance is low and branch budgets are under pressure. Without significant change branches in Victoria and NSW may fold. The ACT branch merged with NSW after Geoscience Australia discouraged employee involvement, citing federal government policies that demonise fossil fuels.

Academia has also been affected with most Earth Science faculties in Australian universities closing.