The Petroleum Exploration Society of Australia (PESA WA) held its October Technical Lunch on 16 October 2025 Parmelia Hilton Perth, featuring a presentation by Chris Watts. The event attracted around 50 attendees from across the upstream sector, including representatives from Shell, Woodside, Santos, Chevron, and other leading energy companies in the Perth Basin.Chris delivered an informative and well-structured presentation highlighting the geological evolution of the Northern Perth Basin and the implications for exploration and resource development. His talk generated strong interest and engagement among participants.
WA
WA YP event
PESA hosted a very successful YP event after the Australasian Exploration Geoscience Conference (AEGC) conference in Perth in September jointly with AIG, SPE and ASEG.
With over 70 attendees from both Perth and interstate, it was a wonderful evening of networking with both familiar and new faces.
A big thank you to our panellists who all volunteered their time after a packed week presenting at the conference: Ishtar Barranco (CCS Geologist, Chevron), Donna Sewell (Consulting Geologist, AIG WA Brach Chair) and Richard Lilly (Exploration Geologist, The University of Adelaide)
WA Basin’s workshop to be held 1st-2nd Dec at Curtin University
The 2025 Basins Workshop will take place on Monday 1 and Tuesday 2 December 2025 at Curtin University, Perth in association with PESA WA Branch. The aim of the workshop is to provide an informal forum for the exchange of insights and ideas regarding the evolution of sedimentary basins in Australia and around the world, and the diverse resources they contain, including hydrocarbons, minerals, geothermal energy, natural hydrogen, and the potential for CO2 and hydrogen storage.
Talks are limited to 10 minutes in duration, with ample time for discussion, so we are looking for thought provoking ideas, rather than polished conference presentations.
WA evening talk – US Double act on fluvial systems
A good crowd again assembled for Perth PESA evening talk on August 14, a double act on fluvial systems by John Holbrook (Texas Christian University) on the “Back-water Effect” on fluvial systems and Steve Hasiotis (University of Kansas) on the Neoichnology of the De Grey ephemeral river delta, Northwest WA
John Holbrook’s talk on the backwater effect provided an interesting discussion on fluvial architecture styles and an emerging tool and a work flow for predicting reservoir architecture, dimensions, volumes and heterogeneity in fluvial systems.
Steve Hasiotis described the diagnostic patterns of plant and animal traces (and diversity),...
Exciting future events coming to WA
We also have really exciting visitors coming to Perth during the coming months. On Thursday 2nd October Dr Brian Willis will be presenting an evening talk followed by a core workshop at Perth Core Library with Simon Lang and Tobi Payenberg. This trip is supported by Santos Ltd.
On the 6th and 7th November, we are delighted to be hosting Dr Henry Posamentier here in Perth. Henry is running a 2-day course entitled “Seismic Geomorphology and Seismic Stratigraphy: Fundamentals and Workflows”.
WA June technical Lunch
The Renaissance Tour: A revival of frontier basins with data-driven exploration.
By Lauren Found, Searcher.
Lauren Found of Searcher Seismic took us on a global magical mystery tour from the offshore Papuan Basin to the Scotia Basin offshore Canada on the northern Atlantic margin and the Orange Basin, offshore Namibia with its conjugate the Pelotas Basin offshore Brazil and showed us new insights from new data and interpretation in these basins that make them look more interesting than previously thought.
Lauren showed a new crustal model for the Gulf of Papua interpreted from long offset 2D seismic data suggesting the presence of new and previously overlooked depocenters and the possibility of the continuation of the oil provinces that are prolific in the onshore.
WA Winter Warmer event (includes photo gallery)
On 18th July, PESA-WA held their “Winter Warmer” networking event at The Globe Lounge Bar in Perth CBD, which this year featured a Jazz Quartet. Sophie Kerr and her band (WAPPA and ex-WAPPA students) played fantastic mellow as well as lively jazz tunes. The event was really well attended (62 people). It was a great opportunity to socialise with colleagues, friends and new members, particularly on a cold Winter’s evening. There was an open bar until 10pm, with fantastic food platters and raffle prizes.
PESA WA Core workshop in collaboration with CCUSNA
Summary by Dr Fiona Burns
On Tuesday 10th June, DEMIRES (in collaboration with PESA WA and CCUSNA) organised a core workshop entitled “Perth Basin from a CCS Perspective” which was presented by Julie Cass and Dr Arthur Mory. We spent a day at the Perth Core Library considering how our collection of cores helps us to understand CCS targets in the Perth Basin. We also delved into the importance of characterising seals, the influence of reservoir heterogeneity vs homogeneity and how diagenesis impacts pore geometry.
WA hold joint talk with SPE on CCS topics
Summary by Dr Fiona Burns
On Thursday evening, 15th May PESA and SPE held a joint evening event at the ParmeliaHotel. The key focus of the presentations were projects and insights from across Australiaon the topic of CCS, with three separate speakers invited.
Robert Root’s talk (Chevron Australia) was entitled “Gorgon Carbon Capture and Storage –Insights and Lessons Learned”. Rob provided a highly informative overview of Gorgon CCSincluding performance to date, system optimization, and key lessons for other CCS projects.
WA Branch held a joint YP networking event with ASEG and SPE
PESA-ASEG-SPE YP Networking Night, held on Friday, 28th March 2025 at The Shoe Bar
The PESA-ASEG-SPE YP Networking Night, held on Friday, 28th March 2025, provided a unique opportunity for young professionals to connect with experienced industry leaders. The event featured three distinguished speakers: Steve Molyneux, a consultant geologist at Hancock Energy, Sam Howman, Director at Howman Seismic Services, and Lina Hartanto, Subsurface Technical Advisory Group Lead at Chevron. Each speaker delivered a candid 5–10-minute career overview, sharing their personal journeys, the highlights and lowlights of their careers, and the valuable lessons learned along the way.