Main Feature

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.

ADNOC Eyes Santos: A High-Stakes Bid That Could Reshape the Asia-Pac LNG Landscape

08/09/2025 Posted by Helen

In a bold strategic maneuver, Abu Dhabi’s state-owned oil giant, ADNOC—via its international arm XRG, in partnership with ADQ and global private equity firm Carlyle—is pursuing the acquisition of Australia’s Santos Ltd. The A$30 billion (US$18.7–19 billion) all-cash bid, unveiled in mid-June 2025, emerges as the largest takeover proposal in Australian corporate history.

This acquisition aligns with ADNOC’s ambitious goal: becoming a top-five global player in LNG by 2035. Santos’ assets—including Darwin and Barossa LNG projects, a stake in PNG LNG, and significant exploration acreage like Beetaloo Basin—provide essential footholds in the Asia-Pacific region

ADNOC has made...

New perspectives on the sequence stratigraphy of the Early-Middle Triassic of the Bedout Sub-basin

22/07/2025 Posted by Helen

Roisin McGee A* , George Mills A and Simon Sturrock B

- Author Affiliations - A Carnarvon Energy, Perth, WA, Australia. B Strat Trap, Perth, WA, Australia.

* Correspondence to: rmcgee@cvn.com.au

Australian Energy Producers Journal 65, EP24163 https://doi.org/10.1071/EP24163

Accepted: 29 March 2025 Published: 22 May 2025

© 2025 The Author(s) (or their employer(s)). Published by CSIRO Publishing on behalf of Australian Energy Producers. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND)

The Bedout Sub-basin, part of the Roebuck Basin on Western Australia’s North West Shelf, has drawn interest since hydrocarbon discoveries at Roc, Dorado and Pavo. Despite these successes, the region remains underexplored.

Do Australian regulations support net zero goals?

01/07/2025 Posted by Helen

One of Australia’s biggest energy challenges is building sufficient long duration energy storage (LDES) to meet market needs for dispatchable power, while also supporting net zero goals.

This challenge will become more urgent as Australia’s coal-fired power stations approach their end of life and close.

But do Australian regulations support the cost-effective clean energy solutions available?

How compressed air can ensure clean, reliable energy

Denison Gas is at the forefront of tackling the LDES challenge by progressing a first of its kind project to repurpose a depleted gas field into compressed air energy storage (CAES) facility.

The renewable energy project is designed to leverage existing infrastructure, unique geology within the Bowen Basin and Central Queensland’s abundant sun to deliver a 600 MW, 12-hour CAES facility.

PESA 2025 Awards

09/06/2025 Posted by Helen

The best bit about our AGM is being able to hand out the awards.

MSA Award

The 2025 PESA Meritorious Service Award (MSA), which recognizes individuals who voluntarily provide exceptional service to PESA at State or Federal level over a significant period of time, has gone to Andrew Riznyczok from the NSW Branch. He will be receiving his award at a Branch event later this year.

Barry Goldstein Award

We received several worthy nominations this year, with the final selection focussing on the key skills of innovation, collaboration and communication.

How might the Labour election victory impact PESA?

09/05/2025 Posted by Helen

The Australian Labor Party's decisive victory in the 2025 federal election, securing a substantial majority, has significant implications for the sub surface energy industry. While the sector faces challenges due to regulatory uncertainties, environmental concerns, evolving climate policies, and financial support mechanisms, the election outcome also presents some opportunities for constructive engagement and policy reform.

While the outlook may not be so rosy for traditional Oil and Gas, the current political climate offers significant opportunities for subsurface activities that fall under their renewable energy banner, like Geothermal energy.

Who is really running PESA?!?

11/03/2025 Posted by Helen

If you were to be a fly on the wall at PESA executive meetings you might be excused for thinking that all the real decisions were being made by a cat.

A one eyed black rescue cat named Boyd never misses a meeting, and does his best to be centre of attention and eclipse that pesky human (Helen Debenham) who thinks she should perhaps be visible.

Digging deeper we see that he commands a full feline committee across the country, With Chairman Pippi in South Australia, doing her best to prevent Elinor Alexander from working, Vice president Meisha, a 20 year old veteran who has stolen Janny Spilsbury-Schakel's back issues of PESA news, or should we say "PESA Mews".

“Drill Baby Drill”: Implications of Donald Trump’s 2nd Presidency for the US in the South China Sea

11/02/2025 Posted by Helen

Article by Ganesh Sahathevan. First published by Australian institute of International Affairs

Ganesh Sahathevan ERP, MGis (UNE) Grad Dip Spatial Info (UNSW) Director, Centre for Industrial Research Pty Ltd, Sydney, Australia. CFRI provides research on the business and politics of this region with a particular emphasis on the oil, gas and renewables industry.

The Trump campaign war cry “we will drill, baby, drill” could lead to a resurgence of oil and gas (O&G) exploration and production in the South China Sea when (and not if) President Donald Trump removes obstacles to O&G production currently in place in the United States.

PESA ETSIG CSIRO CCS Knowledge Transfer Series

PESA / CSIRO CCS Knowledge Transfer Series wraps up

06/01/2025 Posted by Helen

Peter Hoiles – PESA Webinar Coordinator

In early 2023, CSIRO and PESA’s Energy Transition Special Interest Group (ETSIG) joined forces to design a carbon capture and storage (CCS) knowledge transfer series. The aim of the series was to highlight to the PESA audience what is different about CCS compared to what we know about and understand from oil and gas operations. The series commenced in September 2023 and concluded in September 2024, with a total of twelve webinars presented.

Trump’s new Energy Czar is closely Connected to Australian ‘Top End’ Fraccing Companies

10/12/2024 Posted by Dale

By Dale Granger

US President-elect Donald Trump continues to ruffle feathers in Washington by tapping fraccing company executive Chris Wright to be secretary of energy, a key position in his new White House administration and a man with close ties to Australia.

Wright, in his capacity as chief executive of Liberty Energy, is closely linked to Australia as an investor in both Empire Energy and Tamboran Energy’s hydraulic stimulation initiatives in the Betaloo Basin in the Northern Territory.

Trump said in a statement he had picked oil executive and climate change sceptic Wright to be the secretary of energy, a role in which he is expected to promote fossil fuel development and reverse many Biden-era initiatives.