Tech Talk (public)

In addition to the successful PESA WA Branch Technical Luncheon Series held this year, the Evening Lecture Series has been going very well too. Our Evening Lecture Series is a great platform for networking over canapes and drinks accompanied by a technical talk in a very relaxed environment. The event usually starts around 5.30pm at The Georges Hotel. The first evening lecture that PESA WA hosted this year was on 17 April with Chris Cubitt as the guest lecturer. His topic was on the “Drill cuttings, core, wireline and seismic – a match made in heaven!” and the event was…

PESA WA August Luncheon – Evolution of “Tres Hombres”
PESA WA Branch hosted Chris Hurren from BHB Billiton, with special gratitude to our four technical series sponsors, to talk our members through the evolution of the large mid-crustal “Tres Hombres” structure within the northern Beagle Sub-basin, offshore WA. Three enigmatic circular structures in the outer part of the Beagle sub-basin, known as the three brothers, or possibly named after the album of the same name by ZZ Top, have attracted passing interest and quite a bit of head scratching in the past based on some rather sparse 2D seismic lines. Now that they are beautifully imaged on the TGS’s…

Pluto 4D – Australia’s first 4D over a gas field is an outstanding success
It was by far the most successful PESA WA event this year with over 100 PESA members attending our monthly luncheon. Our July guest speaker was a recognizable principal geophysicist Larry Tilbury from Woodside Energy presenting his long-lived contribution into planning and analysis of first Australia’s 4D seismic survey acquired over Pluto gas field, Northern Carnarvon Basin. The branch announcements by Victoria Seesaha, WA Branch Vice-President, included upcoming events such as the Winter Warmer at Ku De Ta, August technical talk by Garry O’Halloran from BHP on evolution of “Tres Hombres” within the Northern Beagle Sub-basin, and many more! Check…

SEG Distinguished Lecturer Entertains at joint PESA Qld-ASEG Qld Evening
The July technical meeting saw PESA Queensland team up with ASEG Queensland to present an evening with SEG distinguished lecturer Dr Kurt Marfurt. Dr Kurt Marfurt serves as the Frank and Henrietta Schultz Professor of Geophysics within the ConocoPhillips School of Geology and Geophysics at the University of Oklahoma. His primary research interests are the development and calibration of new seismic attributes to aid in seismic processing, seismic interpretation and reservoir characterisation. In addition to his work at the University of Oklahoma and with SEG, Dr Marfurt also serves as Editor in Chief of the AAPG/SEG journal Interpretation. Following on…

PESA Queensland 2017 Scholarship Winner Presents to Group
PESA Queensland were delighted to welcome 2017 Scholarship winner Peter Manchee to present on his honours project at their recent technical meeting. Peter is an alumni of University of Queensland graduating from his Bachelor of Science (Geology) in 2016 before completing his honours in 2017, working with Professor Joan Esterle and Dr Valeria Bianchi. Coming from an agricultural background, he had a particular interest in the sustainable management of groundwater and was offered a research project working with Arrow Energy analysing the Condamine Valley Transition Zone. Peter now works for Anglo American as a Graduate Geologist at Lake Lindsay coal…

PESA WA QLD June technical lunch
Queensland’s June technical lunch saw local stalwart David Lowry presenting his work on the structural restoration and maturity modelling of the Eromanga Basin. David’s long-lived career has seen him work as a field geologist for Geological Survey WA, as a well site geologist, and as an exploration geologist for WAPET, Lasmo, Sagasco and Origin Energy. He now consults from his home in the bush. The work he presented built on his previous APPEA paper (Lowry and Evans, 2011) focussed on new exploration concepts for the Eromanga Basin. After an introduction to the study area, the talk moved on to sonic…

PESA WA hosts another successful field trip for 2018 to Swan Valley
Bright and early on a Sunday morning 20 intrepid PESA members met at the Boab tree in Kings park ready to embark on a tour of the Swan Valley, and an intellectual journey that allowed for the geography of our working lives to be mapped onto the geology, geography and scale of the city we live in. The morning began with an open air “powerpoint” presentation, by trip leaders Simon Lang and Neil Marshall. From a spectacular viewpoint with most of the mid and lower reaches of the Swan river visible, Simon took us through sea…

Quantitative Seismic Stratigraphy Talk by 2017 Woodside – PESA WA PhD Scholarship Winner
We are already halfway through 2018 and PESA WA Branch is still doing very well for the technical lunch series, with special gratitude to our four sponsors: Spectrum (Platinum), CGG (Gold), Searcher Seismic (Gold) and DUG (Gold). The branch announcements by Helen Debenham, WA Branch President, included the upcoming July technical talk by Larry Tilbury from Woodside on Pluto 4D’s outstanding success on Thursday 19th July. This will then be followed by our annual Winter Warmer social event at Ku De Ta on Friday 20th July – Keep an eye out for this event! Buru Energy have also kindly extended…

PESA WA SHORT COURSE – Elements of Chemostratigraphy by Chemostrat
May the Fourth Be With You! Friday, 4 May was not only a great day to celebrate the Star Wars Day, but it was also the first time a Chemostrat open-training session had been made available in Perth. This short course was hosted by PESA WA Branch, and we acknowledge and thank Carnarvon Petroleum for generously sponsoring the students who attended the course. It was well attended with major O&G companies, state government, service companies and academia all represented. Chemostrat has analysed and interpreted over 200 wells on the North West Shelf for elemental analysis,…

Young Professionals in WA
In early April, PESA WA Young Professionals in collaboration with ASEG WA organised the first “Young Professionals Speakers' Night.” The aim of these nights is to encourage the lesser experienced geoscientists to present their work in a welcoming environment and assist their public speaking skills.
We were fortunate to have Amy Millar from Buru Energy present her work, titled “Ungani Oil Field, Canning Basin – Evaluation of a Dolomite Reservoir” which won the Best Oral Presentation in the Energy Section of the AEGC Conference held in Sydney during February 2018. Amy’s presentation was well attended with…