Guest Speaker(s): Dr. John Conolly

Dr. John Conolly received a B.Sc. from the University of Sydney (1958) and his M.Sc. and Ph.D. from the University of New South Wales (1960, 1963). Between 1965 and 1971, he served as Professor of Geology at Louisiana State University, Columbia University, N.Y., and the University of South Carolina. John has been the recipient of numerous awards and honors spanning his distinguished career and is credited with over 100 articles in journals, conferences, and short courses.

John’s work has spanned the globe and includes affiliations with such entities as the U.S. Naval Oceanographic Office, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Lamont Doherty Geological Observatory at Columbia University, and numerous major partners in the energy industry and government agencies throughout Australia, New Zeland, South Pacific Islands, and the United States. He also founded Rawson Resources Ltd., an active oil explorer listed on the Australian Stock Exchange in 2005.

John participated in the now famous Baltimore Canyon Trough Lease Sales and was a successful bidder for offshore acreage with Shell U.S.A., the major participant and operator. As a Principal of the frontier basin ventures, primarily as the ‘innovator’ and ‘instigator’ of these ventures, his work included all of the new joint ventures put together by the Sydney Oil Company during the period 1977 to 1988. These resulted in the participation in the discovery of fourteen new oil fields including the South Pepper, North Herald trend on the Northwest Shelf, and the Fairymount, Bodalla South, and Nockatunga trends in Queensland. Since 1988, he has worked as an independent consultant, creating new frontier plays and putting together new acreage blocks in the Northwest Shelf and other basins in Australia, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, the S.W. Pacific Islands, and New Zealand.

Dr. John Conolly is currently Managing Director of Petrofocus Consultin and has 50 years experience in exploration of frontier basins worldwide.