Around 40 SA/NT members enjoyed a convivial luncheon to celebrate Christmas and the end of 2025.
The meeting kicked off with the SA/NT Branch AGM, at which Paul Strong was voted in as the next Branch President and Sharon Tiainen as Vice-President. This was followed by a brief review of industry activity through the year by Rhodri Johns.
The guest speaker was Dave Grybowski, whose 35 years in petroleum geology have given him ample opportunity to ponder where things might have gone wrong.
The Queensland oil and gas industry came together in early December to celebrate the year’s achievements at the Combined Oil and Gas Christmas Party 2025 – an annual event hosted by the societies ASEG, PESA, SPE, QEC and QUPEX.
Held at Blackbird Bar, Dining & Events, attendees gathered in a riverside setting to reflect on the year, reconnect with colleagues and strengthen ties across the Queensland oil and gas community. The strong turnout and positive atmosphere marked a confident close to the year as the sector looks forward to a successful 2026.
Guests enjoyed an evening of celebration against the stunning Brisbane River backdrop.
PESA Queensland were thrilled to host Dr Brian Willis for an evening lecture on his whistle-stop tour of the Australian states and territories.
Dr Willis is a recognised expert on fluvial systems, with more than four decades spent studying the sedimentology and stratigraphic organisation of these depositional systems. This time, his focus was on the terminal end of the system with three-dimensional architecture of wave-dominated delta deposits the topic of the presentation.
Dr Willis, and his co-authors Tao Sun and Bruce Ainsworth, are using numerical models to challenge long-held rational for interpreting sea level variations in wave-dominated shallow-marine successions.
The Queensland branch technical meeting for May was a presentation from Brendon Mitchell, Chief Geophysisct and Managing Director of Oceania Geo. PESA Queensland were pleased to welcome members of the Queensland ASEG branch to the event to hear about the challenges of seismic acquisition in New Zealand, during covid.
Brendon has significant experience working across New Zealand and Australia, with a focus on onshore data acquisition for unconventional and tight gas exploration and development.
The annual ASEG-PESA golf classic event was held on 15th November in glorious weather at Meadow springs where nearly 100 golfers turned out to compete for glory and prizes.
A new game was played with the Charity hole this year. As in previous years each player paid a donation to the charity to be able to compete to get nearer to the pin than the "pro". But as an added twist this year it was possible to pay an additional sum to the charity in order to "compromise" the pro.
Just shy of 100 people showed up to the new WA Museum Boola Bardip for an evening of networking and looking at rocks.
The “origins” gallery was open for members to view before and during the event. This contained an amazing collection of meteorites, a whole area dedicated to stromatolites, and many displays of rocks and minerals. This included the very photogenic thin section tunnel, which is prominent in the photos shown here.
A raffle was held to raise money to supplement the travel bursary that PESA are offering for a student or early career professional to attend AEGC in Brisbane.