Report for First Break, from Conference Convener, Peter Grant.
From Conference Convener, Peter Grant:
Based on the success of the previous conferences and the fact that Myanmar is the current focal point in SE Asia for exploration, EAGE, AAPG and MGS (Myanmar Geoscience Society) held another successful joint conference, 3rd Myanmar Oil & Gas Conference last February in the capital of Myanmar, Yangon. The conference attracted great interest, and 57 oral and poster papers were presented during the 3-day event. A great success of the conference was attracting locally derived papers and we had over 30% form Myanmar citizens both from industry and academia.
240 attendees from 22 countries filled the conference facilities of the Sule Shangri La in Yangon and we had a compact and very effective exhibition area. The facilities were excellent with everything in the same area allowing for a lot of interaction and networking by all delegates.
We enjoyed the full support on the Myanmar Ministry of Energy and Electricity and their national oil company Myanma Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE). Deputy Minister Dr. Tun Naing opened the conference and MOGE presented numerous papers that were very well received.
Paul Thompson as technical convenor prepared the days into themes that included regional, onshore, offshore (in 2 areas), research and geophysics. For the first time we also had a dedicated Q&A panel session which provided the delegates an opportunity to ask in depth questions of Myanmar experts from industry, government and academia. It worked very well.
Myanmar is located in a tectonically active area with large parts of their onshore and offshore without seismic (vintage or modern). As such there were numerous debates and challenges to concepts expressed which carried on into most of the breaks. This is always an excellent experience at conferences, where people are not afraid to launch ideas and debate them with fellow geos.
Myanmar is enjoying unprecedented exploration activities at present, with over 80,000 sq kms of 3D seismic obtained during an 18 month period from late 2015 to early 2017. These data will see potentially 10-13 wells in 2017 and 20 wells or more in the 3 years thereafter, should companies elect to move from their study period into their first 3 year period of the PSCs. This activity level ensured that we were successful in securing excellent support from sponsors and exhibitors and we thank them all and hope that they benefitted from the event.
So, we had a great conference, we had a strong and dedicated committee and sponsors who I can't thank enough and many good talks. We even had many people stay to the bitter end at 5pm on a Friday afternoon!
I am looking forward to our next event there in 2018 (planned for Q4) and hearing of exploration success in the country.
If you are interested in participating in the next event (as presenter, or sponsor/ exhibitor), please contact our Asia Pacific office at [email protected].