AAPG Africa Region, in partnership with ExxonMobil Nigeria, kicked-off a five-day short course on structural geology, in line with ExxonMobil Nigeria's commitment toward developing Nigerian geoscientists under ExxonMobil Nigeria's Universities Assistance Program, UAP.

Opening the event on 27 June 2016, Andrew Ejayeriese , GM-exploration at ExxonMobil Nigeria, spoke about the deficiency in geoscience skills competencies leading to poor recruitment of Nigerian trained graduates into the upstream industry, hence the train-the-trainer initiative designed for equipping university geoscience lecturers with up-to-date knowledge in key areas of geoscience through five-day lecture series led by world-class instructors.

Ejayeriese spoke about other ExxonMobil initiatives for Nigerian Universities under the UAP, and encouraged participants in this year's structural geology course to share knowledge gained with their students.

This year's lecture is led by professor Terry Engelder, of Pennsylvania State University – an active researcher with nearly 46 years of teaching and research experience.

AAPG Africa Region commends the support and commitment of ExxonMobil to this initiative despite sustained downturn in the oil industry.