Kuala Lumpur AAPG YP Chapter organized two guest lectures in the last week of November and first week of December. The efforts through both the talks was to further the main mission of AAPG KL YP chapter. At the talks, the chapter also committed to host events regularly every month in which members of the audience were strongly encouraged to take part.
November 25: Guest Lecturer talk on Plio-Pleistocene Rivers on the Sunda Shelf; Concepts & Implications for fluvial depositional systems in SE Asia by Professor Howard Johnson
On 25th November 2015, AAPG YP Chapter Kuala Lumpur organized a technical talk titled “Plio-Pleistocene Rivers on the Sunda Shelf; Concepts & Implications for fluvial depositional systems in SE Asia”. We were grateful to have Professor Howard Johnson of Imperial College London amongst us to speak on the topic. The talk was met with an overwhelming response with 46 people in attendance, 14 university students, 3 lecturers and 23 young professionals from 13 oil companies. Event venue was Level 16 PETRONAS office, KLCC Tower 2.
Professor Howard Johnson mentioned at the introduction that his talk was related to the PHD project carried out by his student utilizing 3D seismic mega merge data from offshore Peninsular Malaysia. He demonstrated to audience how he related the properties of modern day fluvial system such as Bay of Bengal to the mega incised valley that his student mapped out from seismic data. During his presentation, Prof. Howard showed that the size of the incised valley mapped was extremely large in scale with the channels being 10 km wide and few hundred meters deep. He explained how the huge scale of incised valley was related to the major sea level fall during the end of Pleistocene and its relations to the Paleo Chao Phraya river system located in Thailand.
Professor Howard proceeded to explain the different type of fluvial systems such as the meander and braided river system with colourful sketched diagrams and excellent story telling going back all the way to Pliocene in time. He related the regional tectonic regime together with the sediment source supply during the Pliocene and Pleistocene period, which provided an interesting insight into the topic for the audience. It was particularly interesting for the audience as the channels mapped in the project were on a regional scale, across Malay basin showing the major trends of the fluvial system during those times.
The talk ended with the Q&A sessions with Professor Howard Johnson. Response of the enthusiastic crowd was evident as the Q&A session went on for half an hour; all sorts of technical questions were asked pertaining to Professor Howard Johnson talk. The talk ended with Professor Howard Johnson’s promise to share more material and to keep in touch with KL AAPG KL chapter.
December 3: Technical talk on “Addressing the concerns of young professionals and students during the ups and downs of the industry” by Mr. Balakrishnan Kunjan of Melbourne Cue Energy
On 3rd December 2015, AAPG YP Chapter Kuala Lumpur organized a technical talk titled “Addressing the concerns of young professionals and students during the ups and downs of the industry”. We were grateful to have Mr. Balakrishnan Kunjan of Melbourne Cue Energy, who volunteered to spend part of his vacation time in KL with us to give this talk. The talk was met with an overwhelming response with 46 people in attendance, 20 university students and 26 young professionals from 8 oil companies. Event venue was Level 16 PETRONAS office, KLCC Tower 2.
Mr. Bala Kunjan started his talk by acknowledging the fact that the oil and gas industry is going through a tough time and is affecting all the young professionals and university students. He then proceeded to show the audience pie chart and world map of the regional view of major petroleum provinces and the world’s demand of energy. He also explained the technology needed in the industry and the skills required for new graduates coming into the industry. More importantly, he addressed the gap in age group for fulfilling the future jobs once the baby boomers had retired. He further discussed the current situation in the industry which was not helpful in rectifying the problem.
The advice he gave to the members of the audience was to be prepared for worse times, take up any job to survive and to also consider going for further studies as postgraduates so that one is more skilled when the industry recovers. He mentioned that he himself went through the same route at the time of oil crisis during the 80s and therefore he was very concerned with the current state affecting the young professionals and students. He also encouraged and motivated the audience to not give up and try their best to stay in the industry when oil price pick up in future. Lastly, he ended his talk with a fantastic poem describing the plate tectonics and thus, showing his great passion for geology.
The talk ended with the Q&A sessions with Mr. Bala Kunjan. Response of the enthusiastic crowd was evident as the Q&A session went on for 45 minutes; all sorts of questions were asked pertaining to his talk. He stayed on to answer each question diligently before finally leaving. There was an excellent turnout of students and young professionals for the 2nd consecutive talk held in Kuala Lumpur this year.