AAPG Asia-Pacific Region membership continues to grow, and we now have more than 5,300 members, divided almost evenly among Members, Students and Associate members.
The five countries with largest membership are Indonesia, India, Malaysia, China and Australia.
Our Asia Pacific Student Chapters continue to be very active and successful – we have opened several new chapters – and they continue to make us proud.
In fact, they swept the top three awards, including the top prize for Most Outstanding International Student Chapter, at this year’s AAPG Annual Convention and Exhibition in Houston.
Those individual winners were:
- University of Pembangunan Nasional “Veteran” (winner).
- Gadjah Mada University (honorable mention).
- Diponegro University (honorable mention).
AAPG Vice President-Regions John Kaldi, newly elected chair-elect of the House of Delegates Bob Shoup, Herman Darman, Bob and Santi Morley and myself met with students at the annual convention of the Indonesia Petroleum Association (IPA) held in Jakarta in May 2014.
Since the beginning of 2013, one GTW and two joint-society workshops have been held in the Region:
♦ A GTW on “Deepwater Plays: Exploration and Production” was held in Brunei in March, an event supported by PetroleumBRUNEI that attracted 110 participants.
Associated activities included a combined field trip and core workshop.
♦ A joint workshop with EAGE on “Profits and Pitfalls of Shallow Seismic Reservoirs” held in Kuala Lumpur in June, had 84 participants and was supported by PETRONAS and Geological Society of Malaysia.
♦ A joint workshop with SPE on “Optimizing Production by Understanding the Reservoir: Reservoir Quality, Architecture, Petrophysics, Rock Mechanics” was held in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, in May.
And this month, a joint conference with the Myanmar Geosciences Society on “Tectonic Evolution of Myanmar and its Basin Development with Special Reference to its Petroleum Occurrences” will be held in Yangon.
Sincere thanks to all those people who have either been associated with the organizing or have contributed to these events; without that support, these events would not be possible.
Future regional events currently are being planned for Malaysia, Australia and New Zealand. Watch the AAPG website/Event Listings for more information.
They include:
- The 2015 AAPG International Conference and Exhibition will be held in September in Melbourne, Australia. Already the Planning Committee has had several meetings; full details will be announced later this fall, following the upcoming AAPG ICE in Istanbul, Turkey.
- Three new Geosciences Technology Workshops (GTWs) are in the pipeline :
♦ Coal Seam Gas
Brisbane, Australia
12-13 February 2015
Convenor: Andrew Garnett, University of Queensland
♦ Tectonics and Sedimentation of South China Sea Region
Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia
26-28 May 2015
Convenors: Ioannis Abatsiz, CCOP Denmark and Herman Darman, Shell, The Hague
♦ Modern Depositional Systems as Analogues for Petroleum Reservoirs
Wellington, New Zealand
21-24 April 2015
Convenor: Dr Mac Beggs, New Zealand Oil & Gas Ltd.
- We’ll be continuing with our series of “lunch and learn” talks – three events already have been held at PETRONAS, Kuala Lumpur and one in Brunei hosted by our new affiliate society, the Geological Society of Brunei.
- We will be continuing to build on our success of starting and strengthening our Young Professionals networks in the region (a new YP chapter recently was started in Kuala Lumpur).
Of course, continuing these Asia-Pacific success stories will benefit from even more of you joining us in the effort. Specifically we need:
- Conveners and committee members for new GTWs and conferences.
- Short course providers.
- Assistance with setting up Student Chapters and Young Professional chapters.
To join the effort, or just for more information, contact Adrienne Pereira.