Based on the success of the previous conferences and the fact that Myanmar is the current focal point for exploration in Southeast Asia, another successful event was held in the former capital city of Yangon in February: the third annual Myanmar Oil and Gas Conference.
The conference was held jointly by AAPG, the European Association of Geoscientists and Engineers (EAGE) and the Myanmar Geoscience Society (MGS).
Conference Highlights
The conference attracted great interest and 57 oral and poster papers were presented during the three-day event. A great success of the conference was that it attracted papers from local presenters, and more than 30 percent of attendees were from Myanmar, from both industry and academia.
The event drew 240 attendees from 22 countries to the conference facilities of the Sule Shangri La, where we had a compact and very effective exhibition area. The facilities were excellent, with everything in the same area, which allowed 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 Tun Naing opened the conference and MOGE presented numerous papers that were very well received.
Technical convenor Paul Thompson arranged the conference according to themes that included regional, onshore, offshore (in two areas), research and geophysics.
We also had, for the first time, a dedicated Q&A panel session. It provided the delegates an opportunity to ask in-depth questions of Myanmar experts from industry, government and academia, and it worked very well.
Myanmar Exploration
Myanmar is located in a tectonically active area with large parts of their onshore and offshore without seismic data – 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 more than 80,000 square kilometers of 3-D 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 or more wells in the three years thereafter, should companies elect to move from their study period into their first three-year period of production-sharing contracts.
This activity level ensured success 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 with many great presentations, and we had a strong and dedicated committee and sponsors who I can’t thank enough. We even had many people stay to the bitter end at 5 pm on a Friday afternoon!
I am looking forward to our next event there in 2018 (planned for the fourth quarter) 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].