As the energy industry considers lower-carbon technologies and new commercial models to carry it through energy transitions, innovative and data savvy geoscientists are needed to support sustainable resource development. Maximizing the skill sets of geoscientists today ensures their relevance and value tomorrow.
The AAPG Energy Transition Forum – A New Era in Geoscience held 5-6 September in Amsterdam will address these dilemmas. We expect the answers to lie within a conversation on the future of energy, sustainability, digitalisation, talent and skills, and collaboration between a broad range of technology, geoscience, renewable, and oil and gas industry contributors.

The Future of Energy: Depending who you follow, oil and gas will be required for some time to come, but in meeting that demand, can we afford to continue to apply geoscience in the same way we have till now? Or do we need to work differently? What is our role as we move toward renewable energy? The prize for collaboration is large if we can discover new business models utilizing existing (data) assets for new revenue streams and develop the essential partnerships that geoscientists need to make to take the next necessary step.

Sustainability: What will make us sustainable in the future? How important is it to address concerns about geopolitical aspects as well as macroeconomic issues in the pursuit to be believed to be “clean” in both the sustainable and ethical senses of the word? What roles do geoscientists have in improving efficiency and sustainability? Will these measures be enough to attract the best talent?

Digitalization: In a world that focuses increasingly on machine learning, where are the opportunities for applying digitalization to improving the efficiency of data management, interpretation, and other parts of exploration discovery and production? We hope to share ambitions for applied digitalization, which improve ongoing businesses and perhaps uncover areas for co-creation.

Skills: Will in-depth domain knowledge be enough or will the geoscientist of the future need to have hybrid competencies and polymorphic skillset? It is conceivable they may also need to be well versed in the commercial part of the business and willing to work beyond upstream and into the extended value chain - mobile across a broader industry, from digital tech, to seismic operator, to oil & gas, to renewable and back. What impact will that have on how jobs are done, the skills necessary and the culture of organizations?