First EAGE Western Africa Exploration & Production Workshop

Collaboration in Frontier and Emerging Exploration in Western Africa 

The objective of this workshop series is to identify practices and ways, including collaborative actions, to boost exploration and appraisal activities globally in frontier and emerging domains of Western Africa. The need for collaboration in Geosciences and Operations is promoted by the EAGE since the conference held in Paris in 2017, and was the main theme of the Annual Conference in Copenhagen in 2018. Regional workshops such as this one aim to bring concrete actions into play. 


This workshop encourages working across boundaries that we may not have explored in the past.  Results from this kind of workshop has led to examining, sharing experiences and enabling cooperation in licensing, permits and ideas for standardisation in HSE. This workshop will bring focus on Western Africa exploration experiences and challenges. 

View Topics and Submit your abstract here

For this first edition, the program will be focused around three themes:

(1) Exploration Success and Failure: Lessons Learned
(2) Oilfield Life Cycle Case Studies
(3) What next? New ideas to new areas

With discoveries made as far back as the early 2000s, plus relative political and economic stability in recent years, the exploration and production possibilities of these two countries is promising.  And we are seeing similar progress in neighbouring countries.

The MSGBC has been quietly and at times struggling slowly going from a remote frontier area pushed by smaller companies such as Far, Africa Petroleum, Trace,  Kosmos and Svenska. With the realization that the SNE was a significant discovery and the gas successes in Mauritania, there was a sudden escalation of interest with the super-majors moving in at all plays sometimes supporting and other times driving out the smaller companies.
  • Why did it take so long from the SNE discovery to the rocketing interest?
  • How do independent or privately owned companies cope with being strong-armed by major companies, will these small to mid-size companies be part of the next frontier basin?
  • How do we now best work up the overall resource potential of the MSGBC-cross drill campaign learnings? 

The targeted audience is Authorities representatives,  Exploration, Geosciences and Operations managers and specialists, Universities and Institutes, involved in the preparation and execution of exploration activities (approvals, studies, environmental, geophysical, drilling, logistics…) in West Africa. 

Parallel focus sessions will be implemented into the programme including a poster area for service companies and research projects, so that the entire audience remains engaged around their specific challenges.

The expected deliverable is for each delegate to exchange and capture potential actions, inherited from past and current practices, to achieve efficient exploration programs. 

                                                              Submit your Abstract