Opening Address Speaker

AMINA BENKHADRA

General Director of the National Office of Hydrocarbons and Mines, ONHYM

Civil Engineer of Mines from the National Superior School of Mines of Nancy, Mrs. Benkhadra is also a Doctor Engineer in mine sciences and techniques (ENSM Paris). She also had management trainings at the University of Columbia in the year 1990.

Her career started in 1982 at the Mines Research and Participation Office (BRPM) where she held several positions of responsibility in managing new projects and portfolio of BRPM.

In 1994, she was appointed Director of Mines at the Ministry in charge of Energy and Mines, then Secretary of State in charge of mining sector development (1997-1998).

She became Director of the BRPM in 1998, then General Director of the National Office of Oil Research and Exploitation “ONAREP”. She was appointed as a General Director of the National Office of Hydrocarbons and Mines (ONHYM) on 2003 and conducted the restructuration and the merger of the two companies, and launched a new strategy of ONHYM.

In October 2007, she was appointed as a Minister in charge of Energy, Mines, Water and Environment (2007 – 2012). She launched the new energy strategy, the new water strategy and the national strategy for sustainable development with the setting up of a new institutional framework, news laws and dedicated financial instrument.

Mrs Benkhadra is speaker in several international institutions dealing with energy, mines and sustainable development.

She is member of several associations and awards (Wissam Al Arch, the order of Officer - Prize for Arab-European organization for environment-Legion of Honour from the Republic of France)

Keynote Speakers

Wadii El Karkouri

EVP – Imaging and Technology, TGS

Wadii El Karkouri is the Executive Vice President of Imaging and Technology at TGS, based in Houston. His mission is to lead a global team of professionals who deliver high-quality seismic imaging and interpretation services, leveraging geophysical and digital technologies. Prior to this role, Wadii was a Global Sales Director of Amazon Web Services Energy and Utilities. AWS delivers the broadest and deepest cloud platform and industry solutions for energy companies to transform legacy operations. Prior to this, his experience was mainly in the Oilfield services industry, with SLB.

During his twenty-three years with SLB and WesternGeco, he has filled a variety of roles in field operations, executive management, sales and human resources management, with assignments in many countries in Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Asia and most recently was the SLB Vice-President of Sales and Commercial based out of Houston and SLB Vice-President Geo solutions. Prior to joining SLB, he briefly worked with TOTAL as a research engineer.

Wadii holds an MSc in Electrical Engineering from l’Institut National Polytechnique deGrenoble, and a master's in business administration from the Rotterdam School of Management.

Andrew Pepper

Founder, This is Petroleum Systems LLC

This year Andy Pepper celebrates 44 years Industry experience as a geologist, petroleum systems analyst and leader: including at BP as Network Leader for Petroleum Systems; at Hess as Chief Geologist and then Director of Conventional and Unconventional New Ventures; and at BHP as VP Geoscience and VP Unconventional Exploration. He founded This is Petroleum Systems LLC in 2015 as a vehicle to collaborate and innovate in Petroleum Systems concepts, modeling and training.Some current and recent project areas encompass the Gulf of Mexico-Caribbean-Central Atlantic and Morocco to Equatorial Guinea on the West African conjugate margin; including working with students as Adjunct Professor at the University of Houston.