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Petroleum Systems Conference 2025

Rolando di Primio has over 30 years experience working in the petroleum industry (Saga Petroleum, Norsk Hydro, Lundin Energy Norway and AkerBP ASA) as well as in academia (GFZ German Research Center for Geosciences, Jacobs University Bremen). His main focus has been Petroleum Geochemistry, including the use of PVT data for regional migration interpretations, and Basin Analysis. Rolando di Primio is currently Exploration Manager for the Play Analysis and Access group in the Exploration Department of AkerBP.

Steve Larter was former Associate Vice President (research innovation) at the University of Calgary and is technical advisor to LysisLogic Scientific Inc. With a background in industrial R&D he had positions at the Universities of Oslo, Newcastle, CUPB, Tsinghua and Calgary, where he worked on topics including the deep subsurface biosphere, CCS, technologies for zero-emission energy recovery from oil/ gas fields, and CDR. Cofounder of startups in the energy, environment, IP space, a current focus is on developing realistic innovation systems that work for researchers. Steve is a National Academy member in Norway, UK, Canada.

Eric has been the Chief Geochemical Advisor for Americas at Applied Petroleum Technology for the past 4 yrs. and has 32+ years of operator industry experience (ConocoPhillips, USGS, Mobil). Eric has a BS from Indiana University and MSc from University of Oklahoma. He is a subject matter expert in the application of petroleum geochemistry and basin modelling and has coauthored 45+ publications and patents on geochemistry and basin modeling petroleum system applications.

Thorsten Uwe Garlichs is a professional in the field of geochemistry and hydrocarbon exploration, specializing in the application of geochemical fingerprinting techniques for production allocation and reservoir characterization. He has contributed to research on methods for analyzing mixed fluid samples from commingled production, focusing on cost-effective solutions for hydrocarbon allocation in complex geological settings. His work, including a notable pilot study on a Norwegian field, has provided valuable insights into optimizing geochemical techniques for accurate resource management and production monitoring. His research focus is on migration tracers help the industry to understand the complex charge of hydrocarbons field in challenging settings.

David Gardiner is Consultancy Manager and a Senior Geochemist and Basin Modeller at IGI Ltd., an independent consultancy and software development company in Devon, UK. David graduated with an MSc in Geology from the University of Southampton in 2011, before joining IGI to work on proprietary projects, predominantly regional screening to prospect appraisal studies for independent to mid-sized operators. His main expertise is in basin modelling, but with a “big picture” integration approach in basins all across the world, including over 30 projects across the Norwegian Continental Shelf. He has published several papers, co-edited a GSL Special Publication, and convened conferences, and is currently an Associate Editor of the Journal of Petroleum Geology.

Øyvind Sylta has been the CEO of Migris AS for the last 20 years. Before that, I worked 5 years in Statoil and then 20 years in IKU/Sintef Petroleum AS. I have Msc and Dr. Philos from NTH /NTNU in Trondheim. For the last 40 years I have been working on Research and Development within Petroleum Systems Modelling while also working on case studies where new methods were tested and/or applied.

Norman Urrez is a PhD candidate in Petroleum Geosciences at the University of Stavanger, researching the tectonosedimentary evolution, sediment transport, and petroleum systems of Palaeozoic basins in the Norwegian North Sea. He previously worked in near-field exploration at YPF in Argentina, with experience in prospect generation and basin-scale analysis. Urrez hold a BSc in Geology (La Plata, Argentina) and a MSc in Integrated Petroleum Geosciences (Aberdeen, UK). He is especially interested in multidisciplinary approaches to support underexplored plays.

Alejandro Escalona is a professor in geosciences at the university of Stavanger and director of the National Centre for Sustainable Subsurface Utilization of the Norwegian Continental Shelf; NCS2030. His main expertise in in regional basin evolution to reservoir scale studies, and the role of the subsurface in the energy transition.

Brian Horsfield is the company CEO and Managing Director of GEOS4 GmbH. He has forty-five years’ experience in Earth System R&D and petroleum systems analysis, beginning with Conoco and Atlantic Richfield Company. He is a retired university professor, and an elected member of acatech, the German Academy of Science and Technology.

Arne Grobe is a passionate researcher and explorationist, specialized in the integration of organic geochemistry, basin modelling, and structural geology. He held various professional and project leader roles in Equinor bridging between technology development, exploration, and operations.
Currently, Arne heads up a research project focussing on data integration within organic geochemistry and petroleum source systems with team members focussing on geochemical analysis and interpretation, basin and migration modelling, and software development.

By background, he holds a PhD and MSc in Applied Geosciences from RWTH Aachen University, Germany.

Renzo Silva is the CEO of LysisLogic Scientific, where he leads the orchestration of custom R&D solutions for industry. His background includes a PhD in Geochemistry and experience as a research manager at the University of Calgary. Renzo’s expertise revolves around complex mixture analysis, organic geochemistry, and data technologies, which he now applies to amplify the impact of research and solve pressing challenges of the energy industry.

After graduating with a PhD in petroleum geochemistry from the University of Newcastle in 1994, Paul worked as a geochemist for oil and gas operating companies (Unocal and Shell) in multiple locations around the world for almost 25 years, before becoming a technical consultant. He is Principal Geochemist for Multiphase Analytics, a specialist consultancy, with focus on developing and implementing new technology for the analysis of oil and gas in unpreserved rock samples to provide new opportunities for hydrocarbon show evaluation, reservoir characterisation, production monitoring and well integrity assessment.

Rune Mattingsdal is an exploration geologist at The Norwegian Offshore directorate (Sokkeldirektoratet) where he has been since 2012. His education includes nine years of geological studies at the University of Tromsø. The last years his main interest has been seep studies, integrating seismic observations with MBES water column data, SAR-satellite observations and geochemical information acquired during research expeditions.

Karthik Iyer is an expert in petroleum systems modelling, with over a decade of experience working on the Norwegian Continental Shelf. Currently, he oversees multiple PSA projects at Bergwerk.com, while also developing advanced in-house modeling tools and ML/AI interfaces. Karthik holds a Ph.D. in geology from the University of Oslo.

Alex Hartwig is a partner at GEOS4 covering exploration risk and play performance. He has 15+ years of experience in upstream R&D and global exploration. He holds a PhD in exploration geology from TU-Berlin. Alex began is exploration career as petroleum system analyst with ConocoPhillips’ Lower48 exploration team in Houston, working on all onshore basins before moving to Global New Ventures. In 2016, Alex moved to Norway and joined Aker BP. There he worked in specialist and project-lead roles for exploration, R&D and digitization until he became the manager for Aker BP’s New Ventures team from 2020-2023. In 2024, Alex decided to change direction and has been working as an independent consultant for petroleum and natural hydrogen exploration.

Juliana is Geophysicist by background with over a decade of experience in the Oil & Gas industry, specializing in basin modeling and geomechanics. She holds a PhD in Geosciences from Sorbonne Université and IFP Energies Nouvelles (2020), where her research focused on modeling the geopressure evolution during the gravitational collapse of a sedimentary deep-sea fan (Foz do Amazonas Basin, Brazil).
Currently at TotalEnergies/CVA Engineering, Juliana works as a basin modeler in Petroleum System Evaluation team, contributing to strategic projects that apply basin-geomechanics modeling - focused on pore pressure prediction and seal capacity and integrity, to both Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) and conventional O&G developments.

Alexandra Cournot has a double MSc from IFP School in Paris in geology and petroleum geoscience. She joined Statoil in 2006 and has worked for most of her career on international exploration projects. Recently, she has moved to the Norwegian Continental Shelf, where she is part of the Southern North Sea exploration team.

Dag A. Karlsen is an Associate Professor in Petroleum System Analysis at the Department of Geosciences, University of Oslo. Since 1990, he has specialized in using oil and gas geochemistry to delineate and trace basin-scale petroleum migration patterns, with a particular focus on exploration applications.

Throughout his career, Karlsen has collaborated closely with all oil companies active on the Norwegian Continental Shelf, playing a key role in bridging academic research and industry. He has supervised more than 40 Cand. Scient./M.Sc. students and 9 Ph.D. candidates in petroleum systems and related disciplines.

In 1993, he received the Best Paper Award 1992 from the Geochemical Division of the Chemical Society of America for a publication in Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta. The award-winning paper introduced novel methods and interpretation schemes related to petroleum inclusions, enhancing the understanding and timing of reservoir filling and basin-scale petroleum migration.

In addition to his exploration-related work, Karlsen continues to focus on the study of petroleum systems and is considered a leading expert in the field.

Lloyd Jones is a geochemist and petroleum systems analyst for APT working on a variety of North Sea and international projects covering geochemical and petroleum systems analysis and wellsite gas evaluation studies.
Lloyd is the team lead for APT’s wellsite gas software, Girasol, and heads up interpretive and research projects in wellsite gases, basin modelling and PVT data integration.

Lloyd holds a B.Sc. in geology and an M.Sc. in Petroleum Geochemistry from Newcastle University.