The Role of Geohazards Assessment in the Evolving Energy Mix

2023 North America Honorary Lecturer

Agatha Onuwaje

Summary

Traditional geohazards assessment for the energy industry has largely focused on predicting, avoiding, and mitigating geohazards that impact oil and gas drilling or infrastructure placement.

With growing investment in renewable energy sources (RES) and decarbonizing solutions such as wind, geothermal, CCUS, the geohazards assessment role is evolving.

Staying relevant means adapting workflows and innovating technologies that solve challenges associated with developing RES and decarbonizing solutions.

The geohazards assessment tools and interpretation skillset are particularly well positioned to drive evaluations and provide solutions that support RES and decarbonizing solutions.

Bio

Agatha Onuwaje is a senior geohazards specialist in the Geohazards Assessment and Pore Pressure Prediction Team for Shell International Exploration and Production Incorporated. The team provides geohazards assessment support to a wide range of projects, which include safe well delivery in challenging subsurface environments, delivery of offshore infrastructure, and regional evaluation of hydrocarbon seepage and sampling for Shell’s global onshore and offshore activity.

Ms. Onuwaje received her Bachelor of Science in Geology from the University of Calabar in Nigeria (2000), and her MBA in Oil & Gas management from the Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen, Scotland (2012).

Since 2002, Ms. Onuwaje has held geology and geophysics roles at Shell within front-end integrated subsurface studies, well delivery, and geosolutions teams at Shell. She is an active contributor to the Nigerian Association of Petroleum Explorationists (NAPE), American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG), and the Society of Exploration Geophysicists (SEG).

Ms. Onuwaje is a facilitator of the Deepwater Operators’ Geohazards Forum and co-developer/co-instructor of the ‘Introduction to Geohazards Assessment’ course for the Shell Open University. She attributes her extensive experience in geohazards assessment to working in this field exclusively since 2012 and reviewing data from nearly every continent.

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