Wednesdays at the EAGE Annual are always a much anticipated day at the event. With the majority of community events, dedicated sessions and the conference evening taking place, it exemplifies what international meetings are all about.

This year, it was no different. After another full day of insightful technical sessions, even more presentations and networking at the exhibition, and community activities, we ended the night with the beloved Conference Evening.

Plenary Session tackles the challenges of decarbonization

The panel on Wednesday discussed the role of geoscience and engineering in meeting decarbonization goals and examined some of the current initiatives and emerging business models. Sophie Zurquiyah (CGG) and Elisabeth Birkeland (Equinor) discussed the ways in which their respective companies were shifting their competencies of geoscience and engineering towards creating material new energy businesses. Although current revenue streams remain small in these sectors, it was enlightening to hear that organizations are prioritizing talent distribution towards these new areas.

John Underhill (Heriot Watt University) emphasized the need to advance on all possible routes, diversifying the sources of new energies to ensure reliability and a secure energy supply while Angus McCoss (DCarbonX) emphasized the importance of strategic partnering and collaboration in these efforts. Arno van den Haak (AWS) shared some of the complex data challenges associated with new energy businesses and the opportunities for digitalization to improve the ability to gather these diverse data sources and come to faster conclusions and decisions.

In the end, it was agreed that there were tremendous opportunities for geoscientists and engineers as we scale low carbon business solutions and partner with other large industries who are also looking to decarbonize their sectors.

Conference Evening

Our Conference Evening was held in Amsterdam at The National Maritime Museum (Het Scheepvaartmuseum) and it felt just like previous years! With many exhibitions within the museum open to explore, delegates quickly managed to find their way around the building – as well as the Amsterdam, the replica of the 18th century trade ship.

Back in the main hall, colleagues got together, enjoyed a wide selection of Dutch traditional foods (from kroketbroodjes to stroopwafel cheesecakes and poffertjes) and danced the night away. And let’s not forget all that joined the Jam Session at the end of the night – you rocked it!

Exhibition

Day 2 of the Exhibition was underway with another diverse set of talks at the Exhibition Theatre, including an insightful keynote presentation by Sirivan Chaleunxay from AWS on Practical Innovations in Energy for Today and Tomorrow.

The exhibition floor was active with delegates recapping the day’s technical sessions and enjoying the in-booth company presentations, alongside the always popular afternoon drinks.

Community Hub

After a student focus on Tuesday, Wednesday provided another day full of activities at the Community Hub and EAGE Dome, both in-person and online. Thanks for joining us in workshops on Mental Fitness and EU Policy, a special session hosted by the Young Professionals Community on continuous education for a successful career, Networking Cafe, a meeting with representatives of Student Chapters.

This was also the first time in history we organized two GeoQuizzes, one for student delegates participating in-person, held yesterday, and one for those participating online, held today. Congratulations Ebitimi Obiri (University of Aberdeen) for being the winner of the GeoQuiz online!

Only one more day to go

Time flies, we’re almost nearing the end of Amsterdam 2021. During our last day we are looking ahead, with our plenary forum session on the Changing nature of education and what opportunities for tomorrow’s energy professionals to the future of geoscience and subsurface engineering look like, followed by our community get together and fundraiser. The community hub programme will conclude with our EU success stories session.

We look forward to seeing you today and don’t forget to share you experience at #EAGEAnnual2021