Introducing... Amalia Olivera-Riley, Frontier Regional Leader, Europe & UK

When it came to appointing the Frontier Regional Leaders, we always knew that Amalia Olivera-Riley was an obvious choice.

A geologist by background, Amalia has an impressive reputation in our industry and was recently distinguished by the Energy Council as one of the Top 275 Global Female Influencers. That accolade reflects almost 30 years of global experience in deep water, onshore, and unconventional environments, including leadership and executive level positions, with companies including ExxonMobil, Repsol, and Tullow Oil.

In other words, Amalia brings an outstanding range and depth of experience to her role as Regional Leader, but let’s find out how she sees this role develop in her own words…

“Now based in Madrid, I’m Executive Business Advisor for Subsurface Consultants & Associates, where I apply my accumulated industry experience to help executive teams navigate the complex situations that reflect today’s energy industry environment; whether that be the the optimisation of assets, the acquisition of new assets, effective approaches to upcoming change or indeed finding the flexibility that we know is required in this industry for what lies ahead.

“Having worked across a range of technical and leadership roles, primarily for three very different companies, I am well aware of how the technical underpins the business decisions at each level of the oil and gas industry, and this allows me to approach my clients’ challenges and issues from a number of angles.

“And that’s where my relevance as a Regional Leader comes in. My relationship with Frontier began during the pandemic, when its focus was trained upon the development of Africa’s energy industry. Realising that at that particular time, it was absolutely critical to maintain a feeling of industry “community”, Frontier launched a number of online events, aimed at helping company leaders stay connected, discuss – and ideally solve – the unforeseen challenges of that time.

“As Head of Exploration at Tullow - and therefore with a focus upon Africa - I was invited to join one such event to share advice on team motivation during difficult circumstances. When, post-pandemic, Frontier made the decision to increase its geographic reach and relevance, my previous experience with the team and our shared focus on the development of the global energy industry made our partnership a natural decision.

Regional Leader – what does that mean?

“You will be asking, I know, what do I intend to focus on as Frontier Regional Leader for Europe?

“It’s back to that word “community”. In comparison to other regions, I think it’s fair to say that the European oil and gas community is less connected and certainly doesn’t benefit from the natural, internal links other regions may have.

“However I think it would be hugely valuable to create a community of industry leaders across the continent. Not least, because the majority of European countries (with the exception of Norway and the UK) have traditionally focused on building international, as opposed to domestic, business. Now, more than ever, it will prove useful for them to interact more closely – particularly as country-specific and Europe-wide decarbonisation regulations being to impact upon their activity. Those developments alone create an industry environment where support on a community level will be highly valuable.

“At its highest level, I want to develop a network which will assist Europe’s oil and gas industry in navigating the somewhat turbulent and misinformed circumstances of today and tomorrow: a network with an overarching objective and structure under which we facilitate the exchanges of opinion and knowledge that improves current practice in the current energy supplies and supports a realistic decarbonisation journey.

“We will introduce more explicit topics examining, for example, the imminent skills gap and how to support geoscience and petroleum engineering programmes across Europe’s universities. One of the most fundamental challenges we have as an industry is to encourage the future talent that will be required to (quite literally) keep the lights on in the coming decades. We need to drill deeper into how we address this potentially seismic problem.

“Critically, everything I’ve mentioned are issues we need to address today, not tomorrow, and I know that there will be strength in numbers when it comes to resolving them. Therefore, my aim over the coming months will be to gather a group of industry leaders who will forge an environment of close collaboration; understanding each other’s priorities, getting to know one another and doing what we can do help our businesses move forward together.

“When I put it like that, it seems like such an obvious strategy, doesn’t it?

“I look forward to meeting some of you at the Frontier Members’ event in London, later this week as we begin to put that strategy into play.”

The Africa Energies Summit takes place in London on 14th -16th May, 2024.