Homage to a true petroleum geologist

TRIBUTE

They are of a special kind; who find themselves in dense and humid forests, Sometimes lcoal custom requires sacrifices to resident spirits so they would look upon the human intruders with kindness. In remembering his coworker, PETER KAIOPUNA recalls some such moments in their hunt for oil and gas.

OUR colleague Thomas Eme was a seasoned petroleum geologist, fine-tuned for his calling and showed a lot of passion for it.
There are two groups of petroleum geologists. The first group are those who work with operator oil companies and the second group are those who work with service companies. Thomas was among the first group in PNG but later in the years joined the second group.
Thomas joined Chevron Niugini straight out of University of Papua New Guinea around 1994 and after the first two pioneer students Wilmott Uberewa and late Paul Gazawe who joined Chevron around 1990. Thomas’ batch included Dickson Kisimbo, Pala Gaudi and late Sam Wera who worked for Chevron and later Oil Search when Chevron exited the country.
After Chevron’s exit Thomas moved out of oil company geologist arena. Those years from 1999 to 2004 he was out of the oil company arena =but still actively pursuing petroleum geology.
In 2005 Thomas joined Baker Hughes as a mudlogger. Baker Hughes was an American worldwide reputable oilfield service company. There were few of us who joined Baker Hughes around 1990 and 1991 as pioneers. Augustine Lokea, Mark Ernest and I. A second batch joined in the mid-1990s.
Thomas knew it was pretty hard to keep up with daily living in the city so our colleague had to start again somewhere. It was a junior position and he had to make his way to get back to the level he was once at was during Chevron days, a wellsite geologist. So in 2005 he joined Baker Hughes, and started off as a mudlogger at Elk 1. In Elk 1 Peter KenGemar and I were the wellsite geologists. This is where the Elk 1 discovery was our highlight and what is now Papua LNG, hatched its way into Guineas Book of records with highest gas flow rates in the latter years, the find at Antelope structure
While in Elk 1 Thomas also helped mentor new and incoming graduates who joined mudlogging business and continued to do so in the subsequent exploration and appraisal wells both at Elk and Antelope.  He also built his reputation with our Bake Hughes office in Perth, Australia. At that time Thomas joined Baker Hughes he initiated talks for Australian International Petro Consultants AIPC to apply for Wellsite contract at Inter Oil. Around 2008 Baker Hughes lost the Inter Oil contract both for mudlogging and Wellsite services. Geoservices and AIPC won these contracts respectively.
After Elk 1 discovery, Peter KenGemar left for Qatar under Bake Hughes as a wellsite geologist. Thomas took over his position and worked with me on the exploration programme from late 2005 up to 2015.
In 2008 we switched from Baker Hughes to AIPC as consultants. Other nationals who worked as consultants under AIPC were John Pipai and Wilbur Katato. These two gentlemen specialised in the fold belt geology wellsiting wells in Kutubu, Moran and Gobe oilfields.
Thomas and I sat the wells after Elk 1 in the Elk prospect and the Antelope wells in the Antelope structure. Our team was very strong and formidable as we had zero mistakes and 100 per cent geological supervision success rate.

Thomas is very well versed in petroleum geology. Good manners and humility in his approach to issues and work colleagues including company personnel at rig site is a bonus for his reputation. No wonder everyone around him likes him.

Legacy
The Thomas Eme and Peter Kaiopuna legacy of over 10 years in Elk Antelope lives on to these days. We worked under various trying conditions as one-man teams on our hitches, teaming up with very experienced drilling personnel, all expats, many times not believing us until we produce results that made them believe us in what we do and the decisions we make during drilling operations.
What makes Thomas a formidable team player?
Thomas is very well versed in petroleum geology. Good manners and humility in his approach to issues and work colleagues including company personnel at rig site is a bonus for his reputation. No wonder everyone around him likes him.
Thomas is not an angry person when work pressure takes its toll and Thomas does not show his bad mood in tough moments. He arrests his bad mood by his cool and easy-going approach. Yet he has his own way of being upset or uneasy; he does not show it to anyone around the scene. He takes his cool approach to every issue.
While we sat exploration and appraisal wells in Elk Antelope, we run on a fly-in fly-out (Fifo) programme. We alternate on our hitches, use the same room and same bed. Everyone at rig site trusted us in our endeavours to ensure the high pressure gas wells we drilled are safely accomplished. Those wells do produce pressures up to 3200 psi. That was our record. We assisted the drilling team to deliver the results safely.
At times when there was a hiatus in drilling we were called by Inter Oil management to do other assignments.
Papua LNG initially had their plan for pipeline and infrastructures development. Thomas and I were assigned to carry out geotechnical mapping at Antelope for Papua LNG future plans. This was one memorable time of our formidable team. We spent up to six weeks at Herd base and inland Purari mapping out possible sites for a condensate stripping plant and relevant infrastructures.
That was 2011.  I believe during this time Thomas started to encounter health issues. We would do our traverses but realising Thomas had arthritis issues with his knees, I would ask him to rest at the higher grounds while I take the crew to investigate lower grounds.
We had some best times in the jungles of Purari. It is funny, but look at it the way we PNG villagers deal with our beliefs and customs (lol!).
We offer spirits food and money in the mornings on our way out to the jungles. We stop on our tracks to talk to spirits that we are here for visits only and for the future endeavours of our people.
At night we have dreams of the future and the LNG. The birds perched at the nearby tress at our camp every morning give us messages through their tones and cries.
When we make signs of reply they would fly away in acknowledgement. We both had great times away from drilling around the 2010 to 2011 period. Only on one field assignment in East Kerema, up the Tauri River and Saw Mountains he was not available to join me and the Inter Oil team.
Health issues
From 2013 onward his health took a bad toll on him and he could not join our AIPC team in PNG LNG drilling team at Hides with ExxonMobil. He decided to stick around in the last Antelope well, Raptor and Wahoo wells.
By this time there was a new wellsiting and operations geology team in place. It was unfortunate this team had no prior PNG experience. Their success rate was not the same as ours and Inter Oil ended up spending a lot of money on three wells. That was the general news.
After 2015 Thomas teamed up with previous management of InterOil in a new company, Asia Oil and Gas.  He committed to Asia Oil and Gas until the day of his demise.
In 2023 Thomas and I talked regularly about our success at Elk Antelope, how proud we were of our achievements. We shared what we are currently doing separately, Thomas with Asia Oil and Gas and I at ENB Mining and Petroleum. He at times expressed his dislike about politics interfering with the processes on licenses and projects and what he was going through with Asia Oil and Gas. I shared his sentiments on what he was going through.
He shared with me his health issues. At one stage I asked him to come over to Kokopo to hang around with me for a month, take some herbs and live on fresh organic and market produce. One of our colleagues Donald Bibaesi had a short engagement with me in our work at ENB Mining Petroleum and stayed with my family for two months. He had similar health problems and was able to recover. Thomas did not make up his mind to come over to hang around with me in Kokopo.
In spirit I think he was aware his health issues would soon let him down and two weeks prior to Christmas 2023 he called me up for a long chat, two and half hours talk on the phone. That was longest conversation with me on the phone.
Our last messages were Happy New Year text messages we exchanged on the New Year’s eve.
Rest in peace brother. Until that golden morning.