SPEAKERS

Dr Yaw Akyampon Boakye-Ansah is a Lecturer at the University of Energy and Natural Resources. He is also the Head of Department of Petroleum and Natural Gas Engineering at the School of Energy. Dr. Boakye-Ansah has research interests in natural gas resources (processing and transportation), reservoir engineering (flow in porous media), environmental management (petroleum waste management). He has 9 years teaching experience with an additional 4 years industrial practice. He also serves as an Officer with the SPE Ghana Section and acts as the Faculty Advisor for UENR SPE Student Chapter. 

Emmanuel Adekahlor is an Assurance Partner, and the Country Managing Partner of EY in Ghana. Over the last 17 years, Emmanuel has led the delivery of several engagements such as financial statements audits, internal control reviews, diagnostic reviews, asset quality reviews and due diligence assessments across multiple sectors and geographies including Ghana, the United Kingdom (UK), South Africa, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Tanzania, Mauritius and Kenya. His sectors of experience include financial services, telecoms, consumer products as well as government and public sector (GPS). Client engagements Emmanuel has worked on range from multinational entities, listed companies, public sector entities through to donor agencies including the World Bank, UN and USAID. Emmanuel holds a BSc Degree in Accounting, and an MBA in Finance. He is a fellow of the ACCA (UK) and a member of ICA (Ghana). He has previously served as a member of the Technical and Research Committee of the Institute of Chartered Accountants Ghana and continues to play an active role in the Association’s activities particularly on technical matters affecting the industry.  

Dr Cyril D. Boateng is the Coordinator of the Geophysics Research Group, lecturer and researcher at the Department of Physics, KNUST. Cyril’s expertise and research interests span near-surface geophysics and hydrocarbon exploration with a special interest in the integration of AI into geophysical exploration workflows. Prior to joining KNUST, he was a research fellow at the China University of Petroleum (East China). He holds a PhD in Solid Earth Physics from the University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. His research projects have garnered funding from IDRC, the SEG Foundation, the US Office of Naval Research, the US Army Corps of Engineers, and the US Army DEVCOM.  

Dr. Kelechi Onyekachi Ofoegbu has 22 years oil & gas industry experience in legal and regulatory affairs, litigation and dispute resolution, contract engineering & management, supply chain management and strategy, commercial negotiations, planning and performance management, category management and contracting process.   

Dr. Ofoegbu obtained his Bachelor of Laws (LL.B. Honours) from the University of Calabar in 1997, graduating as the Best Graduating Student and winner of twelve (12) awards and prizes.  He proceeded to the Nigeria Law School in 1998 and graduated as the Best Graduating Student with the only First-Class Honours degree in Nigeria in 1999. He also won all the prizes in every subject and was awarded the Chief Justice of the Federation’s Prize for Excellence. 

In 2001, he proceeded to the University of Oxford, United Kingdom to study for a Master’s degree in Law, BCL, from where he graduated in 2002. His PhD research focused on risk allocation in oil and gas contracts, using petroleum industry standard form offshore drilling contracts in UK, USA, Nigeria and Canada as case studies. 

Dr. Ofoegbu is currently the Executive Commissioner responsible for Economic Regulation and Strategic Planning at the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC), and is a Chartered Member, Chartered Institute of Procurement and Supply, UK.   

Ing. Henry Mensah is the Ag. Director Operations for the Petroleum Commission. He was the manager for the Engineering department for over 3 years prior to been appointed the Ag. Director Operations.  He has responsibilities for the Engineering, Health, Safety and Environment, Fiscal Metering and Instrumentation, Monitoring and Evaluation and Petroleum Security Departments of the Commission.  

Ing. Mensah has over 14 years of industry experience beginning as a young engineer with the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation in 2008. He performed various roles and rose to be a Lead Reservoir Engineer with GNPC. He was involved and played various roles during the development of the Jubilee and TEN fields between 2009 and 2016.  

Ing. Mensah specialises in Well Testing, Reservoir Surveillance& Monitoring and Field Development Projects, and has mentored young engineers in that field. 

He is a member of good standing with the Society of Petroleum Engineers where he previously held positions as Membership Chair and Scholarship Chair. He is a professional Engineer with the Ghana Institution of Engineering. He has Project Management Professional (PMP®) and Risk Management Professional certifications (PMI-RMP) a with the Project Management Institute, USA. 

Ing. Mensah holds a MSc Reservoir Evaluation and Management from the Heriot Watt University in Edinburgh, Scotland and BSc Chemical Engineering from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi.  

Mr. Wissam Al-Monthiry is Managing Director for Tullow Ghana, a position accountable for the Tullow business in Ghana. Wissam is also a member of the Tullow plc executive leadership team. 

Wissam brings close to 20 years of working in the international oil and gas industry. He spent a large part of his career with BP in various operations, engineering, asset management and business leadership roles across the UK North Sea, US Deepwater Gulf of Mexico, the Caspian and the Middle East and North Africa. In his last role at BP he held the position of Vice President Operations & Country Head for North Africa Wissam’s track record in asset turnarounds and profitable growth, coupled with mutual benefit of host governments and partners, is underpinned by his extensive experience in all aspects of integrated operations, including time as an Offshore Installation Manager (OIM) and playing a leading role in the Gulf of Mexico Macondo oil spill response. Wissam also started his career at Goldman Sachs Corporate Finance and Advisory, focusing on energy mandates. 

Wissam holds a Bachelor of Engineering (B. Eng.) in Chemical Engineering from McGill University and a Master of Business Administration (MBA) from the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he remains an active alumnus as Chairman of the Alumni Board of Great Britain. Wissam is a fluent English, Arabic and French speaker. 

Engr. Simbi Kesiye Wabote is the incumbent Executive Secretary of the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB). He is a Fellow of the Nigerian Society of Engineers (NSE) and the Institute of Petroleum Studies (IPS). He holds a Masters Degree in Corporate Governance from Leeds Metropolitan University and a Bachelor of Technology (B.Tech) Degree in Civil Engineering from Nigeria’s premier university of science and technology, the Rivers State University of Science and Technology, Port Harcourt.  

Prior to his current appointment as the Executive Secretary of NCDMB, he had an exceptional career in Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC), spanning over 26 years. During his time in SPDC, he held several leadership roles and functioned in different capacities, including as Executive Director; General Manager Local Content; General Manager, Business & Government Relations. 

He also served in various other roles traversing engineering, operations, procurement and strategic local content development particularly in Nigeria, Gabon, Brunei, Oman, Kazakhstan, Australia, Iraq, Qatar, Jordan, USA and new frontier countries for Shell, just to mention but a few. 

He was appointed by the His Excellency, President Muhammadu Buhari in September 2016 to lead the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board, as Executive Secretary. Re-appointed for a second term in 2021, Engr Wabote has transformed the Board and Nigerian Content achievements from 26% in 2016 to 47% today. 

Under his steer, in 2017, NCDMB developed a 10-Year Strategic Roadmap with the key objective of achieving 70% Nigerian Content in the oil and gas industry; creating 300,000 direct jobs; establishment of major fabrication facilities in-country; and establishment of manufacturing hubs in-country for the manufacture of equipment, components and accessories required by the oil and gas industry and its linkage sectors. 

Anthony Paul is an internationally recognized energy and strategy advisor, who works to bring Economic Justice to owners of petroleum resources. He is a thought leader on local content and value-addition, deepening of local participation in the sector, aimed at sustainable economic development and of improving governance. He has spent over 40 years in the oil, natural gas and mining business, in several technical, commercial and leadership roles along the entire petroleum exploration and production value chain in Government and enterprises, both state-owned and private (local and multinational). 

With the goal of converting extractives into sustainable development, while fostering accountability, he works with governments, leading international NGOs and Think Tanks. He advocates for and supports developing countries in maximizing local benefits from their extractives resources, through capable and accountable policy makers and regulators, so that more in-country value can be created and retained by extractive resources owners.  

As a consultant, he has supported strategy and business development, by providing critical analysis and advice on the inter-related aspects of the industry, including policy, regulatory, operational and commercial matters.