The 86th EAGE Annual Conference & Exhibition, held from June 2–5, 2025, in Toulouse, France, was a landmark event for geoscience professionals worldwide. With the theme “Navigating Change: Geosciences Shaping a Sustainable Transition,” the conference underscored the pivotal role of geosciences in addressing global sustainability challenges.

The 2025 Geological Society conference, Natural Hydrogen: Understanding the Geoscience, held at Burlington House, London, on 1-2 July 2025, provided a timely forum for evaluating the emerging field of naturally occurring subsurface hydrogen. Following on from the inaugural conference in 2023, the two-day event convened geoscientists, industry representatives, and policymakers to examine both the scientific fundamentals and the practical potential of natural hydrogen as a low-carbon energy resource.

Attending the 2025 SEAPEX Exploration Conference (SEC) in Singapore was an enriching experience that highlighted both the dynamism and complexity of upstream energy exploration in the Asia‑Pacific region. Over four days, the programme combined rigorous technical presentations with strategic discussions on regional energy security, investment opportunities, and emerging geological insights.

Metatek were pleased to be both attending and exhibiting at the conference, allowing Metatek’s Christian Richards and Jonathan Watson to engage with existing and potential clients, and enforce the Metatek brand, in the region, following on from a series of airborne eFTG gravity gradiometry surveys, for both geothermal and hydrocarbon energy exploration, in the previous months.

Metatek is pleased to announce its successful participation in the 2025 SPE Annual Caspian Technical Conference (CTC) in Baku, one of the region’s premier gatherings for upstream technical excellence and energy-sector innovation. Bringing together more than 500 delegates from over 30 countries, this year’s SPE Annual Caspian Technical Conference offered a productive platform for Metatek to engage with operators, service companies, and regional stakeholders across the Caspian energy landscape.

Metatek is pleased to report its active engagement at the 2025 GESGB AI & Machine Learning Conference, a premier event showcasing the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) in geoscience and subsurface exploration. This year’s GESGB AI & Machine Learning Conference brought together leading industry professionals, academics, software developers, and exploration operators, providing a rich forum for knowledge exchange and collaboration.

This inaugural event, hosted at the Physics Institute in London, was a joint initiative by the GESGB’s Machine Learning and Geophysics specialist groups. Metatek’s General Manager, Jonathan Watson, who serves on the organising committee, helped bring attention to this important and rapidly growing area of energy exploration.

Metatek is pleased to announce its successful participation in the 2025 HGS–GESGB Africa Conference. Here, the company engaged with industry leaders, showcased its advanced airborne full-tensor gravity gradiometry solutions, and reinforced its commitment to supporting subsurface understanding across Africa’s rapidly evolving energy landscape.

This conference is held every 2 years and organised by the European Geothermal Energy Council (EGEC) in cooperation with Geothermie-Suisse. The icebreaker was held on Monday evening, with three days of talk and posters (Tuesday to Thursday) and a day of fieldtrips on Friday to a variety of geothermal installations in Switzerland.

The full programme is here Event Agenda | The European Geothermal Congress 2025 | EGC 2025

and all the abstracts are online here

https://europeangeothermalcongress.eu/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/EGC-2025-Proceedings_Final.pdf

The general impression is that geothermal energy across Europe is gaining momentum. In a lot of countries geothermal is moving from academic pilot projects to full scale geothermal projects. In most countries in Europe, geothermal energy is firmly established on the heat market, with shallow geothermal energy (GSHP) used in virtually all of Europe. Direct use of deep geothermal resources is more regionally concentrated, due to its dependence upon suitable geological settings, and is mainly used in the East/South-East of Europe, France, Germany, and some more. Recent development in Belgium and the Netherlands is very encouraging for increased direct use of geothermal energy. The city of Munich is well advanced in decarbonising heat across the two cities. Geneva has also acquired a city wide 3D seismic survey which has completely transformed the fault interpretation. They could have done it much cheaper with a gravity survey.

One country with ambitious goals in Hungary. Viktor Horvath, the deputy state secretary for energy transition in the Ministry for Energy of Hungary, gave the opening address. The impacts of the Russian-Ukrainian war accelerated the transformation of the Hungarian energy system, being heavily reliant on Russian gas imports (ca. 80% of the annual 8.5 BCM gas consumption). Several expert analyses revealed that about 1-1.2 BCM gas could be replaced by geothermal until 2035. It would be worth keeping an eye out for opportunities in Hungary.

One poster was looking at Geothermal brines in the Smackover formation, onshore Gulf of Mexico. Both Chevron and Exxon have recently taken licenses, and the blocks have limited seismic. It would be worth seeing if we have any contacts, there might be an opportunity there

The conference registration included a number of fieldtrips to various geothermal sites around Switzerland. I visited the town of Riehen which has had a geothermal district heating system operating with very few problems since the mid 1990’s.

The next European Geothermal Congress will be held in Budapest, Hungary in 2028.

What is notable is the lack of exhibition space and presentations dedicated to Potential Fields and its use in geothermal energy exploration. I think we should develop a presentation to show how the eFTG can be used in geothermal exploration and look to present at  events in the USA and Europe who are both well ahead of the UK.

This year’s EAGE (European Association of Geoscientists and Engineers) EAGE2025 conference was held in Toulouse, from 2^nd -5^th June. With the theme “Navigating Change: Geosciences Shaping a Sustainable Transition,” the conference underscored the pivotal role of geosciences in addressing global sustainability challenges.

Toulouse, a first-time host, is the world capital for aeronautics and the European capital of the space industry. An out-of-town event, close to the airport, kept the Uber drivers busy, ferrying attendees to and from the new MEETT conference and exhibition centre.

We were situated in the International Pavilion, stand IPC1, alongside our partners, Striped Horse Resources and Rockwash Geodata. We had a great time sharing our results from all the work we have done in Angola over the past year – it’s been a busy time for all three companies so it was great to touch base in person.

Jonathan Watson, Charles Thomas and Jack Cawthorne were in attendance and were able to answer any questions of visitors to the booth. This is one of the reasons we like to attend these types of events – face to face conversation about the industry.

On the Tuesday Charles Thomas, of Striped Horse, presented a talk on non-seismic methods as part of the International Prospecting Centre sessions, describing the recent eFTG gravity gradiometry, magnetic and LiDAR surveys conducted over the onshore Kwanza Basin. Following this talk, he joined the panel discussion “How ultra-deepwater is revitalising oil and gas exploration”. This was a well-attended talk and discussion, it was great to have so many interested visitors.

Alongside the technical and business opportunities was the social side. An evening event at the Victor Hugo Market, in the centre of Toulouse, was a very pleasant assault on the senses, sampling local cuisine.

All in all an enjoyable few days in the South of France, and onwards to the 2026 EAGE conference in the Granite City, Aberdeen.

There were plenty of talks throughout day 1 that members of our team were able to attend. Neil Hodgson of Searcher, BEOS Convenor, welcomed attendees to the event, Owain Jackson of H2Au.cowho, had natural hydrogen covered in his talk “Economic Basement – A Matter of Perspective”. Stephen Coomber of Westwood Global Energy Group then took to the stage to compare the diverging paths of exploration in the UK & Norway.

The day was followed by drinks and a chance to socialise with industry professionals – a great end to an informative day.

Fixed-wing airborne survey design involves several critical considerations to ensure accurate data collection and safe and efficient survey operations. Some key aspects of airborne survey design include:

Survey Area:
Clear definition of the geographical extent of the survey which considers the project objectives, geological context, and objectives. Country borders cannot be flown over without appropriate authorisation and permits, and this will usually mean flying right up to a territorial border is impossible. Certain areas will have flight restrictions often meaning no-fly zones such as over densely populated urban areas, airports, military complexes, and other critical infrastructure such as power stations.

Flight Line Spacing:
Airborne surveys are generally flown in a grid pattern of primary lines and tie lines which are usually flown at 90 deg to the main lines. The optimal spacing between adjacent flight lines is determined by pre-survey geological feasibility studies and operational planning, as well as the type of instruments deployed. As a general rule, when it comes to airborne survey design, tighter line spacing provides higher resolution but requires more flight time and hence costs more.

Data, particularly information about subsurface geology, is key to successfully exploiting natural resources, be they mineral, hydrocarbon or renewables such as geothermal and natural hydrogen. Especially in Africa, where large swaths of the continent have not been mapped in detail, conducting subsurface exploration by plane means we are able to survey large areas of land to produce nationwide subsurface resource maps. This would be a significant step forward and key to achieving a unified, cohesive understanding of subsurface geology and resource potential.

The talk was part of the keynote session on ‘Asia Pacific in Energy Transition’ and focused on an airborne survey undertaken for JOGMEC at the end of last year. The acquisition was undertaken rapidly at a time when the flying weather was deteriorating as the winter season began. When conducting airborne surveying for geothermal energy, the weather is always a factor which could get in the way. The survey was flown over mountainous terrain with considerable turbulence although visibility was sufficient to allow for safe flying operations. The eFTG instrument, due to its advanced design, was able to deliver excellent geothermal energy data within specification, despite these challenging conditions.