I.W. Gareth Hughes (1933 – 2024)
Petroleum engineer who contributed significantly to oil exploration in the Niger Delta, United Arab Emirates, and North Sea
While working for the Civil Service, Gareth oversaw oil fields across northern Europe (Image courtesy of Caroline Clark)
Gareth Hughes was born in Mumbles and educated at Swansea Grammar School and Swansea University. He joined the Geological Society in 1955 and became a Senior Fellow in 2005. Gareth was also a Fellow of the Energy Institute and a member of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, Society of Petroleum Engineers, and The Gower Society. He passed away aged 90 following prostate cancer.
Gareth pioneered first attempts at using very narrow seismic profiles around discovery wells
In 1958, Gareth moved to Nigeria to work as a wellsite petroleum engineer. During his four years in Owerii and Port Harcourt, Shell found enough oil in the Niger Delta to continue oil production in Nigeria. Gareth pioneered first attempts at using very narrow seismic profiles around their discovery wells. In 1984, Gareth was commissioned to drill wells in Mogadishu by World Bank and Keplinger McCord Lewis; however, these wells were relatively dry, failing to bring the Somalians a similar fortune.
Mapping
From May 1962, Gareth worked across Venezuela. Gareth worked on unitisation with Creole Petroleum Company of Venezuela (part of Exxon) on Lake Maracaibo wells. In 1964, he produced cross sections of Lake Maracaibo’s wells using one of the first IBM System/360 computers in Caracas, using thousands of punch cards that took twelve hours to print. From 1966, Gareth oversaw all geology for The Shell Company of Qatar. During this time, Gareth ran detailed seismic surveys around wells and studied the stratigraphy of the Arabian Gulf, allowing him to identify a large, deep structure extending northwards to the Qatar/Iran border, which later became the largest gas field in the world.
North Sea
After working in Lagos, Nigeria, Gareth began exploring the North Sea. As Conoco’s only production geologist in London, Gareth represented them for unitisation on the Thistle oil field; worked in Stavanger on Norwegian concessions; and oversaw drilling in Aberdeen, Scotland, and Kavala, Greece. He continued in the commercial sector as an exploration manager with Amerada from 1976 until 1982, when he became Managing Director of the North Sea for Sun Oil for a short period, bringing the Balmoral oil field into production.
Gareth joined the Civil Service Department of Energy in 1988 as Director of the Exploration and Appraisal Development Unit. Gareth negotiated the field limits of the Statfjord oil field, located between Scotland and Norway, for the UK and Norwegian governments.
As Director of Petroleum Engineering, Gareth covered all onshore and maritime UK waters and, as the most senior geologist, in 1990, he made final decisions on defining the borders of different oil fields, including the North Sea Guillemot field submitted by Shell. As Chair of Offshore Exploration, Gareth was responsible for authorising the Kerr-McGee oil rig, a new type of rig that was built in Newcastle and the US.
Gareth is survived by his wife, two daughters, and two grandsons.
By Gareth Hughes
