Keynote Panel: Exploring new frontiers

Nikki Martin is President & CEO of the EnerGeo Alliance, the global trade organization for the energy geoscience industry. Nikki joined EnerGeo (then IAGC) in 2013 and previously served as the Vice President of Government and Legal Affairs. An attorney and government affairs professional, Nikki has years of experience championing effective global advocacy and strategic cross-industry collaboration for the energy industry. Before joining EnerGeo, Nikki was the Regulatory and Legal Affairs Manager at the Alaska Oil & Gas Association (AOGA) and worked in the U.S. Capitol and Alaska State Capitol for the U.S. Senate President Pro Tempore, the Alaska State Senate President and Alaska State House Majority Leader. Nikki sits on the Board of Directors for MicroSeismic, Inc. and the Western Resources Legal Center and earned a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from the University of South Carolina and a Juris Doctor from the Northwestern School of Law at Lewis & Clark College.

From growing up on her family’s cattle property in North-West Queensland to running a business in South-East Queensland, Susan has a deep appreciation of the issues affecting Queenslanders across the state. A qualified accountant and mum to three kids, Susan also ran a chain of butcher shops for six years, responsible for over 100 staff across five stores, before being elected to the Australian Senate for Queensland in 2019. Susan is the Shadow Minister for Resources and Shadow Minister for Northern Australia, roles in which she will be able to help grow our country’s most productive regions and industries for the benefit of all Australians. Susan is based in Townsville, making her the Coalition’s northernmost Senator in Australia.

Mr Nicholls joined Strike as its Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director in early 2017. Mr Nicholls has led the transformation of Strike from its exploration roots into one of Australia’s first integrated developers of gas, renewable energy and fertilisers. Mr Nicholls has a broad ranging background across the energy landscape that included time in the up and downstreams at Royal Dutch Shell across most disciplines primarily from within Royal Dutch Shell’s gas businesses. He has a key focus on the transition of our energy system and his commitment to lead Strike to carbon neutral by 2030. Mr Nicholls previous experience also includes six years with the Australian Army in senior leadership positions and he has worked in Australia, The Netherlands, Myanmar and Malaysia in corporate and operational capacities and holds a Bachelor of Commerce from UWA.

Jane has worked and studied in Australia and the UK and brings 30 years of industry experience in the energy markets. She began her career with Shell International Exploration & Production as a Process Engineer in operations and then as a Commercial Advisor in The Hague, Aberdeen and London. Subsequently, in London, Jane held corporate finance and equity capital markets roles with Cazenove & Co (now JP Morgan Cazenove) and Goldman Sachs. Jane returned to Australia to join Santos where she held senior commercial, corporate strategy and Executive Committee roles. She led major strategic initiatives at Santos and played a key role in Santos’ growth strategy, in particular the merger with Oil Search. During her time at Santos Jane helped drive the transformation of company performance - helping to establish the growth strategy focused on cash generation and shareholder returns and, more recently, the company’s energy transition strategy. Jane holds a Bachelor of Science (Pure Mathematics and Chemistry) and Bachelor of Chemical Engineering (Hons) from the University of Sydney and a Graduate Diploma in Management and Economics of Natural Gas (Distinction) from the University of Oxford. Jane is a Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.

Mr Riddle has more than 28 years’ experience in the upstream oil and gas industry. He has served as the Managing Director and CEO of Tamboran Resources Corporation for over a decade. Under his leadership Tamboran has grown from a 25% working interest holder in one Beetaloo Basin permit to a Company that currently controls 1.9 million net acres, having a material interest or operating 90% of the Beetaloo Basin. He has led multiple partnerships, strategic transactions, and joint ventures with various stakeholders such as Santos Limited, APA Group, Origin Energy, Formentera Partners, Helmrich & Payne and has commercial discussions ongoing with several of the largest gas customers in Australia and Asia-Pacific. Prior to joining Tamboran, he served as Vice President, Commercial and Strategic Planning at Cobalt International Energy, where he worked closely with executive management in the initial evaluation and implementation of the exploration growth strategy in the Gulf of Mexico and West Africa, playing an instrumental role in Cobalt’s $1 billion initial public offering in 2009 and subsequent $3 billion capital raising in 2010 and 2011. Prior to his position with Cobalt, Mr Riddle served in various management positions including business development, commercial and strategic planning with Unocal Corporation and Murphy Oil Corporation. In these roles, he was involved in the development and implementation of each company's new business and LNG growth strategies in Southeast Asia and Australia. Prior to Unocal Corporation, Mr Riddle was a senior associate with Andersen Consulting, serving upstream exploration and production clients on strategy and performance improvement engagements. Mr Riddle began his career in 1997 as a senior reservoir engineer with ExxonMobil, serving various assignments focused on upstream oil and gas operations in the Gulf of Mexico. Mr Riddle holds a Bachelor of Science with Honors in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Florida and a Master of Business Administration from the University of Chicago. Mr Riddle is currently on the Board of Directors on the Australian Energy Producers and is the Chairperson for the Greenhouse & Energy Policy Committee for Australian Energy Producers.

From 2012–2023, Prof. Garnett led the University of Queensland’s Centre for Natural Gas and CCUS research programs. He worked closely with all the main CSG–LNG project proponents in the eastern states of Australia. In that role, he was a regular advisor and contributor to numerous government consultations and inquires about the gas sector, CCUS, the broader energy transition and the role of gas. From 2016 to 2020, Prof. Garnett was appointed a non-executive director of National Energy Resources Australia (NERA), a Federal Government ‘industry growth centre’. NERA worked across the energy resources sectors, partnering with government, research, science and industry. Prof. Garnett has been a reviewer on natural gas for the IEA’s World Energy Outlook series and has also contributed on CCUS via their Energy Technology Perspectives. Before entering academia, he was with Shell and Schlumberger in technical and management positions. He has over 25 years’ world-wide experience with oil majors in conventional and unconventional projects, where he consulted widely on unconventional developments, most notably those with high GHG emission footprints. He was also CEO and Project Director of ZeroGen, a large IGCC with CCS feasibility study and storage exploration venture in Queensland. Prof. Garnett is the current Chair of the Australian Gas Industry Trust (AGIT), a not-for profit trust aimed at education and research around the gas sector and he is also an Executive Committee Member on the International Gas Union.