Our Senior Partners have long-established track records in worldwide petroleum and energy. Chairman & Chief Executive is Dr Duncan Clarke, and the Group Managing Director is Babette van Gessel. Together they have acquired on-ground business exposure in upstream oil and gas in over 120 countries across Six Continents.

Dr Duncan Clarke

With 30 years in global oil and gas, and Founder of Global Pacific & Partners as a leading private Advisory firm in worldwide petroleum, Duncan Clarke has acted as advisor to numerous companies and Governments in Africa, Asia, Latin America, MidEast, Europe, and North America. He is author of foundation research on the world industry from the early 1980s, covering strategy, competitors, countries, National Oil Companies and in/on Africa, Asia, Latin America, Australasia, and the MidEast. He conducts annual Strategy Briefings worldwide on Governments, National Oil Companies and corporate oil in Africa, Asia, Latin America, MidEast, and Europe - available in our World Strategy Online. He leads fir firm’s Africa Advisory Practice on business strategy in Sub-Saharan Africa. Duncan Clarke is author of The Battle For Barrels: Peak Oil Myths & World Oil Futures (Profile Books, London, 2007) and Empires Of Oil: Corporate Oil In Barbarian Worlds (Profile Books, London, Sept 2007), and Africa: Crude Continent: The Struggle for Africa’s Oil Prize (Profile Books, Sept 2010). He graduated in 1975 with Ph.D (Economics) from University of St. Andrews, Scotland.

Babette van Gessel

Babette van Gessel has been active in global oil and gas for two decades, and involved in the world upstream across Six Continents, as the architect of Global Pacific & Partners senior management events (in and on Africa, Asia, Australasia, Latin America, MidEast, Europe, and United States, as well as on National Oil Companies). She has been responsible for conducting numerous Government and National Oil Companies Roadshows for acreage and asset marketing, managing PetroAfricanus, plus client relations for the firm’s worldwide Sponsors and Exhibitors. She was Founder of the Global Petroleum & Energy Women’s Club, and is a Member of a number of professional organisations in oil and gas. She is a Graduate in Economics & Law, University of Witswatersrand.

History

The African Institute of Petroleum (AIP) originated at a meeting on 11th October 1995 in Johannesburg between Duncan Clarke (Chairman & CEO, Global Pacific & Partners) and Conrad Gerber (President, Petrologistics Ltd), who jointly conceived the initiative, convened with others a follow-up occasion held in Geneva on 3rd May 1996, generated support from African officials and corporate executives involved in the Continent’s oil and gas industry, and later launched the AIP, with its Secretariat managed by Global Pacific & Partners in Johannesburg.

The AIP held Annual General Meetings at the Africa Upstream Conference in Cape Town each year from 1996-2001, following its establishment in Harare. On its Inaugural Meeting (Wednesday 18th September 1996), the South African Minister for Mineral & Energy Affairs (Hon Penuell Maduna) noted the following:

“The launching of the African Institute of Petroleum could be the beginning of a new era in human betterment on the African continent thanks to African governments, working with international oil and gas exploration companies. Together, we can really take Africa upstream, both in 1996 and beyond”

Around 75 senior executives from companies, Ministries, National Oil Companies, and individuals joined the AIP, which served as a network and undertook selective studies on African oil and gas (Constraints On Investment In African Petroleum, and Privatisation In African Oil & Energy) while conducting a first-ever State of Africa Survey of company views on the status of Africa’s upstream industry at the time, published in Year 2000. While the AIP recorded several notable achievements, it was placed in abeyance in 2001.

African Institute of Petroleum

Global Pacific & Partners re-launched the AIP at its 16th Africa Oil Week on 2nd November 2009, while the new Institute’s format and functions were reshaped to meet contemporary needs and conditions.

Since the tenure of the former AIP, many Member companies were taken over, merged, or fell by the wayside, many Members exited the African industry, some officials and executives have retired, and the former organisation structure needed to adapt to changing circumstances in the industry.

Members/Services

The following activities, functions and tasks were executed by the AIP in 2010 while Members currently stand at over 500 individuals from Africa and around the world.