• CERAWEEK 2025 | March 10-14, 2025
  • CERAWEEK
  • March 10 - 14, 2025

Emeliana Rice-Oxley

PETRONAS

Vice President Exploration, Upstream

Emeliana Rice-Oxley has served as the Vice President of Exploration at PETRONAS since 2016. She is responsible for PETRONAS global exploration business and geoscience function and she is based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. More than 25 years ago, she started her career as a biostratigrapher. Since then, she has held numerous technical and managerial roles in upstream at Shell and PETRONAS. Ms. Rice-Oxley serves as a Director of PETRONAS Gas Berhad and is a strong advocate and champion of Upstream PETRONAS Leading Women’s Network. She holds a degree in geology from the University of South Carolina, United States, and is a graduate of the Advanced Management Program from the Harvard Business School.

Sessions With Emeliana Rice-Oxley

Tuesday, 10 March

  • 11:30am - 12:30pm (CST) / -

    Role of "E" in "E&P": The future of exploration
    Upstream Oil & Gas

    Globally, conventional exploration and discoveries are at the lowest level in seven decades—not from lack of resource potential, but from lack of investment by a financial market disenchanted by lower returns from North American unconventional production onshore. Larger operators are determining strategies that emphasize financial returns, but with lower growth; however, financial market distrust is driving investors out of the upstream sector altogether. Conventional NFW drilling has shifted towards maturing phase basins, close to infrastructure, and with faster cycle times. Could disenchantment with onshore NA production drive operators back to conventional exploration in the medium term? Will a push to generate value versus volume growth hurt conventional exploration or reward those companies that show that a relentless focus on exploration generates value? Will the role of future exploration programs be to find new, highly competitive basins or to improve the value of larger, maturing basins? In lower oil and natural gas demand scenarios, will investors still be interested in even highly successful exploration?