About

Elio is a senior petroleum geoscientist and subsurface leader with 25+ years' experience across exploration, appraisal and development in Australia, PNG and Southeast Asia. He spent two decades at Santos in senior technical and leadership roles, working across joint ventures with ExxonMobil, Oil Search, Total and Kumul Petroleum, and engaging directly with PNG government and regulatory bodies.

He holds a PhD in sedimentology and sequence stratigraphy, an MBA, and the GAICD qualification — a combination that lets him integrate geological insight, seismic interpretation oversight and multidisciplinary collaboration to reduce subsurface uncertainty and unlock value across the exploration–development lifecycle.

His career spans frontier exploration, stratigraphic analysis, reservoir characterisation, drilling support and development planning. In PNG specifically, his experience includes exploration permit negotiations and work program submissions to the National Petroleum Authority, and JV alignment across asset partners — detailed further under Expertise.

His experience also includes seismic integration leadership, project management, technical coaching and cross-functional collaboration with engineering, commercial, regulatory and executive stakeholders — recognised for translating complex subsurface challenges into clear, actionable pathways.

Since founding LZRG, Elio has supported upstream businesses navigating strategic transitions, portfolio optimisation and exploration–development integration — contributing geological insight, structured technical framing and decision support across early-stage and developing project scopes.