Bob Erlich
Partner and Executive Director, Upstream
Bob Erlich began his career with Amoco in New Orleans in 1980, working on domestic US and Latin American projects as a junior geologist. He moved to Amoco’s Houston International office in 1987 as a senior geologist and progressed through positions as a senior field geologist, technical team leader, and as Regional Geologist for northern Latin America and the Caribbean. Bob joined Burlington Resources in 1999 and was named General Manager for Peru, where he led technical and operational programs that resulted in the discovery of several major oil and gas fields. He returned to BP in 2006 to head their New Ventures exploration efforts in Latin America and the Caribbean, and in 2008, was named Corporate Vice President of Exploration for Petrolifera Petroleum Limited, a Canadian independent with operations in Peru, Colombia, and Argentina.
In 2011 Bob moved to Hess Corporation as a senior adviser to the Senior Vice President of Exploration, and in 2012 moved to PanAtlantic Exploration Company, where he served as President and CEO until March 2016. During his career, Bob has worked assignments in a number of countries, including Trinidad and Tobago, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, Argentina, Guyana, Suriname, Brazil, Costa Rica, Panama, Guatemala, Nigeria, Ghana, Côte d'Ivoire, Liberia, Equatorial Guinea, the United Kingdom, and the People’s Republic of China. In January 2019 Bob was elected to the Board of Directors of Colombian junior oil Selva Energy (www.selvaenergy.com), and in August 2020 was appointed to the Advisory Board of the African Energy Chamber (www.energychamber.org) to assist in developing policies for the advancement of exploration and investment in African energy projects.
Bob received his BS degree in Geology from the University of Miami, his MS degree in Sedimentology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and his PhD in Paleoceanography from Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. He has published extensively on the geology of northern Latin America (Link to Bob's Technical Publications List), and has significant experience exploring Cretaceous depositional systems of the Equatorial Atlantic margins. Bob has also published several business-related articles in major magazines (Link to Bob's Business Publications List). Click (Here) to see Bob’s full CV.
