Gunther graduated from Manchester University with a BSC & MSC in Geology and joined BP in London as a geologist in 1980 after working for 3 years as a well-site engineer and geologist. Assignments followed in Germany, China, Aberdeen, Norway, Indonesia, Houston and Venezuela with Gunther experiencing all aspects of geology ranging from frontier exploration utilising satellite and field geology to reactivation of oilfields in the Orinoco delta of Venezuela. In 1996 Gunther returned to the North Sea taking on a number of business management roles in the Central North Sea, West of Shetland and finally running BP’s onshore terminals and pipeline business.  In 2004 Gunther was posted to Baku as HSSE VP supporting BP’s operations in Azerbaijan, Georgia and Eastern Turkey.  In October 2007 Gunther returned to the North Sea to lead a newly established team accountable for BP’s North Sea decommissioning programme which included NW Hutton, Miller and Don Field projects. In September 2009 Gunther was made VP Decommissioning for BP E&P, a role which has a global strategic and planning remit.

Alistair Birnie is an Engineering graduate of the University of Aberdeen, and a business school Graduate of Robert Gordon University. He is also a chartered engineer and a member of the IET. He has 28+ years experience in the offshore and subsea industry, working for a number of well known service and engineering companies in technology development and project management roles, and has in his time delivered a number of the world's first, deepest, and biggest in new technology. Alistair has served as Chairman of the Aberdeen section of the Society for Underwater Technology and spent two years with the industry technology Facilitator, ITF, in a role that supported field trials and commercialisation of new technology.

More recently he had Global responsibility for Technology in Aker Solutions' Subsea Controls division, running their Research and Development unit, before taking up his current post as Chief Executive of Subsea UK.

Dr Brian Twomey is the Managing Director of Reverse Engineering Services Ltd, Manchester, UK and is responsible for decommissioning and abandonment operations planning, decommissioning engineering, peer review work and cost analysis. He has worked on oil & gas decommissioning and pipeline issues for over 23 years and has carried out decommissioning studies/work on over 700 offshore installations worldwide.

He has worked on decommissioning in Africa, Australia, SE Asia, South America, Canada, Greece, Mexico, Norway, Ireland, UK and USA. Dr Twomey has presented over 100 papers on decommissioning and has given numerous public and private training courses on all aspects of decommissioning.