SPE Strong: Strengthening Our Core: Strengthening Our Core Disciplines
Authors: Noonan Shauna 
Published: June 2020

From the beginning, SPE has focused on knowledge dissemination in four fundamental areas, which I refer to as the core disciplines: drilling, completions, reservoir (including geosciences), and production operations. These disciplines make up the bulk of coursework in most petroleum engineering degree programs, as well as the content of the SPE Petroleum Engineering Certification test. Still today, most of our members can identify themselves as being either a drilling, completions, reservoir, or production engineer.

However, there are many other disciplines within our industry, such as HSE, management, economics, facilities, and materials, to name a few. Over time, SPE has added content and programs covering topics outside of the core disciplines, and our membership has grown as a result. Most of us work on multidisciplinary teams and collaborations that extend beyond the core disciplines, so it made sense for SPE to adopt this expansion strategy. While we must continue to welcome all disciplines and professions involved with providing the world’s hydrocarbons, we must still deliver quality content and programs for fundamental petroleum engineering disciplines at the field level - closest to the wellhead.

In 2019, two-thirds of our total professional membership listed their primary discipline as being a core discipline. Note that some members still appear in the legacy drilling and completions category because they have not updated their profile after completions became a separate category.

In response to the digital revolution our industry is currently experiencing, the SPE Board of Directors recently redefined the Management and Information discipline into Data Science and Engineering Analytics (DSEA) and Management.

As we continue to expand and welcome more disciplines, we must ensure that we do not dilute the offerings and erode the value of being an SPE member for those in our core disciplines. At the same time, we need to ensure that these offerings are easily accessible, as many of these members work at field locations.

I recently compared the technology focus areas covered in JPT in 2000 to focus areas of today. Over the past 20 years, JPT has been able to expand its coverage into other disciplines without compromising articles and features focused on the core disciplines. For a magazine, this is relatively easy, as one can simply add pages. Next, I compared the technical sessions for our Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition (ATCE) from the years 2000 and 2020. Having served on the ATCE program committee in the past, I know there are a finite number of sessions available for allocation among all the disciplines. I found there was approximately a 30% reduction in sessions for reservoir and geosciences at ATCE in 2020 compared to 2000. This decrease is not due to the encroachment of new disciplines but primarily because of the increased activity into hydraulic fracturing and the doubling of sessions allocated for the completion discipline. The ATCE program committees have done an excellent job of being able to include sessions of interest for a wide variety of disciplines while still serving the needs of our members in the core disciplines.