bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Evolving Workflows in the Digital Oil Field
Authors: Langley Diane
Published: February 2015

This article, written by Features Editor Diane Langley, contains highlights of paper OTC 17730, "Evolving Workflows To Maximize Value From the Digital Oil Field," by O. Le Peuch, R. Navo, A. Howell, B. Mueller, and H. Harji, Schlumberger, prepared for the 2005 Offshore Technology Conference, Houston, 2-5 May.

The full-length paper reviews compelling events that are driving the evolution of new workflows and presents key criteria for realization of the digital oil field. In addition to focusing on the responsibilities of the service provider for delivery of reliable data, information, connectivity, and related services to support effective decision making, the paper discusses various approaches to building a delivery infrastructure.

Introduction

While new instrumentation at all phases of the production process, combined with new communications technology, is enabling a diverse group of people to access massive volumes of oilfield data, the industry’s biggest challenge is to maximize the value of the information. This is the ideal time to embark on a path toward the next-generation oil field, and not because of the emergence of new technologies. In addition to the advent of new technology, the following point to now as the time for proactive asset management—“the big crew change”; a growing need to address health, safety, and environment (HSE) issues; a desire to reduce overall operational costs; and the need to measure both well and field production performance.

As the authors state, “New technology can enable new capabilities, but it cannot, by itself, make people work more efficiently or more effectively.” Well-centric digital workflows are already benefiting production and saving costs, and a holistic view of oilfield business decisions can deliver further improvement in production performance and cost savings.

Effects of Motivating Events

A recent industry study set out to quantify the areas with the greatest opportunity to apply efficiency gains within the real-time production environment. The demographics generated as a byproduct of this survey clearly indicate that a significant portion of the industry’s experienced workforce will be difficult or impossible to replace. Deployment of the new breed of real-time services still requires, as part of an integrated system, experienced people to make decisions. Analysis of more than 600 digital-oilfield installations worldwide offered insights into a variety of HSE challenges, from security in Colombia to the harsh environs of the deep offshore installations and of polar regions.
Overview: Field Development Projects (October 2006)
Authors: Cunha J.C.
Published: February 2015

Resourceful field development can be achieved only with proper management of uncertainties inherent to any project. This situation is even more noticeable in certain deepwater offshore scenarios in which difficulties of well testing and fluid and core sampling exist. Particularly for cases in which the increasing development complexity is associated directly with uncertainties in fluid and reservoir characterization, a probabilistic analysis, instead of a deterministic one, is the natural way to proceed.

In recent years, besides standard reservoir simulation, experimental-design techniques have been introduced to assess uncertainties related to reservoir properties and the project economic aspects. Experimental design is a statistical technique that allows attaining maximum information in a given process at a minimum cost. It allows screening of uncertain reservoir variables and determining which variables, as well as which interactions between them, have the largest effect on the project outcome. On the basis of this information, a more reliable uncertainty distribution can be established.

During the past year, an impressive number of papers were presented at the Offshore Technology Conference and various SPE conferences having the main focus on the evaluation and management of uncertainties in field development. Other significant points mentioned in many works were the importance of team-work and the development and implementation of new technologies. Clearly, these aspects are heavily dependent on synergy among geophysicists; geologists; and reservoir, drilling, and production engineers. This month, the featured papers address many challenges found in field development. They also present actual and interesting solutions to challenges by stressing the importance of teamwork and proper management of uncertainty. I hope you enjoy them.

Field Development Projects additional reading available at the SPE eLibrary: www.spe.org

SPE 100253 "Schedule Optimization To Complement Assisted History Matching and Prediction Under Uncertainty" by H.A. Jutila, SPE, Energy Scitech Ltd., et al.

IPTC 10966 "Reservoir-Screening Methodology for Horizontal Underbalanced-Drilling Candidacy" by T. van der Werken, SPE, Weatherford, et al.

Available at the OTC Library: www.otcnet.org

OTC 17915 "Kizomba A and B: Projects Overview," by B.D. Boles, ExxonMobil Development Co., et al.

OTC 18298 "The K2 Project: A Drilling Engineer's Perspective," by J.R. Sanford, SPE, Eni Petroleum, et al.
Overview: Knowledge Management (October 2006)
Authors: Ellul Ivor
Published: February 2015

Knowledge management—an oxymoron? Indeed it might be. Knowledge cannot be managed because it is an abstract quantity. Some would argue otherwise, but eventually it comes down to the definition of knowledge. One that I tend to favor is "the sum or range of what has been perceived, discovered, or learned."

However defined, we have seen knowledge management rise to its apogee in the late 1990s, and soon thereafter fall to a nadir in the new millennium. In line with the cyclic nature of our industry, knowledge management has been placed out front again. What is intriguing, however, is the variety of avenues along which corporations track that science (or is it an art?). The following are the primary tracks.

Data Track. More often than not, knowledge is equated to data. While this idea is not entirely correct, data are an important cornerstone in the knowledge-management framework, and the ability to share and exchange data is a major contribution toward the gaining of knowledge.

Operations Track. A critical element in any operation is that related to collaboration. Enhancing the opportunity to learn across any organization brings one closer to its optimum goals. This idea may be counter to human nature, so one might focus on developing and deploying technology and associated environments that encourage collaboration.

People Track. This link is key in the knowledge-management chain because perception, discovery, and learning are "people things." It is important that people are groomed to be knowledge thinkers. This idea may be a new slant to customary career paths but is organizationally worthwhile nonetheless.

The papers featured this month are good examples of each of the above tracks, providing a diverse insight into current activity in the industry at both the demand and supply level. We have all heard about the "big crew change," and we realize that it is happening. It is, therefore, refreshing to see that initiatives are in place to begin to address the challenges that such a turnover in our industry will bring with it.

Knowledge Management additional reading available at the SPE eLibrary: www.spe.org

SPE 95292 "Harnessing the Wisdom of Crowds—Case Study" by G. Velasquez, SPE, Halliburton, et al.

SPE 95813 "Enhancing Collaboration Between Engineering and Operations—A Case Study of Alaska Work Processes" by J. Anders, SPE, BP plc, et al.

SPE 99873 "The Use of Integrated Decision Making To Embed Sustainable Development" by M. Kuijper, Shell E&P, et al.
Collaborative Decision Making in Operation-Center Environments
Authors: Denney Dennis
Published: February 2015

This article, written by Technology Editor Dennis Denney, contains highlights of paper SPE 100704, "Collaborative Decision Making in Operation-Center Environments," by D. Taylor, SAIC, and K. Fosse, Epsis A/S, prepared for the 2006 SPE Intelligent Energy Conference and Exhibition, Amsterdam, 11-13 April.

The "oil field of the future" vision has implications for how the industry operates that go beyond technology implementation. The industry has focused on acquisition and transport of data to decision makers to capitalize on the opportunities to optimize productivity, efficiency, and recovery. However, attention is turning to the decision makers and the tools, methods, and work processes that will support their activities. Collaboration and the ways in which integrated multifunctional teams work together to make better and faster decisions are critical.

Collaborative Environment

At its simplest, collaboration is the activity of multiple parties working together toward a common goal. The context of decision making can be added to the definition so that collaborative decision making occurs when multiple parties work together to discuss and execute a decision. The concept of decision making can be broken down into four main parts.Gathering data about the problem or situation under consideration.Generating ideas and alternative solutions to the problem or situation.Making the decision.Communicating and executing the decision.

Also, this four-stage process can help distinguish when collaboration can occur. Depending on the nature of the problem, collaboration can occur at any combination of these stages.

Forms of Collaboration. The scope of collaborative decision making includes all the actions and decision points across a work process so that the process itself becomes collaborative. This scope assumes that the many decision points and actions taken within an asset are a linked series.

Collaboration can be both formal and informal. Formal collaboration can be designed into the work situation. Informal collaboration, the ability to consult one's peer groups and get a second opinion, is equally important. Problem scenarios that are particularly unusual do not have collaboration designed into their resolution. Informal collaboration is more difficult to design and tends to be a product of the working environment(s) across the asset and its operations.

Collaborative-Environment Scope. Fig. 1 shows the scope of both the operation center and collaborative environment as well as how the interactions between the participants, within the physical and virtual environments, are envisaged to work. The operation center is a physical space, such as a meeting room or the equivalent, in which participants can work together and interact with the various technologies within the space. Technologies, such as video conferencing or teleconferencing, enable the center to interact with other participants who are not physically within it, thus forming a collaborative environment.
Celebrating a Half-Century
Authors: Donnelly John
Published: February 2015

Welcome to this special issue of JPT celebrating SPE's 50th anniversary. A half-century ago, the society came into being as a small, primarily US-based technical organization, a spinoff of the American Institute of Mining, Metallurgical, and Petroleum Engineers. Today, SPE is a 70,000-member technical-professional society with members in 114 countries and offices around the world, producing some of the industry's best publications and meetings.

A lot has happened along the way. Inside this issue, you will find the stories of SPE's creation and growth, its accomplishments and challenges, and its notable leaders and members. As the society is inseparable from the oil and gas industry it serves, there are accounts of the significant events and changes that have occurred in the petroleum business as well, from the hallmark advances in technology to the evolution of the petroleum engineering profession and engineering education.

There are some familiar faces here. Thirty-three past SPE Presidents reflect on the milestone events of their terms, and several industry experts look back on their journeys through the industry. Many readers will recognize JPT and technical journal writers and editors from the past, including Keith Millheim, Joseph Warren, and Dennis Beliveau.

But it is not all about looking back. SPE membership is at an all-time high and growing, with new sections and student chapters sprouting across the globe. One of the big stories in SPE's history is international growth, a process that continues today. New offices are opening around the world, providing expanded services and programming for members. Several of the guest columnists in this issue offer perspectives on the future, tinged with optimism but allowing that the next 50 years could be as challenging as the last 50.

A special thanks goes to all of those who contributed guest columns and reminiscences, as well as those members and companies that provided historical information and photographs, in particular, Shell, Baker Hughes, Schlumberger, and Halliburton.
What SPE Has Meant to Me
Authors: Cobb William M. , Al-Khalifa Abdul-Jaleel , Rubin Mark A.
Published: February 2015

SPE's current and incoming presidents and staff executive director reflect on how the society has influenced their careers.

William M. Cobb, 2008 SPE President

It has been my privilege to be connected with SPE for more than 43 years, as a student, as a junior member, and then as a full member. Since 1969, I have attended every SPE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition (ATCE, in years gone by, was also known first as the Fall Meeting, then the Annual Meeting) but 1977. I have had opportunities to serve our society at the local, regional, and international levels.

This 43-year relationship has been exciting, technically inspiring, and professionally rewarding for me. As I reflect over these years of service, I unearth many fond memories. One of my first memories was my participation in the Gulf Coast Region student paper contest in 1967 while I was a graduate student at Mississippi State University. I did not win, place, or show, but the experience of conducting a research project and then learning to make an oral presentation about it to my peers was one of the most enlightening adventures of my career. To this day, I am grateful for the guidance and constructive criticism from William D. McCain and T. Don Stacy and from my classmates. This early mentoring and networking set my feet firmly on the SPE path that I have found so gratifying throughout my career. (In 1968, I won the graduate-level competition at the first West Coast Region student paper contest while working on my PhD degree at Stanford University.)

Another key moment came in 1972, when Professor W. John Lee asked me to serve on the Well Test Analysis Committee to help solicit abstracts and select papers for the 1973 ATCE in Las Vegas. This was my first opportunity to participate at the societywide level of SPE. The returns to my volunteer efforts were immeasurable—working with some of the most brilliant minds in our industry from around the world, exposure to the latest technology, and the chance to help shape one of our industry's most important events. (My wife, Carolyn, and I were married in May 1973, and the 1973 ATCE trip was our honeymoon. Unfortunately, I was bedridden with the flu during the entire meeting, but Carolyn kept me apprised of all of the activities.)

Another special moment occurred in January 2000, when I received a call advising me that the SPE Nominating Committee had nominated me to serve a 3-year term on the SPE Board of Directors as Vice President of Finance. I was deeply honored, but very surprised at this invitation! After phone calls to several past presidents and a few days of mulling the invitation, I accepted the nomination. This 3-year assignment involved a significant commitment of work and travel, but also fun and friendships. I also gained a deeper understanding of how our society functions and supports our industry. Once again, the "return on investment" in SPE was personally and professionally high.
SPE: A 1957 Snapshot
Authors: Shillings Erica
Published: February 2015

The year 1957 was a time of advancement in technology, science, and education around the world. On 16 January, three B-52s took off from Castle Air Force Base in California on the first nonstop, round-the-world flight by jet plane, which lasted 45 hours and 19 minutes. The "space age" began on 4 October when the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the first man-made space satellite. This led to the US's first attempt at putting a satellite into orbit, which failed when Vanguard TV-3 blew up on the launch pad at Cape Canaveral, Florida, on 6 December 1957. The complete microscopic theory of superconductivity was proposed in 1957 by John Bardeen, Leon Cooper, and John Robert Schrieffer, and the Treaty of Rome was signed by France, West Germany, Italy, and Benelux, establishing the European Economic Community.

In medicine, there were several breakthroughs, such as the invention of the temporary artificial heart by Willem Kolff. Alick Isaacs and Jean Lindemann produced interferon, and the internal pacemaker was created by Clarence W. Lillehie and Earl Bakk. Less dramatic events that year included the introduction of the electric watch by Hamilton Watch Company and the Frisbee by Wham-O, and a patent was awarded for Velcro.

Among these historical moments in politics, science, and popular culture came the official creation of SPE. John P. Hammond, 1957 President of the SPE of the American Institute of Mining, Metallurgical, and Petroleum Engineers (AIME), led the society through its first year of transformation. Hammond, who had graduated from the University of Tulsa, was Assistant General Superintendent of the Production Department of Amerada at the time. Since joining AIME in 1938, he held numerous chairman positions within local sections and committees.

In the beginning, SPE meetings were held only in the US and Caracas, Venezuela, and most meetings took place in Texas and Louisiana, where the oil business was thriving. As membership increased, meetings cropped up in places such as Montana, California, and West Virginia, with meeting locations dependent on local section support. To hold a meeting, a section or a sufficient number of members needed to be able to sponsor and prepare the event. SPE's meeting schedule in 1957 was as follows:14–15 February, Joint Annual Technical Meeting, University of Texas and A&M College of Texas, Austin, Texas24–28 February, AIME Annual Meeting, New Orleans18–19 April, Permian Basin Oil Recovery Conference, Midland, Texas23–24 May, Third Annual Joint Meeting, Rocky Mountain Petroleum Sections, Billings, Montana6–9 October, SPE of AIME Annual Fall Meeting, Dallas17–18 October, Southern California Petroleum Section Fall Meeting, Los Angeles17–18 October, Second Annual Conference of the Electrical and Radioactivity Logging Oil Institute, Abilene, Texas6–9 November, Second Annual Regional Meeting, Venezuela Petroleum Sections, Caracas8–9 November, Central Appalachian Section Annual Meeting, White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia
SPE Award Namesakes Were Leaders in the Industry
Authors: Shillings Erica
Published: February 2015

SPE confers 18 honors and awards that recognize members' technical and professional excellence as well as their contributions to the society, the engineering profession, and their communities. Five awards have become synonymous with AIME and SPE and are named in honor of individuals who made singular contributions to the industry.

Anthony F. Lucas Gold Medal

The Anthony F. Lucas Gold Medal, established by AIME in 1936, is awarded to individuals for distinguished achievement in improving the technique and practice of finding and producing petroleum. There have been 62 recipients of the award since its inception. The medal was named for Captain Anthony F. Lucas, who is associated with the famous Spindletop gusher near Beaumont, Texas, and was the first chairman of AIME's Oil and Gas Committee, the forerunner to what eventually would become SPE.

Often referred to as the "father of petroleum engineering," Lucas was born Antun Lucic on the coast of Dalmatia in 1855. He graduated from the Polytechnic Institute in Graz and entered the Austrian Naval Academy. He rose to the rank of second lieutenant but took a 6 months' leave of absence in 1879 to visit an uncle in Saginaw, Michigan. Lucas found employment in the lumber country and secured a second leave from his naval service. At the end of 1880, he decided to remain in the United States and changed his name to Anthony Francis Lucas. He married Caroline Weed Fitzgerald in 1887 and moved to Washington, DC. Their son, Anthony Fitzgerald Lucas, was born in 1892.

A mechanical and mining engineer, Lucas went from Colorado to Louisiana in search of gold, salt, and sulfur deposits. From 1893 to 1896, he supervised salt-mining operations in Louisiana for a New Orleans company. In drills at Anse la Butte, Belle Isle, and Grand Cote (Weeks Island), he found traces of salt deposits and oil characteristic of the salt domes of the Gulf of Mexico coast. He explored the salt dome structures in the southern states, and by the time he arrived in Beaumont, Lucas had an extensive knowledge of salt domes and sulfur deposits.

Pattillo Higgins was responsible for attracting Lucas to Beaumont. In 1899, Lucas answered an advertisement for a drilling contractor position placed by Higgins. Lucas was searching primarily for sulfur, but he also knew that there was a possibility that the Spindletop mound—a piercement-type salt dome similar to those along the Louisiana coastal region—contained oil. Lucas and Higgins got a lease/purchase agreement from the Gladys City Company for 663 acres south of Beaumont at Spindletop. In a separate agreement, Lucas retained a 90% interest for funding the search, and Higgins was given a 10% interest.

Although Lucas located traces of oil, he found drilling extremely difficult, and his light equipment collapsed after reaching a depth of 575 ft. With funds dwindling, Lucas looked toward John Galey and James Guffey for financial support. Galey, Guffey, and Lucas worked out an agreement for financing.
Fifty Years of Change in the Petroleum Engineering Profession
Authors: Lord Ron
Published: February 2015

Without a doubt, the petroleum engineers of today are very different from those of yesteryear. They are trained differently, think differently, operate differently, and use a different tool kit from that of their predecessors. Some of the changes in the profession are obvious, such as the availability of a more sophisticated tool kit and the presence of women in every facet of the business. Other changes have been more subtle, including engineers' attitude toward their profession, improved communications skills, and the rise of information overload.

Women Join the Ranks

One of the most profound changes in petroleum engineering since 1957 has been the participation of female engineers in a career field that had been overwhelmingly male. Exceedingly rare 50 years ago, female engineers and managers are now common.

"Our industry is still underserved by the female half of society, but it is a far cry from the 1950s and before," said James Pappas, Global Technology Director for Devon Energy and SPE's Technical Director for Production and Operations. "Now more than ever, women are needed in the workforce because the industry has never been so short on engineers. To have excluded half of the population in the past from such an important career amounts to nothing less than a huge case of short-sightedness by the industry."

Many of the first wave of women entering the profession were themselves daughters of oilmen, who encouraged them to pursue careers in petroleum while simultaneously cautioning the young women that the oil patch could indeed be a difficult place for them to work and succeed. Some of the obstacles included the difficulty of accommodating both men and women on offshore rigs, and sometimes women were not welcome by the wives of men working aboard a drilling and production platform offshore.

"Equality legislation during the 1970s and early 1980s did much to open doors for women and other minorities in our profession," says C.O. (Doc) Stokley, vice president of R&D for TAM International and a 42-year veteran petroleum engineer. "The result has been a much smoother path for women and other minority engineers during the past several decades."

The Move to Teamwork Depending on the culture of the company, some engineers during the 1950s and 1960s began to be exposed to multiple disciplines, such as drilling, completions, workover, fracturing, production, reservoir, and other areas in an effort to broaden their knowledge and experience. But other companies believed it was better for engineers to focus on a single discipline. By the end of the 1970s, the industry was a mix of specialists and multidiscipline generalists. This period also brought closer together the exploration and production sides of the business.
The Hidden Treasures Stored in SPE's Technical Paper Archive
Authors: Beliveau Dennis
Published: February 2015

There I was, 21 years old, standing at the base of the tower and staring up 33 floors to the top of Shell Centre. Kind of symbolic—starting my career and visualizing the long climb ahead. Just another new graduate from the University of Saskatchewan working in Calgary as a reservoir engineer. I felt daunted by all the very smart and very experienced people around me. And, like all my young and eager friends, I too wanted to load up my resume with as much experience as possible, and as soon as possible. But how to do that? The big projects that we worked on as parts of a multidisciplinary team were exciting and great learning opportunities, but they developed over a long time, and time is something young folks are impatient about.

But as part of my normal work routine, I soon was exposed to the amazing treasure trove of SPE publications. I found that if you read a paper carefully, and followed its trail of references, and then followed the references in the references, you started to get a good perspective on the technical breadth and depth of our industry. If you read all the papers on a sub-topic, it would lead you to another related topic, and so on. Even though Shell, for example, had an excellent library of technical materials and case histories, nothing could match the SPE paper archives. So I started to use the SPE library as my own personal "experience accelerator."

Getting into that mountain of SPE papers might appear an overwhelming task, if you think about it. The society has a library of almost 50,000 papers, which is why my advice to young engineers is not to think about it. But for argument's sake, let's say that about 20% of the papers pertain to your particular field of interest. At one paper per day, and allowing for weekends and vacations, it would take you only 40 years to get through the papers in your technical area ("Forty years? Are you kidding me?") OK, say that only about 20% of the papers in your technical area are the ones you really need to read, but let's also remember that reading and properly digesting even two or three papers per week is a lot of work. So realistically, it might take you only 15 years of reading ("Fifteen years?" "Yeah, that's right, kid, and unfortunately, another 20,000 papers will get published while you were reading, so don't expect to ever get finished. Ever hear of Sisyphus?").
Drilling in 2032 - Back to the Future
Authors: Thorogood John
Published: February 2015

Studying the evolution of drilling technology with the benefit of hindsight reveals many surprises. Things never turn out as foreseen; our predictions are rarely accurate. Progress appears random. Novel developments appear out of the blue. This article explores some examples of technology evolution and considers its implications for the future.

We Have the Technology We Deserve

Looking at the cyclical booms and busts of the drilling industry over the last 35 years, activity has gone from full speed ahead to full stop on several occasions. We have witnessed a withdrawal by most majors and government from the basic research that gave us the technologies we now enjoy. Innovation is now mainly confined to the service sector, but is thereby constrained by the demands of market need. Although oil-company and service-sector support for academia is growing, fundamental research is lacking, and what is done resembles technical service work. The lack of investment makes faculty positions unattractive to qualified professionals, to the detriment of teaching quality and future research.

As our workforce has matured, engineering has ceased to be analytic and has instead become heavily experience-based. In this environment, the new generation of engineers cannot develop the vital discipline of analytic rigor and problem solving. Complex problems are "solved" using sophisticated software tools, but the users can struggle to describe the engineering principles of the codes they employ. Answers emerge through a consensus of opinion-driven work groups. The spark of investigative creativity is hard to discern in an industry dominated by routine factory engineering.

The understanding behind novel developments, such as casing drilling, evolves empirically rather than from systematic research. Opinions abound, but because there are no peer-reviewed papers describing the science of why it works, nobody knows what opportunities the industry is foregoing to push limits further, or to solve other seemingly intractable problems.

Necessity is the mother of invention. Lord Browne, then head of BP's Exploration arm, rejected the idea of a field development involving an artificial island in the middle of a recreation area. Faced with the stimulus of having to do something dramatically different, the organization pulled together disparate but well-understood strands of drilling technology and demonstrated that, counter to the prevailing wisdom, drilling extended-reach wells to horizontal displacements of 10 km or more was feasible. The Wytch Farm project was approved. The rest is history.

There Is Nothing New in the Oil Field

As a young engineer proposing new ideas, it was demoralizing to be told by one's seniors that they had seen it all before. However, in one sense, they were right. There is nothing new in the oil field. The oil field is littered with visionary false starts. Recent history abounds with radical innovations that were previously tried out and failed because the concepts were too far ahead of their time.
1990-2007: Toward the Future
Authors: Donnelly John
Published: February 2015

During the 1990s, SPE took significant steps to ensure that it remained valuable to the practicing petroleum professional. It became truly international, continuing the mission that had begun more than 2 decades earlier; it opened offices outside the US and broadened board representation to enhance global member needs and services; it expanded programming to keep up with demographic and technological changes sweeping the industry; and it entered the electronic age, streamlining internal processes and giving the industry a powerful and effective Web tool.

The next decade and a half would see SPE broadening its presence on the ground throughout the world. In 1990, the SPE Board voted to open an office in London to coordinate activities in Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and India. At the end of 1981, SPE had 3,837 members, excluding students, in these regions—just under 10% of total membership. But by year-end 1990, membership in those regions had almost tripled and now represented 21.5% of total membership. During the same period, membership in the US had declined more than 5%. An office in Kuala Lumpur would open in 1995 to improve member services in the growing Asia region, and an office in Dubai to bolster Middle East activities would follow in 2003. This year, SPE will open an office in Russia.

That international trend was borne out in total membership growth as well. Overall membership grew by a third in the 1980s, despite the severe industry contraction, thanks to non-US growth. Total membership rose from 38,799 in 1980 to 51,586 at the end of 1990. Non-US membership more than doubled, from 7,876 in 1980 to 17,127 at the end of 1990. Members residing in countries other than the US now represented a third of total membership, and international growth would continue in the new decade. Eight new sections from seven countries and five new student chapters received charters in 1990, for example, putting the total number of countries with SPE sections or student chapters at 41. Among the new sections formed were ones in Mexico, Germany, Nigeria, Congo, and Bombay, India. New student chapters were formed in the United Arab Emirates and Yugoslavia. International growth was increasingly reflected in the makeup of SPE programs and services.

But perhaps the most symbolic event representing this trend came in 1991, when the society's Nominating Committee selected Jacques Bosio to become 1993 SPE President. Bosio, an executive with Elf Aquitaine Production in Paris, would become SPE's first non-US president.

"SPE was perceived as 100% US at one time, but it was opening new sections every year outside the US and appeared to be going in that direction," recalls Bosio, who had helped establish the SPE France Section in the early 1980s. "Fortunately, some presidents before me, such as Orville Gaither and Kenneth Robbins, had vision and realized that the center of gravity of the oil business was moving east.
The Challenge for the E&P Industry - A New Wave of Innovation
Authors: Millheim Keith K.
Published: February 2015

Almost 20 years ago, I wrote a paper titled "The New Engineering Paradigm and the Emergence of Investigative Engineering" and presented it at the 1988 SPE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition in Houston. Later, in August 1989, the paper was printed as an article in JPT. When the article first came out, it created quite a stir. And, as I mentioned in the article, I did not expect everyone to agree with a lot of what I had to say. Many did not. The article was com-posed to stimulate the thinking of how we engineers really function in an organization and to introduce the concept of investigative engineering.

Over the years, I have had some conversations and correspondence about the article, but, with the flow of time, the interest in the topic seemed to wane. That is not unexpected, because the shelf life of most articles is short. However, a longtime colleague of mine who works for a major oil company recently sent me an email saying that he raised the article from the archives and explained the relevance it had in some discussions with his management about engineer-ing. The email tweaked my interest in the subject again, and I reread the article for the first time in years. Then I asked myself: How much truth was captured 20 years ago? Or was there any truth in the article at all?

Now I must point out, if you are going to get the most from what I am going to say, I suggest you read the original article (SPE 18103, available in SPE's online eLibrary), especially if you are passionate about your engineering career, the way your company practices engineering, and whether the engineering paradigm of the 1980s is still the norm or has morphed into something else. The importance of the distinction of what the current engineering paradigm is or is not relates to how we, as a practicing community of engineers and scientists, meet the challenges of the future to find and produce oil and gas for the world.

A Common Goal

Whether you are a petroleum, mechanical, chemical, electrical, civil, or industrial engineer, or a physicist or chemist, once you enter the world of oil and gas exploration and production, you have a common goal: Find and produce oil and gas in the most cost-effective, safe, and prudent way. This is a yearly multibillion-dollar venture with thousands of professionals worldwide.

If you boil down the three critical factors for civilization through time, humans have been concerned about food, water, and energy. In the last hundred years, few wars were fought over food and water. However, in the last hundred years, it seems a lot of wars have had a heavy energy influence. If you have read The Prize by Daniel Yergin, you will get the flavor of this.
In My Opinion…
Authors: Warren Joseph E.
Published: February 2015

There is an old French proverb that roughly translates as follows: "The more it changes, the more it is the same." Fifty years ago when SPE was born, the US was still the world's dominant crude-oil producer—the giant oil fields of the Middle East were in the midst of development, and international oil prices were based on Gulf Coast prices less the cost of transport. But even then, industry and government strategists already were considering alternatives such as oil shale (intensely competitively bidding for acreage in Colorado), tight-gas formations (Project Plowshare promised nuclear stimulation), tar sands (an experimental plant at Bitumont, Alberta, ultimately spawned Suncor), and coal (the legacy of Fischer-Tropsch). …"All great truths begin as blasphemies," George Bernard Shaw. … Then, in the 1970s, OPEC was able to increase oil prices significantly through nationalization, and the US became a net oil importer. As a consequence of the rise in prices, the development of productive capacity in the North Sea, west Africa, and the deeper waters of the Gulf of Mexico was economically justified. Oil shale, tar sands, tight gas, and coal were on life support until the "gasoline shortage" of 1979–80, when they enjoyed a brief resuscitation that lasted about 3 years. … "Experience is the name everyone gives their mistakes," Oscar Wilde. … More recently, world energy demand has risen faster than supply, reaching a state of unstable equilibrium (demand of 84 million BOPD and supply of 87 million BOPD) that can be upset by unrest in any significant exporting country as perceived by the NYMEX traders, and prices have followed upward. As a result, tar-sand production has grown rapidly in Canada and Venezuela (despite being energy-intensive and environmentally suspect), and tight-gas production (including that from fractured shales and coal beds) has boomed. However, oil shale has remained dormant, and coal has been a non-starter. …"Man will occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of the time he will pick himself up and continue on," Winston Churchill. … Now, because the US is importing more than 50% of the oil it consumes and imports of refined products also are increasing, the incumbent masters in Washington, DC—while admitting addiction to oil—have belatedly recognized the uncertainty associated with US energy supply [e.g., Putin (Gazprom vs. the European Union and total control of production and transport, Chavez (second round of nationalization in Venezuela, including the Orinoco Tar Belt, and unfettered political power at home and in other parts of South America), and Morales (third round of nationalization in Bolivia without the resources, human and financial, needed to operate)].
The Digital Petroleum Engineer: Carpe diem!
Authors: Mahdavi Mehrzad
Published: February 2015

Guest editorial

The digital age has dawned. When it comes to information technology (IT), many think the oil and gas industry has been slow to seize the day. But the truth is we embraced IT early on, beginning in the 1950s with reservoir simulation. Since then we have researched, developed, and deployed many additional technologies and applications, with most recent efforts toward full realization of the digital oilfield.

Although we have made progress, our industry is at a crucial juncture and needs more than incremental steps; we need a major transformation. It is time to take a deep breath and take the plunge into total emersion, to be like fish in water.

Computing technology is no longer the question; it is here and progressing faster than you can say "real-time data transmission and communication." Now we need people with the right skills and vision to use the technology to transform our work. We need digital petroleum engineers.

This editorial defines a digital petroleum engineer in the energy industry, describes some roles for the digital petroleum engineer, explains why such a profession is necessary, and lays out the challenge for industry, academia, and SPE for making the profession a reality—now.

As the Chairperson of the SPE Information Technology Technical Section (ITTS), I have the honor of authoring this editorial. However, the ideas are based on many discussions over the years with many esteemed colleagues, especially those quoted below who are either members of the ITTS or advisers to the group. They have contributed significantly to the discussion and this editorial.

Who is a Digital Petroleum Engineer?

In the early days of industry software development, oil and gas professionals were teamed with IT professionals. While we have had some success with this approach, our industry also has a reputation for slow technology uptake.

IT is an integrative technology, so it only makes sense to take advantage of this catalyst and develop new roles around it. Because we can link systems from the different disciplines, the technology itself helps to transform the work processes and break down the traditional silos that emerged when, before IT, we had to break down complex problems into their smaller component pieces to solve them. Now IT is allowing us to integrate those smaller pieces together so that we can analyze, optimize, and resolve the whole.

At the very basic level a digital petroleum engineer combines IT knowledge with oil and gas content. Of course, we have many people in the industry now who have both of these skill sets. But the bottom line is we need more—many more—and we need them now. We also need to clearly define the skills required to be a digital petroleum engineer, how a person can acquire those skills, the roles they can play in the industry, and a clear career path and opportunities.
Achieving Global Acceptance of and Compliance With a Universal Set of Petroleum Resources and Reserves Definitions - Are We There Yet?
Authors: Harrell D. Ronald
Published: February 2015

Management

SPE has long been a leader together with several other cooperative industry organizations in establishing petroleum reserves definitions. This began in 1962 with the appointment of the first SPE Oil and Gas Reserves Committee (OGRC) and continues through the most recent SPE programs and processes created to inform and educate the industry and the public about the applicability and significance of the Petroleum Resources Management System (PRMS) approved by the SPE Board of Directors in March 2007. This article is a condensation of SPE 114162 and the reader is directed to the full paper for more details about the PRMS, the sponsoring societies, and the historical sequence of events leading to the current state of PRMS adoption and acceptance. The creation of the PRMS was, in every measure, a global effort as the mandate for the OGRC and its observers was strengthened by having representation from 10 countries: Australia, Canada, Hungary, Italy, Norway, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, the UK, the US, and Venezuela. Employers of the OGRC members and those of its six observers included privately owned, state-owned, independent, and integrated producers, plus large and small consulting firms, one government agency, and an international accounting board.

The more challenging part of this process clearly lies ahead as the sponsoring organizations work together to "sell" these definitions and principles to upstream petroleum industry management, the financial community, the accounting world, governments, certain mining interests, and regulators.

Has the SPE OGRC reached a sufficiently high level of consensus in crafting the PRMS for it to warrant recognition and acceptance by the companies, agencies, organizations, and individuals who will ultimately make these decisions? This article attempts to address this very important question.

Who Are the Players?

The petroleum value chain begins with exploration and production companies—large and small, public and private—who incur the financial risks and manage other uncertainties endemic to their businesses. Adoption of the PRMS by all or most producing companies will clearly not eliminate the risky nature of the industry but a common understood nomenclature removes a part of the uncertainty and helps eliminate many of the avoidable problems associated with inconsistent, and sometimes conflicting, terminology. How many oil and gas producers are there? Even though most of the world's petroleum reserves and resources are controlled by fewer than 50 or so companies, there are more than 900 companies who registered securities for sale in 2006 through stock exchanges in the US, the UK, and Canada. This number excludes several hundred more tiny-to-large privately owned companies that do not fall under the jurisdiction of any securities reporting agency.
Roncador Field Development: Reservoir Aspects and Well-Development Strategy
Authors: Denney Dennis
Published: February 2015

This article, written by Technology Editor Dennis Denney, contains highlights of paper OTC 19296, "Roncador Field Development: Reservoir Aspects and Well-Development Strategy," by L. Cysne and M.K. Mihaguti, Petrobras, prepared for the 2008 Offshore Technology Conference, Houston, 5-8 May. The paper has not been peer reviewed.

Roncador, a giant field in the deepwater Campos basin, was discovered in 1996. Field development involves an 111-km2 area and water depths from 1500 to 1900 m, with significant oil in place, different types of oil, and variations in geological characteristics. The development strategy comprises four modules. The first module, Module-1A, will produce reservoirs in the hanging wall of a large normal-fault structure. Modules-2, -3, and -4, will produce reservoirs in the footwall block. This paper presents key aspects of the reservoirs, drainage modeling and design, and the strategy for project implementation to overcome major reservoir uncertainties, such as fluid type, connectivity, and net-pay thickness.

Introduction

The Roncador deepwater oil field is approximately 125 km from the coast of São Tomé Cape, Rio de Janeiro State, Brazil (Fig. 1). Reservoir depths range from 2900 to 3600 m below sea level. Roncador reservoirs are high-quality Cretaceous-age siliciclastic reservoirs with average porosity of 25% and average absolute permeability of 800 md. The field is divided into two large blocks separated by a major normal fault (Fig. 2), with oil gravity varying from 18 to 22°API in the footwall block and 28 to 30°API in hanging-wall block. The field resource volume is approximately 7.5 billion bbl. Estimated total recovery is 3.7 billion bbl of oil equivalent, with proven reserves of 3.0 billion bbl of oil equivalent.

Module-1 started production in May 2000 through semisubmersible platform P-36. Unfortunately, in March 2001, P-36 sank. Module-1 was renamed Module-1A and was divided in two phases. Phase-1 production started at the end of 2002 with floating production, storage, and offloading (FPSO) vessel Brasil. Phase 2 of Module-1A (P-52) and Module-2 (P-54), both with 180,000 BOPD capacity, started production at the end of 2007. Peak production of approximately 450,000 BOPD will occur by 2013, when all Modules (-1A, -2, -3, and -4) will be on production.

The newest drilling and completion technologies were used to achieve the project goals: field development by constructing good-quality wells with low price in the short term. Technologies and other well-construction strategies that contributed to success in the Roncador development are detailed in the full-length paper.