Comments: Awarding Excellence and Innovation
Authors: Donnelly John 
Published: February 2015

Editor's column

The oil and gas industry, like many industries, awards its best and brightest companies, technologies, and individuals with annual or occasional awards, calling attention to excellence and innovation. Among the most prestigious are awards handed out at the International Petroleum Technology Conference (IPTC), held in late March in Beijing, and the upcoming Offshore Technology Conference (OTC) in May.

IPTC singles out companies and major projects with its Excellence in Project Integration Award. The honor highlights projects that have demonstrated distinction throughout the entire value chain, and are at least USD 500 million equivalent in value. Past winners have included both international and national oil companies. Taken into account are projects that exemplify strong teamwork, solid geoscience knowledge, reservoir and production engineering expertise, outstanding facilities engineering practices, and a strong commitment to health, safety, and the environment and advocate innovative and people-oriented human resource policies and community programs.

This year, 16 nominations were submitted representing projects in 12 countries. The IPTC Awards Committee selected three as finalists:

Efficient Development of the Large Tight Sandstone Gas Field in Sulige—China National Petroleum Corp. and PetroChina Changqing Oilfield Co.

Jubilee Project in Ghana—Tullow Ghana Ltd.

 Pazflor, a Technological Breakthrough in Deep Offshore Developments—Total Full coverage of the conference and the projects will be included in the May issue of JPT.

The OTC honors companies, individuals, and new technologies. At the annual OTC Dinner in early May, the 2013 Distinguished Achievement Awards will be presented to Ken Arnold, senior technical advisor at Worley Parsons, who will receive the award for individual achievement, and to Total Exploration and Production, for corporate achievement. The Heritage Award will be presented to E. Dendy Sloan Jr., professor emeritus of Colorado School of Mines, and James Brill, professor emeritus at the University of Tulsa.

Arnold, who is a member of the editorial advisory board of SPE’s Oil and Gas Facilities magazine, is being recognized for his outstanding leadership and extensive contributions to the E&P industry. He has played a key role in the offshore industry’s focus on safety through the development of recommended practices for offshore design and safety management, and has been instrumental in helping establish oilfield facilities engineering as a recognized technical engineering specialty.

Total is being honored for the Pazflor deep offshore development in Angola, which has been producing for 18 months and is one of the world’s largest and most sophisticated deep offshore developments to date. Pazflor represented the first use of subsea separation and pumping on a wide scale and included construction of the world’s largest FPSO.

OTC’s annual Spotlight on New Technology Awards recognize innovative technologies that are advancing the industry into the future. A full list of the winners and their technologies is contained in this issue.