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April 1998 - NEWSLETTER

Meetings This Month
L.A. Basin Board of Directors April 1
PTTC April 9
New Technology & Environmental Forum April 12
Petroleum Technology Forum April 22
PTTC April 23

Message From Your Chair, Sam Sarem

At the March Board meeting, our Continuing Education Chair, Bruce Davis, was elected as a Director replacing Bruce Hesson who resigned after several years of fine and dedicated service to SPE. Congratulations Bruce and welcome aboard!

Did you get a chance to read our SPE president, DeAnn Craig's column in the February issue of JPT? If not, I urge you to do so. You see, she deviated from her usual practice of talking about SPE affairs. Instead, she felt compelled to analyze the discussions at the Kyoto Conference on Global Warming exposing the fallacies involved and how the self interest and demagoguery of have-not nations was hiding the true motivation behind this conference, i.e. the transfer of wealth from have nations to have-nots.

In his speech at the OCEC Engineers Week Awards Banquet on 28 February, Dick Stegemeier, the former UNOCAL CEO, alluded to the Kyoto Conference's hidden agenda and brought out many additional interesting scientific facts regarding the alleged global warming and its influence upon international energy sources. We in the industry, and the public, need such talks to help us separate the facts from the myths and not allow the unwarranted possible sudden death of our industry over unfounded speculations.

Therefore, I am happy to inform you that Mr. Stegemeier has graciously accepted to address our group on that subject on 22 April at the Long Beach Petroleum Club giving you a second chance to hear him if you missed the first one. Let's invite our neighbors and friends to come to this meeting and learn the FACTS about the alleged global warming. Read the meeting details elsewhere in this Newsletter.

On another subject, the SPE Board of Directors met on 21-22 February in Richardson, Texas. Many issues of interest to you were discussed. The management summary of the meeting will be on the SPE Home Page (www.spe.org). Because of space limitation, I will highlight only two of the items here:

Report and Recommendation of Task Force on Global Technical Network
The Board approved a budget of U.S.$336,000 for the development and implementation of a Global Technical Network (GTN); the project is to commence by November 1998. The GTN is projected as an on-line database with information obtained voluntarily from GTN participants. SPE members participating in the GTN will be able to list their name, job title, company affiliation and contact information. They can also provide information regarding their specific technical expertise and work experience.

Pilot Internet Short Course
The FY 1999 budget includes U.S.$15,000 for the development of a pilot short course to be available via Internet. This is an effort to make short courses available to members in all areas who have access to the Internet. The effort is not intended to replace the existing short course format providing classroom interaction with industry experts.

Sam Sarem

NEW TECHNOLOGY & ENVIRONMENTAL FORUM

CO-CHAIRS, 1997-1998

Vivian Bust ENV America (714) 653-6329
Scott Hara Tidelands Oil Prod.Co. (562) 436-9918
Ed Mayer Consultant (626) 796-4437
Allan Spivak Intera-Duke (310) 979-4777
Michael Hagood ARCO Env. Rem. (213) 486-3685

Joint Meeting with the Long Beach Desk and Derrick Club

Date: Wednesday, April 15, 1998
Time: Registration & Social: 6:00 p.m.
Dinner: 6:45
Presentation: 7:30
Place:
Long Beach Petroleum Club
3636 Linden AvenueLong Beach, CA 90807
Cost: $20.00

Reservations: Call Ed Meyer (562) 624-3377

On or before April 13 th

Topic: ELK HILLS - Plans for the Future of a California Giant

Speaker: Don Romine, General Manager or

Bill Evans, Chief Engineer

Occidental Elk Hills Corporation

Abstract The U.S. Government interest in the giant Elk Hills Field was recently sold to Occidental Petroleum of over $3 Billion. This is the largest U.S. Government privatization on record.

The top level Occidental speaker will briefly review the history of the field as background. Emphasis of the presentation will be on Oxy's future exploitation plans and not on details about the reservoir or this world class oilfield.

PETROLEUM TECHNOLOGY FORUM

OFFICERS, 1997-1998

Ron Behrens Chairman Chevron (562) 694-7813

Ed Santiago Program DOG (714) 816-6847

John Thompson Treasurer Gas Co (562) 578-2641

John Jepson Secretary DOG (714) 816-6847

Date: Wedneday, April 22, 1998

Time: Social: 11:30 a.m.

Lunch: 12:00

Presentation: 12:30

Place: Long Beach Petroleum Club

3636 Linden Avenue

Long Beach, CA 90807

Cost: $13.00 member, $5.00 student

Reservations: Not Required

Speaker: Richard Stegemeier

Topic: Global Warming

Global warming is one of the "hot" topics in the oil business. Richard Stegemeier repeats his presentation made to the OCEC Awards banquet last month. He alludes to the secret agenda of the Kyoto, Japan environmental conference regarding alleged global warming and its influence upon international energy sources. He also will bring out many interesting facts regarding global warming. Bring a friend.

Richard Stegemeier is the former CEO of Unocal. He rose from research engineer to CEO in 37 years. He is now retired but remains active in the industry. His last presentation at the Long Beach Petroleum club was one of the best attended nightly meetings the SPE ever had. He is an excellent speaker with a very good grasp of relevant facts. His question and answer session at the end of his presentation should prove lively to say the least.

PTTC Events

West Coast PTTC Workshop on: Gas Production Management- Advances in Technology

April 9,1998 Sacramento

Gas Production Issues
Metering
Low BTU Gas
Completion and Monitoring
Sand Control
Water Disposal
Noise Log
Deregulation
Gas Storage

Well Abandonment and Re-Abandonment; Problems, Solutions and Regulatory Issues

A PTTC West Coast Resource Center Workshop

April 23, 1998 in Los Angeles, April 24, 1998 in Bakersfield

Legal Aspects --15 year rule
Short Term/Long Term liability
Operator -vs- Land owner

Basic Technology of Well Abandonment
History & Experiences

Rules and Regulations
Minimum requirements
Requirement Exposures

Operational Aspects
Tools and Techniques
Coiled Tubing -vs- Abandonment (service) Rigs
Cements and Additives
Alternative Resins

Abandonment and Re-Abandonment's issues
Leak Testing

Panel Session Q & A

Abandonment
Re-abandonment
Specific failures
Doing it better with better cost effectiveness
Legal liabilities

Case Studies

To register Contact Dr. Hooshang Kharabaf, West Coast PTTC at (213) 740-8076

West Coast PTTC Workshop

Characterizing Turbidite Sequences with Dr. Arnold Bouma

Co-Sponsored by the Pacific Section AAPG

Saturday May 9, 1998 Univ. of Southern Cal, Los Angeles

Sunday May 10, 1998, Bakersfield

Registration fee $50. Includes refreshments, luncheon and workshop manual.

To register call Dr. Kharabaf at 213-740-8076.

LA SPE Website Report

The LASPE Website was first planned in July of 1996. By September of 1996 it was up and running. By the fall of 1996 the LASPE had its own unique domain name (web address) of "www.laspe.org". The goal of the site was to provide the membership with an online resource that provided industry news, announcements, calendar, employment opportunities in a timely manner.

January of 1997 the site had developed to the level it is found today with all of the above goals met as well as providing membership information and details of officers and committee chairs. The site was then expanded to include continually updating information for the 67th Annual Western Regional Meeting in held in Long Beach.

The site was repeatedly updated with 67th WRM information on seminar topics, speaker bios, keynote luncheons, field trips, schedules, abstracts on papers and GEMS to be presented. Online registration forms as well as Hotel and local events information was posted. The Internet traffic coming into the site went up significantly during this period showing that the membership as well as the national and international petroleum community was checking in for information.

Typically the site is hit 1000 to 1500 times a month from 120 to 150 different servers from all over the world.

Agreements with our Internet Service Provider (ISP), 95Net, allows the LASPE membership to enjoy low cost, full internet access (web, email, newsgroups, chat, etc.). A member can have an email or web address that reflects the industry in which they work without the possibility of loosing it due to changes in work assignment. Any member can call 95Net at 714-222-1034 and ask for the LASPE Internet Account plan.

Most recently, in December of 1997, the "Job Board" was upgraded to link to the London SPE chapter which has postings and links to other chapters world wide providing career opportunities on a global basis.

The LASPE Website will continue to evolve to meet the needs of the section membership.

Larry Gilpin
Webmaster/Director
info@laspe.org
larry@blazingbits.com
714-847-7119

UPCOMING EVENTS

April 5-8
SPE Rocky Mountain Regional / Low Permiability Reservoirs Permeability Symposium and Exhibition
Denver, CO

April 15
Elk Hills Plans for the Future
New Technology Forum, Long Beach

April 22, 1998
"Global Warming"
Petroleum Technology Forum, Long Beach

April 23, 1998
Well Abandonment and Re-Abandonment;
PTTC at USC

May 4-7
Offshore Technology Conference
Houston, Texas

May 8, 1998
SPE-API-D&D Charity Golf Tournament
Green River Rd., Corona, CA

May 11-15
SPE Western Regional Meeting
Bakersfield, CA

May 10 to 15
SPE FORUM SERIES IN ASIA PACIFIC
Integrating Well Testing & Res. Characterization
Nusa Dua, Indonesia (60)3-294-7211

May 12
THUMS Review of the Last Fiscal Year's Goals and Performance, Steve Freeman, President
Petroleum Technology Forum, Long Beach

May 17 to 22
SPE FORUM SERIES IN ASIA PACIFIC
Advances in Drilling Tech. & Operations
Nusa Dua, Indonesia (60)3-294-7211

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