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Message From Your Chair ...
Dear fellow SPE members,
What better way to start the year than with a highly successful Industry Appreciation Night. This, in spite of the late arrival of the meeting announcement in the Newsletter due to the UPS strike. Scott Hara, chairman of the Community Relations Committee, along with past LA Basin Section Chair Glenn Swanson, who invited the Texaco's Director of Diversity and Employment, Edward Gadson, and MC'd the event, are to be congratulated for a job well done. Read the details by Scott elsewhere in this Newsletter.
Six SPE members received the Legion of Honor award for being the member of SPE continuously for over 50 years. They are: Dr. George Chilingar, Dr. Richard Crog, Robert Foss, Arthur Fox, Thomas Pyburn and Robert Woodward. Messrs. Foss and Pyburn, attended the event. Congratulations to all.
Bruce Hesson, Ed Santiago, Timothy Liggett and Paul Frost received the coveted Section Distinguished Service award for outstanding service to the SPE L.A. Basin Section. Many thanks on behalf of the Section.
The ATCE in San Antonio, Texas was another SPE successful event second to none. The 93,570 square feet of Exhibits offered an opportunity to learn about thousands of new products giving us a hint of what await us in the next Century while it help produce substancial income for SPE. Of the total SPE membership of 51,000, 10,074 attended this meeting compared to 8907 last year and 8921 two years ago. There were as much as 12 simultaneous sessions for a total of 67 sessions presenting 371 papers plus 6 GEMS. Last year 334 papers were presented plus some GEMS.
At the meeting, I had the honor of moderating the Ph.D. student paper contest. As usual, the talks were ALL great and the judges had an extremely difficult time picking the International winner. The winner was Luis Fernando Quintero of LSU who talked on 'Hydrocarbon Typing Using The Dual-Spaced Neutron Tool Response." I didn't know that the Microsoft Power Point and a PC projector could so effectively be combined for an outstanding presentation. If you have not judged or been a moderator of one of these contests, you should consider doing so in the future as not only a service to SPE, but to get acquainted with the cutting edge technologies discussed by the students. It is lots of fun to boot!...I would like to thank Greg Scott, member of the Global SPE Career Guidance Committee and Senior past Chair of our Section, for inviting me to be the moderator.
Before ATCE, the SPE Board approved additional funds for feasibility study of the Global Technology Transfer (GTN) program in which among other things, the SPE members can present their capabilities globally on Internet. I believe this could greatly facilitate the global technology transfer. They also approved a large expenditure for further work on the much-needed Management Information System (MIS) which is designed to streamline the operations and eliminate redundancies in various handling of the membership information such as accounting, registration, advertising, etc.
On another Board-related matter, Dr. Khalid Aziz, Professor and past Chair of Petroleum Engineering Department at Stanford University, was named the Western Region Director filling the position vacated by our own Ms. Marina Voskanian. On behalf of our Section, I would like to thank Marina for representing us so well at the Board and welcome Khalid as our new Director. We are looking forward to working with Dr. Aziz to advance and achieve SPE goals.
Sam Sarem
Chair
My Favorite Links
While the media concentrates internet coverage on reported smut, theft, and spam, it may come as a surprise to many that there is still some useful information out there for interested professionals. Here are a few sites I find useful and informative:
For an trail to earth science resources check the Science and Geologic Petroleum Internet Resources at http://www.slb.com/petr.dir/.guthery.html. There are hundreds of sites, nicely cataloged for easy searching. Some sites are dated (even expired) but there are many useful sites.
One very useful link was to the Houston Geological Society at http://www.hougeo.org/articles.htm. They actually publish articles from their journal on the site. Articles concentrate on Gulf Coast geology and production, but we will probably all end up working there some day anyway!
If you still want to stay in California, check out the map of California and Nevada earthquakes at http://quake.wr.usgs.gov/QUAKES/CURRENT/current.html. You can witness activity that occurred as recently as one hour before. Check on the detailed maps of Mammoth Lakes before you book any long term hotel reservations.
Finally, if you don't care what takes place under your feet, look upwards to watch what satellites pass over the LA area. Look into J-Pass for Satellite Passes at
http://liftoff.msfc.nasa.gov/RealTime/JPass/. You can request visibility maps for over 30 satellites, but only the Mir, Hubble Space Telescope, or Space Shuttle are bright enough to be seen from our surroundings. We have a truly good view of the MIR on November 21 at 6:09 a.m. when IT passes directly over head, just before sunrise.
Enjoy the resource available on the Net.
Mitch Findlay
Editor
The Los Angeles Basin Section is pleased to welcome the following people who joined our section recently:
Name Company
Mr. James R. Carter SPL Laboratories
Mr. Stephen A. Freund Nalco/Exxon Energy Chemicals
Mr. Paul L. Frost Tidelands Oil Production Company
Mr. Alexander M. Grigoryan Grigoryan Branched Horizontal Wells
Mr. Dennis E. Hill Hiwa Petroleum
Mr. Mark B. LeClair Earth Technology Corp.
Mr. Michael E. Osborne Chevron Petroleum Technologies Co.
As you can see from the above list, independent operators and service companies continue to play an important part of our membership. Be sure to say hello to these new members when you see them at one of our functions.
Jeff Blesener
Membership Co-Chairman
1997
October 14 Shafiq Allawala, SPE Distinguished Lecturer (2nd Tues.) "Maximizing Recovery from Mature Fields"
November 19 Joint meeting the New Technology / Environmental Forum (Wednesday evening)
December 2 Alexander Sas-Jaworsky II, SPE Distinguished Lecturer (1st Tues.) "The Expanding Role of Coil Tubing in Oilfield Operations"
1998
January 13 Keith Hejl and Mike Bruno, Chevron and Terralog Technologies (2nd Tues.) "Slurry Injection at the West Coyote Field"
February 10 Neal Davis, Chevron, 1995-1996 SPE Distinguished Lecturer (2nd Tues.) "Drilling Cost Reductions"
March 10 Scott Hall, SPE Distinguished Lecturer (2nd Tues.) "Multilarterals Revitalize Waterflood"
April 14 (Terry Smith, President, Tidelands Oil Production Company (2nd Tues.) TBA
May 12 (Steve Freeman, President, THUMS Long Beach CO. (2nd Tues.) "A Review of the Last Fiscal Year's Goals and Performance"
1997-1998 Officers
Ron Behrens, Chairman (562) 694-7813 Chevron Petroleum Technology Company rbeh@chevron.com
Ed Santiago, Program Chairman (562) 590-5311 Division of Oil and Gas, Dept. of Conservation
John Thompson, Treasurer (310) 578-2641 The Gas Company
John Jepson, Secretary (562) 590-5311 Division of Oil and Gas, Dept. of Conservation
Meeting Schedule
11:30 AM Social
12:00 Noon Lunch
12:30 PM Speaker
1:15 PM Adjourn
All meetings held at the Long Beach Petroleum Club, 3636 Linden Ave., Long Beach
PETROLEUM TECHNOLOGY FORUM
CO-CHAIRS, 1997-1998
Ron Behrens Chairman Chevron (562) 694-7813
Ed Santiago Program DOG (562) 590-5311
John Thompson Treasurer Gas Co (562) 578-2641
John Jepson Secretary DOG (562) 590-5311
Date: Tuesday, December 2, 1997
Time:
Social: 11:30 a.m.
Lunch: 12:00
Presentation: 12:30
Place: Long Beach Petroleum Club, 3636 Linden Avenue, Long Beach, CA 90807
Reservations: Not Required
Speaker: Alex Sas-Jaworsky, Distinguished Lecturer
Topic: The Expanding Role of Coiled Tubing in Oilfield Operations
This presentation reviews the current applications of coiled-tubing technology and describes value-adding opportunities that have been realized through the growth of coiled-tubing operating systems. Expanded coiled-tubing services and developments focused on enhanced utility are also reviewed.
Alex Sas-Jaworsky II is founder and principal engineer of SAS Industries Inc., an engineering firm in Houston. He has written many papers on
coiled tubing and has served on several American Petroleum Inst. committees that developed recommended practices in coiled tubing. He holds a BS degree in petroleum engineering from the U. of Southwestern Louisiana
UPCOMING EVENTS
December 5
Economic Impact of Premature Field Abandonment, PTTC, USC, CA (213) 740-8076
January 29 & 30, 1998
International Symposium on Energy and Environmental Management and Technology
Irvine, CA (562) 985-8181
May 10 to 15, 1998
SPE FORUM SERIES IN ASIA PACIFIC
Integrating Well Testing & Res. Characterization
Nusa Dua, Indonesia (60)3-294-7211
May 17 to 22, 1998
SPE FORUM SERIES IN ASIA PACIFIC
Advances in Drilling Tech. & Operations
Nusa Dua, Indonesia (60)3-294-7211
Call SPE Richardson, for details @ (800) 456-6863
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