Celebrating Around the World

Abdul-Jaleel Al-Khalifa, 2007 SPE President • president@spe.org

There are milestones in nations’ histories and humans’ lives. The 50th anniversary of the SPE is certainly a major milestone for more than 73,000 members. It is a milestone of a dream that became a reality. It is a success that followed 50 years of vision, hard work, and dedication. It is a culmination of a global team effort that involved staff, members, and industry at large.

SPE members have already started the journey of celebrating the 50th anniversary of the SPE in various locations around the globe. The first celebration was held in Bahrain along with the Middle East Oil Show, then in Cairo along with the SPE Board of Directors meeting, and lately in Buenos Aires during the Latin America and Caribbean Petroleum Engineering Conference. The plan is to hold celebrations in many other locations, ending with the Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition (ATCE) in Anaheim, California, in November this year. All SPE sections were also invited to celebrate this memorable and momentous occasion.

SPE Bright History

As we all celebrate this event, let’s reflect on SPE’s bright history and prospects for a promising future. Over the past 50 years, SPE membership grew six-fold, from 12,500 to more than 73,000 members. Membership services, publications, and meetings have significantly evolved to meet the exploding needs of both scope and geography.

SPE’s mission to collect and disseminate technical information is well served. The Society currently holds more than 70 events, hosting more than 150,000 attendees on an annual basis. The publication of five peer-reviewed periodicals has met the aspiration of intelligent scientists and engineers to share their knowledge and best practices. JPT brings members a broad overview of the latest technical advances each month. Talent & Technology is a recent add-on to the JPT, highlighting the importance of talent in our industry. The eLibrary, an industry first, also presents a golden treasure of 42,000 technical papers available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week around the globe.

SPE is an International Society

The transformation of SPE from a U.S. organization into an international society marks a significant evolution. This process has taken many years of planning and hard work. Now, about half of SPE’s members live outside North America. SPE offices are located across the globe, in Dallas, Houston, London, Dubai, and Kuala Lumpur. A new office is being planned in Russia. A special focus on Africa, China, and Latin America will hopefully develop into increased membership and more events in the near future. In 2010, the ATCE will be held for the first time outside North America, in Florence, Italy. It will then alternate between North America and other locations. SPE continues to transform into a borderless organization that breaks the walls of time and space. SPE thrives on excellence and diversity that transcends color, race, faith, and gender. It draws on love and respect as the most bonding relation among all SPE members.

SPE is a Member-Driven Organization

SPE is a member-driven organization, guided by individuals rather than corporations. This has enabled SPE to maintain a very transparent and unbiased position in the industry. It has also served the industry well, as it allowed SPE to penetrate through industry silos with no perceived bias. SPE will strive to preserve this prestigious position in order to ensure fairness and excellence of awards, publications, and board nominations. SPE, at the same time, enjoys working with other industry corporations and institutions in sponsoring major events and driving major initiatives.

Celebrants at the SPE 50th anniversary event held during the Middle East Oil Show included (from left) Mohammed Al Sowayigh, Saudi Aramco; Ali Al Hasan, Director Middle East Region; Mark Rubin, SPE Executive Director; Badria Farhad, Kuwait Oil Co.; Andrew Young, 2003 SPE President; Abdul-Jaleel Al-Khalifa, 2007 SPE President; Mohamed Al Marhoun, King Fahd U. of Petroleum and Minerals; Abolqasem Emamzadeh, Petroleum U. of Technology; Hassan Al Yousef, King Fahd U. of Petroleum and Minerals; and Abdul Hussain Shehab, former Director Middle East Region.

SPE Promotes Industry-Wide Collaboration

The SPE Board recently approved the new SPE/WPC/AAPG/SPEE Petroleum Resources Management System, which consolidates, builds on, and replaces guidance contained in earlier reserves documents. This new system has already been approved by our sister organizations. This intersociety project is the result of more than 2 years of intensive collaboration. Many experts will be working diligently to ensure industry-wide acceptance in a timely manner.

SPE also recently launched OnePetro, allowing an intersociety literature search and shopping mechanism. SPE has invited many societies to join this effort. Currently, four societies are onboard and others are due to follow in the future.

SPE will hold an industry-wide summit in London on June 28 to promote collaboration on talent and technology. This summit will enhance our current efforts and will spearhead new initiatives in the future.

SPE’s Future: Talent and Technology

The industry faces many challenges in the future, including growth in energy demand, unconventional resources, declining mature fields, and marginal remote pools. The need for quick development and deployment of technologies is paramount. These technologies can be imported from other industries. The barriers between upstream, mid-stream, and downstream are blurring. For example, gas-to-liquid technologies and extra-heavy-oil processing are slowly making their way into SPE meetings. Geoscience and engineering are integrating more rapidly as more real-time operation centers become operational. SPE has to adapt to this constant change of industry landscape.

Currently, full implementation of new technologies takes anywhere from a few to 15 years. This cycle time is extremely long and needs to be minimized. SPE needs to play a vital role of enhancing the process.

In the past few years, the industry has been hit with the aging of the current workforce and the erosion of industry image in Europe and North America. Globally, there are thin pools of graduates from qualified schools and the qualifications of graduates from other schools are not optimal. SPE can facilitate an industry-wide collaboration aiming to focus on talent development. This might entail a joint industry/academia effort to enhance programs at non-traditional universities while increasing enrolment in traditional schools. The objective is to improve the quality outside our normal target markets while increasing the quantity in traditional markets. The talent pool is becoming more global and off-shoring can become the norm in the future.

Young engineers’ interest in visual and digital technologies can drive the future means of knowledge dissemination. Video clips spread at amazing speed and their cost will come down significantly in the future. Would video clips be a natural add-on to the eLibrary? Can virtual e-conferences become the trend of the future? Will digital publications com-pletely substitute for printed periodicals? SPE will continue to monitor these trends and constantly evolve to meet industry needs and members’ aspirations.

Building on the successes of the past 50 years, SPE can only shine and blossom in the future. Volunteer members, dedicated staff, visionary leadership, and a supportive industry will continue to guide SPE. It is this team spirit that we aim to nurture and promote in the future.