Thomas Gouldie

John Donnelly, JPT Editor

Editor’s Note: In recognition of SPE’s 50th anniversary this year, JPT is conducting interviews with several society luminaries about their careers, their relationship with SPE, and the changes they have seen in the oil and gas industry and the society over the past several decades.

When did SPE first come to Australia, and what was your involvement?

SPE was established in Australia because of the passion of two individuals and the business needs of their companies. Bob Koch with Santos and Ray Hollis with Delhi Petroleum, both working in Adelaide, South Australia, had both been involved with SPE in other countries for many years before moving to Australia. In 1981, they also were both involved in a big expansion of onshore Australian operations, had recruited heavily overseas, and had brought in from 25 to 30 engineers during 1981 and 1982 to help with the work. Bob and Ray wanted their engineers to keep technically competent and up to date and saw the wide distribution of JPT, plus the opportunities for Distinguished Lecturers from overseas passing along knowledge, as a very good reason to start up a new SPE section in Australia.

In May 1982, they gathered 10 other existing but mainly new SPE members and submitted an application for the new Australian Section, which was approved by the SPE Board of Directors, with Bob becoming the first Section Chairperson from 1982 to 1983. Ray became Section Chairperson from 1984 to 1985, and then went on to become the first Asia Pacific Region Director from 1985 to 1987.

Following the startup of the Australian Section in Adelaide in 1982, five other sections were formed from 1983 to 1990 centered around the Australian cities of Perth, Melbourne, Brisbane, Sydney, and Darwin. The Australian Section was later renamed the South Australian Section.

What obstacles had to be overcome for SPE to catch on?

When I moved to Australia as a petroleum engineer in 1981, we had to write a very detailed account for the immigration department—to obtain a work visa—about what a petroleum engineer was and why it was different from, say, a mechanical engineer or chemical engineer. SPE had not yet been established in Australia, and there were no petroleum engineering schools or courses in the country.
After the SPE sections took hold across the country in the early to middle 1980s, the recognition factor for SPE grew. But there was still an ongoing need, which remains in part even today, to make known what SPE is, what it represents, why those in the upstream industry should get involved, and the particular focus and advantage that SPE has and gives.

What were your first experiences in SPE?

I attended my first petroleum engineering classes in 1971 at the University of Texas at Austin. During that year and the years following, operating companies such as Texaco, Sun, Getty, Amoco, and Standard Oil of California used to sponsor “chicken seminars”—where they served fried-chicken lunches for the students—tied to SPE student chapter meetings. These sessions certainly got the attention of the typically hungry students and helped to promote the companies to the students and faculty.

I did not become an SPE member until after graduating from the university, mainly because I was employed three-quarter- to full time throughout college and was a married student, so many of the SPE events catering to students were simply not practical for me to attend. I became a member in early 1976 and attended Delta Section meetings regularly while working in New Orleans. I remember being impressed by the efficiency of the lunchtime meetings, as organizers were able to register more than 120 attendees, then feed them and present them with very good speakers in around 60 minutes.

I did not get involved in SPE committee work until 1988, when I joined the Western Australian Section Committee, and then I continued on to the South Australian Section Committee when I moved to Adelaide in 1989. I held many committee positions until taking on the Section Chairperson’s role in 1994. I still serve on the South Australian Section Committee.

What are some of your memorable SPE experiences?

An area that I am quite proud of is my involvement with the SPE Council here. The Asia Pacific Region was formed in 1983 to include sections from Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia, Japan, Singapore, Thailand, and Malaysia. This was a huge geographic area and encompassed many different cultures and member requirements, and I am sure it was very difficult for the Regional Directors to represent these sections adequately.

By 1985, there were five SPE sections in Australia, and there were some good reasons for these sections to come together to talk about things that impacted all of them. Bob Koch and Ray Hollis again came together to push for an Australian Council, with representation from each Australian section. This was approved as the first SPE Council and first met in January 1986. Since then, sections in New Zealand and Papua New Guinea have joined to form the Australian/New Zealand/Papua New Guinea Council. The Council has had eight Chairpersons and has met 32 times since 1986. I was honored to serve as the Council Chairperson from 1997 to 1999. I still represent the South Australian Section on the Council.

In 1988, I became a Member of the Institution of Engineers Australia, the body in Australia that confers Chartered Professional Engineer status. By 1992, it seemed that there was good reason to get the Institution and SPE talking to each other, so I drafted an Agreement of Cooperation between the two organizations (at that time, each had about 50,000 members) and began negotiating and drafting a formal relationship between them. It took 18 months of telephone and fax discussions, and in August 1993, SPE and the Institution of Engineers Australia signed the first Agreement of Cooperation between the organizations. I am happy to say that the agreement was re-signed in October 1998 and again in September 2006, this one signed by 2006 SPE President Eve Sprunt while in Adelaide, South Australia, for the 2006 SPE Asia Pacific Oil & Gas Conference and Exhibition. In 2000, I was elected a Fellow of the Institution.

My most memorable SPE experience without a doubt was being awarded the SPE Health, Safety, and Environment (HSE) Award in 2006. For me, it was an overwhelming feeling, the first person from Australia to receive a major SPE Award, and a tremendous honor that I have been sharing with as many people as will let me do so.

What impact has SPE had on your professional career?

I have always portrayed SPE as an extremely professional organization, managed by very capable and dedicated staff, with a real talent for hosting world-class conferences and other events. I have been so impressed over the years with how well SPE meetings are managed that we have modeled an industry HSE forum here in Australia using a good bit of the SPE model for meetings. This meeting, the Wellsite EHS Forum, has been built on quality, with a noncommercial atmosphere and fit-for-purpose presentations that have been very well received over the 8 years we have been running it.

An undervalued aspect of participation in SPE committees at all levels has been the opportunities for individuals to participate in planning and carrying out world-class industry events such as SPE conferences. This professional-development opportunity, along with meeting top-notch industry personnel that you would otherwise never meet and work with, is a great career-development step for most members.

What SPE programs or services have been the most valuable to you?

For most sections in Australia, the highlights for the year are the visits by SPE Distinguished Lecturers and Officers. Because most Lecturers and Officers from the northern hemisphere really like visiting Australia, especially during their winter, we almost always get visits by the Distinguished Lecturers that our sections have requested. They bring the latest thinking and case histories from around the world to our members, which is invaluable.

And even with the importance and usefulness of the Internet in delivering information, JPT is still pored over every month by most engineers looking for the latest new thing. And what is really worthwhile is that it is actually written down in front of them for reading on the bus or train or at the office.

What do you think are the most significant changes that have taken place in the industry and SPE during your career?

Overwhelmingly our increasing reliance on computers to capture, store, and deliver technical, operations, and professional information is the most significant change that has taken place in the industry during my career. We take email for granted, but that one aspect of computer technology improves communications tremendously, especially given the typing pools, filing systems, and state of communications in the 1970s and early 1980s.

A close second in significant changes would be the internationalization of SPE in the 1990s. This conscious outward movement of SPE to the industry outside of the US was inevitable and I think has allowed SPE to get much better and more valuable much faster than it otherwise could have done.

During my career, significant changes in how we handle and manage HSE matters were prompted by the building of the Alaska Pipeline in the mid-1970s, then the tragic 1988 Piper Alpha disaster, and, finally, the 1989 grounding of the Exxon Valdez. These three events irretrievably changed how we deal with HSE issues in the oil industry world. The flow-on effect in terms of management systems and changing attitudes because of these and similar HSE events are still felt today.

What are some professional and technical highlights of your career?

In the mid-1980s, I worked for Chevron Geothermal in San Francisco. During the Reagan presidency, there were tax incentives for work related to alternative energy, so Chevron put a lot of effort and money into developing the geothermal resources that they operated in California, Nevada, and Utah. While the rest of the oil industry was in a downturn, the geothermal industry was drilling and developing both steam- and water-dominated fields across the western US. It was a case of “full steam ahead.” Given that geothermal work was not common, we had to make things up as we went along and questioned every single activity within an operation to see if it should be done and how. We drilled wells without logging, casing, or cementing. We had a lot of activity, and it was an exciting time. I’m still a big fan of geothermal energy.

Another highlight was being part of the delineation work on the Gorgon and West Tryal Rocks fields when I was with West Australian Petroleum in the early 1980s. This offshore work was a big deal for the company then, and I was lucky enough to sit on some of those wells during the testing phases to determine reservoir characteristics and flow potentials. They were exciting days.

What individuals were most influential to you during your career?

My brother Bob, who studied petroleum engineering 2 years ahead of me at the University of Texas at Austin, got me into the industry and was a touchstone for quite a few years after I graduated.

My grandfather John, who worked in the industry in the 1930s in east Texas, was an inspiration in the way he thought about things, very logical and purposeful. His stories of life in the oil field before World War II were remarkable, and I regret not recording them on tape or paper before he died at age 90 not too long ago.

In university, I received encouragement and support that I only appreciated much later from Roy Knapp, my first reservoir-engineering professor. I still think that without his influence I may not have completed my degree and may not have entered the engineering profession.

Tom Gouldie, SPE, has more than 30 years of experience in the oil, gas, and geothermal industries, beginning in 1976 with Standard Oil of California in New Orleans. He has worked in production, reservoir, drilling, and operations in hydrocarbons and geothermal in Louisiana, Saudi Arabia, and throughout Australia. He is currently Operations Integrity Engineer with Santos Ltd in Adelaide, Australia, responsible for the management of health, safety, and the environment (HSE) for wellsite operations. He has published and taught in the areas of contracting strategies and wellsite health and safety.

Gouldie is Chairperson of the Wellsite Permit to Work Steering Committee, an industry group responsible for the development and maintenance of an industrywide permitting system used throughout onshore Australia. He also manages a Santos and contractor group called the Wellsite EHS Forum. Gouldie is a Registered Professional Petroleum Engineer in Louisiana and a Chartered Professional Engineer in Australia. He is a Fellow of the Institution of Engineers, Australia, and a member of the Institute of Arbitrators and Mediators, Australia.

Gouldie’s SPE activities include serving as Section Chairperson and Chairperson of the SPE Australia/New Zealand/Papua New Guinea Council. He has chaired SPE committees for the Reservoir Engineering Award, the Lester C. Uren Award, and the inaugural combined committee for the Carll, Lucas and Uren awards. He was elected an SPE Distinguished Member in 2001 and received the 2006 SPE HSE Award. Gouldie earned a BS degree in petroleum engineering from the University of Texas at Austin and a professional certificate in arbitration and mediation from the University of Adelaide.