SPE-GCS Blog

June 30th, 2022

I have had the opportunity to serve and lead the Gulf Coast section for the past 12 months; it’s been the highlight of my career. I joined the Gulf coast section in the fall of 2012, this year marks my tenth year as a member of this prestigious section. I have grown as a professional servant leader, a friend, and a trusted advisor during these years. I want to take this opportunity to thank my family, friends, and, most importantly, the board of directors. I do not think I would have it this far without them. As I transition to the past chair position, I would also like to thank Simeon Eburi, our outgoing past chair, for the support and mentorship during these months and to the incoming chair and a good friend, Carlos; I wish you the best during …

May 4th, 2022

The past month has seen some of the most volatile trends in the price of oil. Variations of ±10% are becoming quite common, as the industry grapples with a highly fluctuating geopolitical risk premium. Daily updates on the Russia-Ukraine front quake the market, along with the news of government deliberations and actions in response. We also saw the first confirmations of Russian war crimes in Ukraine. In response, the EU has begun an intense debate on how to proceed with bans on Russian products like wheat, precious metals, and of course, oil and gas. While not much may be achieved in the short term in terms of banning Russian gas, the fact that the EU is having these conversations is notable. The potential economic costs would be astronomical and exacerbated by present inflation, and the issue seems to be expanding …

April 5th, 2022

May 2007 

XTO Energy, the largest natural gas producer in Arkansas, has begun employing a proppant-flowback arrester (PFA), which helps control proppant flowback and fines production and helps maintain highly conductive fractures and long-term productivity.  The process combines new technologies that enable resin-treatment of proppant after it has been placed in the fracture. The service uses coiled tubing coupled with either pressure-pulsing or fluid-wave technology, and is a coiled-tubing deployed, rigless intervention. Projected value added, in the form of reduced workover-cleanout expense and increased production ranges from $210,000 to 440,000/well/year.

The US Department of Energy (DOE) completes the first edition of a National Atlas describing potential CO2 sequestration reservoirs and their capacities. These reservoirs include: depleted oil and gas reservoirs, unmineable coalbeds, and deep saline reservoirs. Theoretically, geologic reservoirs have the capacity to store all the CO₂ produced by the …

April 4th, 2022

APRIL 2017

Oil prices slip after Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announces that his country would free 15 British naval personnel it had captured in the Persian Gulf more than a week before, pardoning and releasing them as a pre- Easter gift to Britain. By mid-afternoon on the day of the announcement, West Texas Intermediate for May delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange was down 43¢ at $64.21/bbl.

Based on a managed pressure drilling project conducted in the Sichuan basin of China, Sinopec concludes that the advantages of using air as a circulating fluid are substantial. In comparison with mud rates, the ROPs are significantly higher, which reduces drilling time. Wellbore problems, such as lost circulation and sloughing shales, are virtually eliminated, and air drilling allows the use of air percussion hammers, which also contributes to drilling a true vertical hole.

After the …

April 1st, 2022

Hello April,

Two months ago, I spoke of the tightness of the market, and how susceptible the price was to a potential attack in Iran, Saudi or the Middle east.

What I never saw was a Russian invasion of Ukraine. However, the fundamentals simply reiterated the susceptibility of the markets to geopolitical tensions.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has entered its 2nd month with more companies announcing that they are exiting their Russia holdings including Shel, bp, Equinor, ExxonMobil, Schlumberger, Halliburton, Baker Hughes, KCA Deutag and others. The reality however is that Europe remains tied to Russia due to their dependence on Russia to meet 40% of their natural gas needs. That energy demand is not disappearing; perhaps, high gas prices can help with that albeit slowly. As such, the supply choke due to Russian sanctions will only keep oil prices higher. …

March 1st, 2022

Welcome to March; we are blessed to see this month. This month’s newsletter highlights some of the work the SPE-GCS Newsletter Committee is working on in collaboration with the Diversity & Inclusion Committee.

The Society of Women Engineers, in collaboration with the National Society of Black Engineering (NSBE) and the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineering (SHPE), received a grant from the National Science Foundation to create the Women of Color in Engineering Collaborative (WCEC). SPE is a partner in this collaboration.

The WCEC will be targeting issues women of color (WOC) face that causes a disparity between WOC who complete engineering degrees and WOC in the engineering workspace. The goal is for partner organizations to help decrease the barriers that lead to the attrition of WOC engineers.

The grant has three main goals:

1. Establish the WCEC to address systemic barriers …

March 1st, 2022

MARCH 2016

Oklahoma researchers recorded more than 900 earthquakes greater than 3.0-magnitude during 2015, up from 578 in

that category during 2014. As of early March, more than 140 earthquakes greater than 3.0-magnitude have hit the state, including eight greater than 4.0. Drilling disposal wells through the Arkbuckle formation into the crystalline basement could increase the risk of triggered earthquakes, some researchers claim.

For a group said to have arrived at death’s door many times in 55 years, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries has displayed remarkable survivability, simply by adapting. Past death pronouncements emerged when oil- market changes undermined the group's effectiveness, and the latest threat will likely be no different.

An estimated 230,105 Texans remained on upstream industry payrolls as of January. The last time the crude-oil price and the rig count were at present levels, upstream oil …

February 1st, 2022

FEBRUARY 2007

Former Yukos head Mikhail Khodorkovsky knows where he stands in Vladimir Putin’s Russia regarding new charges brought against him and business associate Platon Lebedev. Once Russia’s richest man, Khodorkovsky is serving eight years on fraud and tax evasion charges, which he claims

were fabricated by his enemies in the Kremlin to punish him for his political ambitions. “It is absolutely clear what will happen next: Fake evidence, testimony from intimidated witnesses, and a quick guilty verdict,” Khodorkovsky claims in a statement written from his prison cell in eastern Siberia.

A Houston-based firm successfully tests a new drilling system designed to enhance the rate of penetration through hard rock. Particle-impact drilling (PID) is a closed-loop process in which hardened steel shot particles are injected into the drilling mud, circulated, and recovered from the mud system without allowing the shot …

February 1st, 2022

INDUSTRY UPDATE:

At this moment in our industry, the biggest concern is that the world’s economy is yet to fully recover.

Even with the threat of the Delta, Omicron and forthcoming coronavirus variants, the world seems to have moved beyond the fears. A year ago, BP predicted that the world had reached peak demand because of Covid-19, the push for greener energy, and consumer behavior trends like working from home. Less than a year later, we have surpassed pre-Covid demand levels. As such, we’ve accepted that demand is back and poised to grow as the economy continues its recovery.

However, the more significant threat is in the supply part of the curve. To illustrate: Most investment banks expect to see oil reach $100 per barrel this year because the world’s spare capacity is almost exhausted. This implies that even the slightest geopolitical …

January 1st, 2022

Happy New Year! I’m pleased to welcome you to the first edition of the 2022 SPE-GCS newsletter. I want to take this opportunity to wish our members and affiliates a Happy New Year. Reflecting on 2021, we witnessed a promising industry ready to embrace the energy transition while providing energy for the world. This is an exciting moment for the Gulf Coast Section. As the global economy continues to recover, the outlook for 2022 and beyond continues to improve. The industry is much healthier, with a few remarkable mergers and acquisitions that will speed up growth initiatives at a high rate of return. The price of oil rose to a new record level in the last few years and most of our colleagues are happy to return to work.

In section news, I would like to thank John Vozniak. Under his …