Chair's Corner - January 2023
January 29th, 2023
January 29th, 2023
December 21st, 2022
November 15th, 2022
June 30th, 2022
May 4th, 2022
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:
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 …
December 1st, 2021
Adios to 2021, the Membership Taskforce Report and a Scholarship Endowment Fund Update
What an interesting year it’s been. We started the year not knowing how it would end, but things are getting back to normal. There have been trials this year, but overall, it’s been a positive one. It’s a blessing to see most of our colleagues and loved ones who lost their jobs getting back into the workforce and providing for their families. In this month’s edition of the “Chairs Corner,” I will focus on two main things: the report from the membership task force and the Scholarship Endowment Fund (SEF).
One of the key things I mentioned in the August “Chair’s Corner” was creating a task force to review and discuss the decline in membership. I want to thank John Vozniak and the membership task force team for …