Month: April 2017

by louise louise No Comments

Industry Experts Set to Gather for Topsides UK 2017

Over 25 industry experts were today announced as speakers for Topsides UK 2017, an SPE Aberdeen conference and exhibition taking place on 13th and 14th June at Aberdeen Exhibition and Conference Centre. The conference will focus on sharing innovations and case studies, and provide a platform for the oil and gas industry to explore the key areas affecting topsides operations.

The two-day event welcomes speakers from BP, Centrica, ConocoPhillips, Maersk, OGA, OGTC, Shell and TAQA, each sharing case studies of how new technologies and behaviours have led to more efficient ways of working.

This year’s conference, which is sponsored by the Oil and Gas Authority and TAQA, will also include a new and exciting Technology Showcase session, where innovative products and services from within the supply chain will be presented and discussed in short, high-energy 5-minute slots.

While the Topsides UK conference offers a platform to share knowledge and lessons learned, the exhibition offers supply chain companies the chance to showcase their latest technology and services, some of which have only just been brought to market, with the aim of securing new contracts and hopefully becoming the case studies of Topsides UK 2018.

Steve Cromar, Chair of SPE Continued Education for Aberdeen said “To ensure that Topsides UK 2017 reflected the needs of the industry, we engaged with subject matter experts from within oil and gas operators, and asked them to highlight areas that are currently of interest within topsides operations.

“Whilst finalising the Topsides UK conference programme was an extremely difficult task this year due to the volume and quality of abstracts received, we now have a strong, focused technical programme that reflects the excellent work being done to embrace the challenges the industry is facing.”

Brenda Wyllie, Northern North Sea and West of Shetland Area Manager at The Oil & Gas Authority, said “The OGA is delighted to be supporting Topsides UK for a second year, and we are looking forward to facilitating discussions between subject matter experts from within, and out with the industry.

“The high number of operator case studies in this year’s programme, across a range of themes including “Maintaining and Improving Integrity”, “Culture and Behaviours” and “Appropriate Topsides Technology”, will help to ensure that we have the right people together, at the same time, to ensure we keep working together to maximise the economic recovery of the UKCS’ oil and gas.”

For the full list of this year’s Topsides UK conference speakers and topics, or to secure your conference pass, please visit www.spe-aberdeen.org

For further information on how you can be part of Topsides UK 2017, please visit http://www.topsidesuk.com/ or email aberdeen.events@spe-uk.org

by david david No Comments

Chairman’s Message: April 2017

dsc_5318Sharing technical knowledge is at the heart of our evening meeting programme. Each year the Programme Committee do an outstanding job of putting together an exciting, stimulating and very relevant programme of evening meetings which reflects a broad range of technical interests. The success of these events is reflected in the continued popularity of these meetings. There are 8 of these events per year (Sept – Nov, Jan – May), held on the 4th Wednesday of the month. The format is a technical presentation followed by dinner which provides a valuable networking opportunity for attendees. This year our technical programme is kindly sponsored by Expro and Premier Oil.

The 2016 – 2017 session kicked off with Katy Heidenreich of Oil & Gas UK, describing the significant work the industry is doing through the Technology Leadership Board (TLB) to address the well cost reduction challenge. Field development has featured at several events. In November Martin O’Donnell and Matt Gibson of Premier Oil provided a fascinating insight into the ongoing development of Premier’s Catcher Field, whilst Markel Hübinette of ConocoPhillips described the changing face of asset development and management through the history of the Britannia field.

In addition to local industry experts the programme also includes SPE Distinguished Lecturers. These lecturers are recognised global experts nominated by their peers and selected by the global SPE Distinguished Lecturer Committee for quality, timeliness and relevance of presentations. Last month Steve Mackie, now with Geosim Consulting Pty Ltd., discussing the lessons learnt from occasional failures during his career in the upstream petroleum industry. This month we welcome Daniel McKinney of Sarawak Shell, who will talk about operational geochemistry.

Details of the events still to come in this session are available on our new website here. After the event the presentations are available on the knowledge section of the website – so if you miss any you can view the presentations afterwards.

The Programme Committee have already turned their attention to the 2017 – 2018 session, so if you have any suggestions for topics you would like to see covered please get in touch with Kenny McAllister, chair of our Programme Committee, programme.chair@spe-uk.org. I look forward to seeing you at our upcoming events.

by david david No Comments

SPE Aberdeen raises over £2000 for the RNLI

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SPE Aberdeen was delighted to support the RNLI at last month’s Offshore Achievement Awards, where our guests raised the fantastic total of £2065!

These funds have contributed to the fundraising target of £52,000, which is the cost of replacing Aberdeen’s Inshore Lifeboat.

The campaign efforts are being led by Ian Garden of RigDeluge and William Bird of Fennel Media, who have already launched on online raffle appeal to win a spin in the RigDeluge sponsored rally car with local rally ace Quintin Milne, on the VIP Test Day at the Speyside Rally on 21 April.

Dr Margaret Farquhar CBE, Aberdeen Lifeboat Management Group Chairman, commented: “RNLI Aberdeen was hugely grateful to the Society of Petroleum Engineers Aberdeen Section for promotion our appeal with RigDeluge at the Offshore Achievement Awards. To raise £2065 on the night is a brilliant boost to fundraising for our new inshore lifeboat.”

Sabeil Ahmed, Treasurer at SPE Aberdeen added: “We were delighted to select the RNLI as our charity partner for this year’s awards. As the charity that saves lives at sea, we felt that this was a very worthwhile, relevant cause which many of our members and friends would strongly support.

“We are hugely grateful to the RNLI crews for volunteering their time and helping to keep us safe every day, and to RigDeluge and Fennel Media for the work they’re doing in raising awareness of this appeal.”

To find out more about the charity raffle, please visit https://vimeo.com/fennelmedia/rnli

The link to support the campaign and enter the raffle, where tickets can be purchased for £5 each, is https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/Aberdeen-ILB

by spe spe No Comments

SPE online publications and live webinars

Do you know some of the other benefits of being an SPE member?

The access to online SPE publications such as JPT (Journal of Petroleum Technology) OGF ( Oil and Gas Facilities) and TWA (The way ahead),  and we also provide live SPE webinars which are free to our members and at a cost to non-members.

Links to our pages are available by clicking the links below.

JPT: https://www.spe.org/en/jpt/jpt-main-page/

OGF: https://www.spe.org/en/ogf/ogf-main-page/

TWA: https://www.spe.org/en/twa/twa-main-page/

SPE Live webinars: https://webevents.spe.org/