Chairman’s Message: August 2017
Dear SPE Aberdeen members, colleagues and friends,
I am absolutely delighted to start the SPE Aberdeen 2017-2018 session with the fantastic news that our section has won the SPE President’s Award for Section Excellence and have done so for an unprecedented 8 years in a row. This prestigious award recognises SPE sections with exceptional programs in technical knowledge dissemination, communication, membership development, student interaction, community and society outreach, innovation, and more.
This award is a testament to the huge energy and enthusiasm from everyone on our committees who conceive, organise and deliver a wide range of events and activities that meet the needs of our members needs and of the industry as a whole. As in previous years, we had a packed calendar of events all of which contributed to us winning this award.
Our Continuing Education committee continued to improve our conference programme, enhancing firm favourites such has Well Abandonment and DEVEX whilst developing some new events such as Seismic 2017, which was a huge success and will feature again in 2018.
Our Programme Committee organises our evening dinner meetings which continue to be very popular and cover a range of topics. The presentations from last year’s session are available in the knowledge section of our website and information on our upcoming meetings is now available on our website.
In March we held the 31st Offshore Achievement Awards, celebrating and encouraging innovation and collaboration in the oil & gas and renewables industry in the North Sea. This event is the biggest and longest established oil, gas and renewables industry awards for the UK offshore energy sector, and continues to be the “gold standard” that companies aspire to win. Plans are already under way for 2018!
The success of all these events means that we have a modest surplus that we use to support our outreach and educational projects. The Student Bursary Awards are the highlight of the Student Development Committee’s annual activity, and this year the section awarded £20,000 to students studying oil and gas related topics at 5 universities across Scotland. Our Schools and Career Guidance committee continues to inspire the next generation through numerous projects and initiatives. These include attending career events in school across the north east of Scotland, Maths in the Pipeline, sponsoring TechFest, supporting numerous events at Aberdeen Science Centre and running the hugely popular NASA in Aberdeen project.
The year ahead promises to be equally busy, exciting and useful. To keep up-to-date with our calendar of events do visit the section’s website regularly, and follow us on social media (Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn). If you are interested in getting involved in our award winning section please contact me at aberdeen.chair@spe-uk
SPE Aberdeen Section Young Professionals Committee – 2017 So Far
SPE Aberdeen Section Young Professionals (YP) have had a very busy and eventful 2017 so far. They hosted events for professionals on gaining awareness of industry trends, developing technical skills, soft skills for personal development, and also had time to enjoy a social too! Becoming a well-rounded professional requires the right balance of these elements of learning and that’s the motivation behind the programme of events organised by the YP committee.
Plans for the rest of the year….
The Simplified Series team is delighted to announce that the CEO of ITF, Dr Patrick O’Brien will be presenting at their monthly event in September. This event will take place on the 13th September due to Offshore Europe occurring the week before; Simplified Series is usually held on the first Wednesday of the month. Paddy has been attending Offshore Europe since the 1990s, and no doubt he will be in high demand! If you don’t get a chance to hear him speak, please come along to our free event on the 13th and listen to him discuss Technology Innovation in Upstream Oil and Gas.
Other interesting talks lined up from the Simplified Series include:
4th October: Rigless – a Misnomer? Applications to Late Well Lifecycles by Steven Canny, Engineering Lead at Weatherford
1st November: Culture Transformation & Marginal Gains – A Nexen Culture & Efficiency Case Study by Mike Backus, VP Operations at Nexen UK
Visit the events page for more details and booking links.
The Emerging Engineers Forum (EEF) will host their next event at Offshore Europe on Wednesday, 6th of September. Plans are shaping up nicely with all hands on deck to deliver an exciting event for young engineers during the conference. They recognise the potential that technology has within the industry, therefore this will be the key theme for this year’s event. The forum will be held as part of the Inspire Programme dedicated to YP and the next generation of the industry; more details here.
The purpose of the EEF is to provide young engineers a platform to engage with senior members of the oil and gas industry who are behind emerging technologies, and discuss the integral role of the young engineers. Several companies will have the opportunity to show their commitment to the development of future talent in the oil and gas industry, and showcase their innovation and cutting-edge technologies.
These events are organised by a team of dedicated YPs and students who volunteer their time, advancing the mission of the SPE in Aberdeen. If you would like to get involved, please contact yp.chair@spe-uk.org
Team from SPE Aberdeen Student Chapter at Heriot-Watt University Advances to PetroBowl Final
This year, for the first time, the SPE Heriot-Watt University team successfully went through from the regional qualifying competition for Europe at the SPE East Meets West Student Congress in Krakow Poland to participate in the PetroBowl International Final. The Heriot-Watt University team of Mark Lakos, Wong Ming Yi, Hydra Rodrigues, Muzammil Rammay and Zharas Shorabek from the Institute of Petroleum Engineering in the School of Energy, Geoscience, Infrastructure and Society finished 3rd (out of 28 universities represented) in the European qualifying round. They will be competing against other student chapter teams from Africa, Asia Pacific, Europe, South America and Caribbean, Middle East, and North America regions who have also made it to the last 32.
The HWU team is the only team from the UK to have qualified for finals which will be held later this year at the SPE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition (ATCE) in San Antonio, Texas from the 9th to the 11th of October. The team wish to showcase the high technical and academic training that has been promoted not just in Heriot-Watt University, but in the whole of the UK.
The Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) holds the annual PetroBowl Quiz competition where university teams from around the world are challenged to answer both technical and non-technical questions associated with the oil and gas industry. The event was first held in 2002 and has since grown in size and popularity.
This competition is a combination of challenge and fun with the opportunity to win a competitive prize. The SPE ATCE in San Antonio will be a great opportunity for the team to attend the conference and exhibition, to meet with students from other universities, and to build networking with other academia and industry professionals.
The team is extremely grateful to the SPE Aberdeen Section for their generous donation of £2,500 to help fund the team to compete in the finals. The team is also indebted to the Heriot-Watt University Annual fund support, the CMG Foundation Chair, the Adrian Todd Golden Key Student Fund Award and the and logistic arrangement from Geo2Flow founders Daniel and Vicki O’Meare. In addition, the team would also like to thank Professor Patrick Corbett, Professor Sebastian Geiger and Dr Alex Graham for their encouragement and support during the fund-raising period.
Sponsors:
