The 2017 – 2018 programme of evening dinner meetings draws to a close later this month; Marcos Monteferrante, Premier Oil, will be discussing subsea storage on the Solan oil field.
The Programme Committee is responsible for this series of events and each year they put together an excellent programme of technical meetings covering a variety of topics reflective of our members’ areas of interest.
There are 8 of these events per session (Sept – Nov, Jan – May) and they are held on the 4th Wednesday of the month. The format consists of a technical presentation followed by networking dinner; so not only do these events provide a platform for the exchange of technical knowledge and best practises but also a valuable networking opportunity. This session the events were kindly sponsored by Expro and Premier Oil.
Asset management, particularly in relation to mature assets which is very pertinent to the North Sea, featured in a number of presentations this session. Christopher Bennie, Expro, described their approach to debottlenecking and their ability to remove 80 % of produced water from a well stream. More recently Anne Valentine of Schlumberger (and an SPE Distinguished Lecturer), shared her experience in increasing recovery rates from mature assets.
Through the SPE Distinguished Lecturer programme, created in 1961, the committee has access to global experts. These lecturers are nominated by their peers and selected by the global SPE Distinguished Lecturer Committee for quality, timeliness and relevance of presentations. In addition to Anne Valentine, this session we also hosted Steve Cuddy another SPE Distinguished Lecturer. Using the North Sea as an example, Steve discussed fractals and their use as an indicator of hydrocarbon volume.
There were also a number of presentations which related to plug and abandonment, another popular topic with our members. Mike Richardson of Spirit Energy, described the revolutionary P&A technology where the rock and components are melted at 3000⁰C using a thermite charge to form a seal. Last month, Donald Horsfall, Expro, described their wireless monitoring technology which has applications in monitoring both active and decommissioned reservoirs .
The programme committee are currently finalising the details of their 2018 – 2019 events – full details will soon be posted on our website, and will include operator case studies from both BP and Premier Oil.
If you missed any of the presentations in this session, they are available on the knowledge section of our website.
If you have any suggestions for topics you would like to see covered in these events please get in touch the chair of the Programme Committee, programme.chair@spe-uk.org. I look forward to seeing you at our upcoming events.
Ian Phillips
SPE Aberdeen Chairman