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