SPE Annual Conference
Petroleum engineers gather in Houston to discuss their role as solution providers in energy transition
The theme to this year’s annual SPE meeting and technical exchange was “Sustainable Recovery — Transforming the Industry for the Future.”
The world’s largest upstream oil and gas professional organization took on the challenge of navigating today’s energy transition with confidence and resolve as solution providers during this year’s Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition (ATCE) in Houston.
Aramco engineers and researchers were on hand to provide information on what the company is doing now, and in the future, to be a safe, reliable, affordable, and sustainable provider of energy.
With more than 35 technical papers and in-booth presentations from researchers, the topics demonstrated our core competency in exploration and production with a look forward to advances in new technical solutions to support the industry’s net-zero emission goals.
During the opening session “Sustainable Recovery — Transforming the Industry for the Future” panelists discussed the current state of the industry, dealing with supply chain issues, inflation concerns, fluctuating oil prices, net zero commitments, and energy policies that have brought about the state of underinvestment in oil and gas.
SPE members have been the driver of innovation for decades with artificial lift, carbon dioxide flooding, seismic advances, and enhanced oil recovery methods. Now the focus for members turns to carbon capture and storage, emissions abatement, geothermal, and hydrogen and blue ammonia as sources of energy.
Companies with strong energy transition plans are concerned not only with the fuel source but what to do with the methane emissions, creating lots of new opportunities for the carbon management side of the business to grow.
SPE has more than 124,000 members worldwide with the Middle East region one of the largest and most active memberships in the organization. At the annual awards banquet, Aramco’s Ghaithan A. Al-Muntasheri, chief technologist, EXPEC ARC, was recognized with an SPE Distinguished Service Award for his devotion and contributions to the organization.
Contributing to the event were four Aramco employees who served on the 2022 SPE-ATCE Conference Committee: Gretchen M. Gillis, senior geological consultant, Research & Development, Aramco Americas; Joseph M. Shine Jr., petroleum engineering specialist, EXPEC ARC; Serkan Dursun, IT systems analyst, Corporate Applications; and Chicheng Xu, petroleum engineering specialist, Research & Development, Aramco Americas.
On the closing day of the conference, students from local area high schools visited the Aramco exhibition stand to learn about careers in the energy industry as part of SPE’s Energy4Me program to bring energy education to students and into the classroom.
Caption for top Photo: Artificial Intelligence team members from the Aramco Research Center-Houston are developing AI/machine learning models and algorithms to detect and quantify greenhouse gas emissions and identify sources, from multispectral data collected via satellite, airborne, and drones. (From left to right) Farhan Naseer, Tao Lin, Weichang Li, and Yong Ma.