Miskimins

The Society of Petroleum Engineers is a large organization with tens of thousands of members. However, at the same time, we are a fairly small community, where a variety of members have overlapping interests. As the Executive Editor for the SPE Production & Operations journal, I thought I’d take the opportunity to point out another area that an SPEPO journal reader might be interested in--the Production & Operations Technical Section.

SPE technical sections are intended to allow members to "join together to share ideas, promote competence, and develop projects related to their technical interest." The P&O Technical Section’s objective is to "expedite, facilitate, and provide a forum for discussion and cooperation in various aspects of production and operations." More specifically, the mission of the section includes:

• Identify major issues and technology areas on which to focus cooperation and discussions
• Promote relevant technology development in various aspects of production and operations
• Share best practices in production and operations
• Provide means for effective communications among the production and operations community in the petroleum industry
• Facilitate research and development efforts in production and operations that meet the needs of the petroleum industry
• Encourage and engage young professionals for career development in production and operations
• Hold an annual technology meeting to share experiences, best practices, and new technologies in production and operations. Seek sponsorship from operators and services companies to offset the cost of hosting the meeting
• Hold an annual section meeting at the SPE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition to offer opportunities to network and discuss technology needs and share best practices.

As you can see, several of the goals of the P&O Technical Section closely relate to the SPEPO journal's goals to provide timely and relevant information on all things covered under production and operation topics. I would encourage you to visit the Technical Section's website that can be reached from the main SPE website (http://www.spe.org) by the "Sections/Groups/Networking" button and see if it might provide you with some additional materials that might help you in your day-to-day activities. Through communication opportunities such as the P&O Technical Section, when combined with educational opportunities such as the SPEPO journal, we will all become better engineers.

In this issue, we have 10 papers for you. As with most of our editions, these papers cover a wide range of production and operational topics, and I have grouped them into seven categories.

The majority of papers in this issue are from the area of acidizing. The first paper, A Theoretical Study of Acid-Fracture Conductivity Under Closure Stress, discusses modeling of the deformation of irregular fracture surfaces created by etching and the resulting fracture conductivity. A Novel Application of Closed-Fracture Acidizing discusses experimental results of refracturing on previously acid-fractured cores that have been exposed to closure stress. The third acidizing paper, Impact of Organic Acids/Chelating Agents on the Rheological Properties of an Amidoamine-Oxide Surfactant, focuses specifically on the addition of organic acids/chelating agents and their associated effects on the viscosity of acid systems. The last paper in the area of acidizing, Effect of Shear Rate on the Propagation of Polymer-Based In-Situ-Gelled Acids Inside Carbonate Cores, describes experimental studies conducted to determine the various effects of shear rates in core systems.

From the world of coiled tubing, the paper entitled Temperature and Salinity Effects on Drag-Reduction Characteristics of Polymers in Coiled Tubing discusses experimental studies of two commonly used drag reducers and resulting correlations for different salinities and temperatures. Chemical Treatment To Mitigate Condensate and Water Blocking in Gas Wells in Carbonate Reservoirs is in the area of formation damage. It provides the results of effective chemical treatments developed to mitigate liquid blocking in carbonate gas reservoirs.

We have one paper from the area of horizontal wells in this issue entitled A New Method To Predict Performance of Horizontal and Multilateral Wells. This paper discusses the development of a simple semianalytical model for predicting the productivity of horizontal oil wells.

This issue contains only one paper in the area of hydraulic fracturing: Hydraulic-Fracture Propagation in a Naturally Fractured Reservoir. It provides the results of numerical modeling that quantifies the physical mechanisms for activation of natural faults when contacted by hydraulic fractures.

The final two papers in this edition address the areas of scale inhibition and workovers. Modeling a Series of Nonaqueous Field-Scale Inhibitor Squeeze Treatments in the Heidrun Field provides the results of modeling a series of squeeze treatments applied in the North Sea and the alternatives investigated to optimize the designs. Finally, the development of a prototype subsurface safety valve that is controlled downhole by electromagnetic signals from the surface is the subject of Development and Qualification of a New Wirelessly Controlled Retrofit Safety Valve: An Alternative to Well Workover That Enhances Well Safety and Maximizes Production Uptime.

As always, I hope you enjoy the papers brought to you in this issue of SPEPO and that they can be applied in your daily activities.