Symposium Discusses Talent, Technology, and Challenges

“The Challenges and Excitement Ahead: Talented People and Evolving Technologies” was the theme of the SPE Saudi Arabia Section’s Annual Technical Symposium held 7–8 May at Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. The symposium has become a central E&P technical gathering for regional and international professionals, providing a valuable opportunity for professionals in the industry and researchers in academia to exchange and disseminate knowledge.

Symposium Chairperson Saud Al-Fattah, giving his welcoming speech, noted “the importance of talent and technology in meeting the challenges and demands of an energy-hungry world.” Expertise and state-of-the-art technology, he stressed, form a powerful combination for advancing engineering and scientific work to improve the discovery and recovery of energy reserves.

Keynote speaker Khalid A. Al-Buraik, Chief Petroleum Engineer, Saudi Aramco, discussed the symbiosis, or interdependent relationships, of people, technology, and energy in bringing economic development and an improved standard of living to the world.

Following this, 2007 SPE President Abdul-Jaleel Al-Khalifa spoke on unleashing the industry’s potential. The oil industry, he noted, has served mankind for the past 150 years and must examine how it can sustain prosperous growth through the coming 50 to100 years. The pressing challenges, according to Al-Khalifa, include the impact of skepticism today about the level of reserves, security of supply, stability of demand, cost inflation, the changing industry landscape between international and national oil companies, climate-change issues, and the industry’s human-resources scarcity. Due to a lack of critical mass in human resources, Al-Khalifa said, industry personnel focus 80% of their attention on immediate drilling and production issues and have at most 20% of their attention to give to the important concerns of reservoir recovery.

Citing recent SPE survey data indicating that only 57% of industry professionals are fully engaged by their work, Al-Khalifa noted the large potential that the industry could unleash by fully engaging all of its professionals. The key elements for achieving this include providing a work environment of fairness, trust, and integrity; improving leadership development; adopting a people-first business model; and mitigating the impact of cyclical business fluctuations on the workforce. The productivity improvement attainable through achieving these goals could be as high as 30%, Al-Khalifa said.

Joe Sandy, Vice President, Technology, Halliburton, spoke on the role of technology in maximizing hydrocarbon production. Sandy emphasized the importance that the eastern hemisphere will play in technology implementation over the next 5 to 10 years. Major drivers for this technology will be deep water, small reserves, difficult reservoirs, difficult hydrocarbons, sustainable development, and constraints on capital, human resources, supplies, and material.

Some of the future technologies that will improve the industry’s ability to find and develop the needed hydrocarbon resources, Sandy said, include the application of neural networks, artificial intelligence, computation fluid dynamics, carbon nanotubes, knowledge management systems, and knowledge harvesting. He focused on materials science as a likely realm for developing new technologies that can bring step-change technologies to oil-industry operations, with opportunities especially present in fields such as composites, plastics, swellable elastomers, polymers, and metallurgy. Sandy concluded with a discussion of sensors, long-power/long-life electronics, downhole power, and the potential for smart-well advances.

A panel discussion was held, titled “R&D for E&P in the Middle East: Focus, Models, and People.” Nabeel Al-Afaleg, chief technologist, Reservoir Engineering Technology, Saudi Aramco, served as moderator. Panelists included Sandy; Abdulaziz Al-Majed, professor, King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals; Bob Bennett, vice president, Technology, Baker Hughes; Sami Al-Neaim, chief technologist, Production Engineering Technology, Saudi Aramco; and Shahab Mohaghegh, professor, West Virginia University.

In addition, two short courses were held at the symposium: “Artificial Intelligence and Its Applications in the Oil and Gas Industry,” led by Mohaghegh, and “Decision Analysis: Recent Developments and Application for the Oil Industry,” led by Jamal Al-Khonaifer, supervisor, Oil & Gas Reserves Assessment Unit, Saudi Aramco.