Peer-Reviewed Journals

• If your material has been published before or is currently being reviewed by another organization, it is not eligible for peer review.
• Authors must be able to transfer copyright of the published article to SPE if the paper is accepted for publication.
• It should present new knowledge or technology, or analyze previously known facts in a new way.
• A review paper is appropriate if it finds connections between previously unrelated facts or commonality between previously uncompiled facts and results, or makes deductions that give the reader substantiated guidance on the accuracy and applicability of the reviewed analyses.

• The paper is relevant to the technical scope of the journal and to the professional interests and activities of its audience.
• Ideally it should present knowledge or technology that has the potential to help readers in their professional work as practicing engineers.

• It should be logically sound, and it should give sufficient detail to allow the reader to replicate the work it describes and to assess its applicability to other environments.
• The research design, methods, and analyses are adequately defined and clearly described, well-integrated, well-reasoned, and appropriate to the aims of the project.
• Statistical tests are appropriate and the assumptions underlying the use of statistics are fulfilled by the data.
• The statistics are reported correctly and appropriately.

• It should present clearly and concisely in SPE’s standard format all relevant data and information to support the conclusions and to indicate their limitations.
• The text is well written and easy to follow.
• The introduction builds a logical case and context for the problem statement.
• The problem statement is clear and well-articulated.
• Tables, graphs, and figures are used effectively and agree with the text.
• The amount of data presented is sufficient and appropriate.
• Results are presented effectively; the interpretations of the results are appropriate and the conclusions accurate.
• The conclusions are clearly stated and follow from the design, methods, and results; the justification of conclusions is well articulated.
• The study limitations are discussed.
• Statistical differences are distinguished from meaningful differences.
• Practical significance or theoretical implications are discussed.
• Reference citations are complete, accurate, and up to date. The number of references is appropriate, and their selection is judicious.
• If the authors are not native English speakers, they have had the manuscript reviewed by an English-speaking colleague for accuracy of grammar and usage.

• Substantial portions of the data or study should not have been published previously.
• There are no instances of plagiarism—the ideas and materials of others are correctly attributed.
• There are no commercial references.

Starting 1 October 2021, technical papers should be no more than 10,000 words, including the abstract, main text, tables, figure captions, and appendices (but not including the title, affiliations, acknowledgments, nomenclature, or references). In addition, a maximum of 20 figures that are sized half-page or smaller (full-page figures will be counted as two figures) will be allowed. We encourage authors to run a word count check before submission to avoid processing delays. Papers that exceed the length limit will be returned by SPE staff with a request to shorten the manuscript before the paper will be submitted for peer review. We also encourage authors to use the Supplementary Materials template (available in Author Resources) for additional data, figures, and tables that support the main paper. Supplements submitted with the paper for review will be later published with the accepted paper.

Review Papers do not have a length limit.

Does your institution require open access publication? As of 1 January 2022, authors submitting to SPE journals (SPE Journal, Drilling and Completions, Production and Operations, and Reservoir Evaluation and Engineering) may choose to pay an article publication charge (APC) of US$2,500.00 for Open Access. SPE members receive a US$500.00 discount on the APC (US$2000.00). Authors from low and lower-middle income economies (Group A and B; based on Research4Life’s classifications) will receive a 50% discount (US$1250.00). This cannot be combined with the SPE member discount. Payment is required after acceptance of the article for publication and must be received prior to online publication.

Open Access articles will be published under a Creative Commons license term (CC-BY). In order to make clear the separation between scientific editorial decision-making and economic considerations, the option to publish an article under Open Access is offered to corresponding authors after peer-review and acceptance of an article for publication.

If you would like your accepted paper to be Open Access, please contact peer@spe.org for information and payment processing.