May 2016: Austin, Midland, Anchorage, Houston

May started out with OTC, the Offshore Technology Conference. Although I didn't have formal speaking roles I was engaged in multiple SPE and other business meetings. The first two copies of my most recent book (See this link for details) were available and as always, I learned a lot from the exhibits and papers. We caught an opera in Houston, the only one of the month!

I also went to a local crawfish festival.

Austin

I have spoken at meetings of the AIPN previously and at this conference I was the moderator for a panel discussion in the Woodlands. I went straight from there to Austin, TX for the SPE Workshop entitled Tight Oil and Liquids-Rich Gas: Adapting to Survive in a New Price Environment . I was a speaker and participant there along with other SPE and BHI meetings.

Back in Houston I gave an ethics course at the SPE/IAEE Hydrocarbon Economics and Evaluation Symposium. Themed “Fundamental Drivers, Commodity Cycles, and the Dynamics of Oil and Gas Valuation”

Midland

Then off to Midland for an awards ceremony, meeting with section officers and students.
This was a fast trip but I had the chance to go out and eat Mexican food with a lot of students from a couple of great Universities who had come to attend the conference! Then we toured the newly reopened petroleum museum.
I gave a speech at the awards ceremony held at the Petroleum Club and handed out a lot of awards. I got a SPELFIE with three former SPE Presidents. Can you name them all?

Anchorage

I selected Anchorage for our Board meeting and we held it adjacent to the Western Regional Meeting. Fortunately there was a little time in between the two so my wife and I could be Alaska tourists for a few days. At the WRM I met with students and YPs and spoke at a luncheon meeting. We also handed out some awards. It was great to be back in Anchorage.

The following wee we had our June SPE Board of Directors meeting which was quite successful. But you are probably more interested in seeing the pictures of our long weekend in between these SPE activities!

Jan and I drove to Talkeetna, flew around Denali (North America's tallest mountain in a 6.2 MILLION acre national park) and landed on a glacier. We toured the park and went river rafting. We saw moose, red fox, Dall sheep and many other animals. We Went to the massive Wrangell-St. Elias National park (which is the size of Yellowstone, Yosemite and SWITZERLAND combined). We toured the abandoned Kennecott copper mine. We hiked a lot. A LOT. We drove to Valdez and took a cruise to the Columbia glacier seeing orcas, sea lions, seals, porpoises, sea otters and a huge variety of birds including plenty of bald eagles.

Other Blogs

You can of course read about my barbecue at This site
My Baker Hughes reservoir blog is here.
My (old) blog detailing my 18 months in Hong Kong is here,

Travel this trip (basically includes airport to airport) 10,143 miles. SPE travel to date 346,145 miles.

Countries to date (my counting rule is basically that I spent the night there with some sort of SPE content...not just went through the airport like New Zealand or Panama): 36
Australia
Austria
Azerbaijan
Bahrain
Belgium
Brunei
Canada
China
Colombia
Czech Republic
Denmark
Ecuador
France
Germany
Kuwait
Indonesia
India
Ireland
Italy
Malaysia
Mexico
Netherlands
Norway
Oman
Qatar
Russia
Saudi Arabia
Singapore
Spain
Switzerland
Thailand
Turkey
United Arab Emirates
United Kingdom (Scotland, England)
USA
Vietnam

Operas this month = 6 Operas to date = 48