Middle East Again

Very excited to take this trip which might be the last Middle East trip of my SPE presidency.

I began the trip with a very brief visit in Kuwait followed by a few days in Abu Dhabi. In addition to GCA business there we were able to attend Church on Friday. Jan joined me in Abu Dhabi having made a brief stop in Toronto to visit the LDS temple there.

Then it was off to Saudi Arabia. Jan had never been there and we were very happy she had this opportunity.

I was able to make a field trip to the amazing Abqaiq oil treating facility which handles crude oil from Ghawar field as well as a few others. It is the largest facility of its kind and able to handle 7 million BOPD. It's not permitted to photograph inside these facilities but I found these stock images online.

Plenty of camels en route.

We had a great lunch with old friends and new ones and then I traveled to the equally impressive Qurayyah sea water injection plant capable of handling 14 million BWPD. Climbing atop one of the massive above grade canals I was stunned by the scope of the operation and the amazing clarity of the water. The facility sits by gorgeous beaches and provides pressure support for the world's greatest oilfield. Again, internet image.

Jan met with many of the Saudi ladies and greatly enjoyed herself. The conference was a big hit. We had dinner with 2019 SPE President Sami Al-Neaim and his wife.

We participated in the cultural night activities which are always fun.

On the way back we flew through Turkey to Atlanta (picture of the jimmy Carter museum) and spent the weekend at my son's condo---he was out of town for a wedding so we got to drive his car and visit our old stomping ground as well as Georgia tech for a meeting of a Board I am on.

Absolutely exhausted, I made it home from Atlanta but not my wife! She flew on to Hartford, CT to help my daughter move and then back to Houston just in time for the final opera of the ring cycle, Götterdämmerung. I spent a lot of the week at OTC and saw many old friends including the 2017 and 2018 SPE presidents.
The next day it was off to Fort Worth for another opera, Carmen. We drove in separate cars because she needed to go on BACK to Atlanta to drop off some things for my son and then back home through Hattiesburg to pick up her mother to come see the new grandson!

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) 17,020 miles. SPE travel to date 520,450 miles. Round trip earth to moon is 477,800 so almost back!

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): 43
Australia
Austria
Azerbaijan
Bahrain
Belgium
Brunei
Canada
China
Colombia
Czech Republic
Denmark
Ecuador
Finland
France
Germany
Ghana
Kuwait
Indonesia
India
Ireland
Italy
Malaysia
Mexico
Nigeria
Netherlands
Norway
Oman
Qatar
Russia
Saudi Arabia
Singapore
Spain
Sweden
Switzerland
Thailand
Trinidad & Tobago
Turkey
United Arab Emirates
United Kingdom (Scotland, England)
USA
Vietnam

Operas this month =3 Operas to date = 74