July 2015

Three great cities and some time for fun on the weekends.

It was nice to be home over the US Independence Day celebration. Some of my children and all of my grandchildren were here. I cooked a lot of barbecue and harvested some honey from my beehives. Then it was time to get on another airplane!

My BBQ for Independence Day!

The SPE Latin American Health, Safety, Environment and Sustainability Conference was held 7-8 July 2015 in Bogota. This conference explored state-of-the-art technologies and their effects on Sustainability (Balancing Economic Growth, Social Development and Environmental Protection). It addressed outstanding challenges and experiences in Health, Safety, Environmental and Sustainability for successful execution of oil and gas projects.

This gathering explored and discussed what has worked, what not worked, and areas where future technological innovations are required to strengthen the social license to operate. It also provided an opportunity to networking, sharing and learning from professionals in the industry.

Topics included:
-HSE Management
-Health and Safety
-Environment
-Sustainability
-Innovation

On Monday I made multiple visits with Baker Hughes colleagues to Ecopetrol, Pacific Rubiales and Equion. More SPE meetings. Tuesday I gave an opening speech at the conference, a press conference, meetings with oil company executives. On Wednesday I met with old friends, had a meeting with Ecopetrol CEO Javier Gutiérrez and made presentations at the local SPE section. Bogota is an amazing city at an altitude of a little more than 8,300 feet.

Spelfie with some of the students attending the conference

The iguana is the symbol of ECOPETROL. This one is in their lobby. Selfie at the end.

Grandsons came to visit. Always fun times. I have seven grandsons. Here is the youngest.

The gf and I took a week off from the craziness and cashed in some hotel points and enjoyed three operas in beautiful Santa Fe, New Mexico. We toured the area including Los Alamos and ate our favorite Mexican food (New Mexico style!). We took a couple cooking classes to learn the Santa Fe style. It was great.

Then back to SPE activities as I spoke at URTEC the big multi-society unconventional resources conference in San Antonio. Jan and I enjoyed returning to San Antonio and I learned a lot about what operators are doing in the lower price environments. Summary: we are NOT running out of ideas!

Here I am with the current SEG President.

I had a chance at the end of the San Antonio trip to drive around and see the former missions there. Pictures at the end.

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) 6,289 SPE travel to date 175,811 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): 22
Australia
Austria
Bahrain
Canada
China
Colombia
Czech Republic
Denmark
Germany
Kuwait
Indonesia
Malaysia
Mexico
Netherlands
Norway
Oman
Saudi Arabia
Singapore
Turkey
United Arab Emirates
United Kingdom (Scotland, England)
USA

Operas this month = 3 Operas to date = 21

I did get a chance to do some smoking when I was at home....

San Antonio Pictures

The video is of Johnny Stout feeding some deer. He is a custom knifemaker and old friend. http://www.stoutknives.com/ for some amazing custom knives.

We also had a nice dinner with my college roommate and his wife and went to the Gruene dance hall Friday night. Then took the Austin grandsons to Schlitterbahn (ALL DAY) Saturday. We returned home exhausted at midnight and looking forward to being at the office this next week!

The rest are at the San Antonio missions. Of course the Alamo is the most famous. Can you name the others?

This is a part of an old aqueduct serving the missions

In Santa Fe we saw three operas at the great opera house and saw (and bought) some nice art.

At Bandolier National Mounument