August 2016

SIngapore for the Asia Pacific Drilling Technology Conference and section meeting then Beijing for a Hydraulic Fracturing conference. The map:

SIngapore

I have been to SIngapore many times but while living in Hong Kong took my wife (the gf) there for the first time. Unlike all my prior visits we scheduled some tourist time. It was awesome. I had no idea Singapore was so interesting. We saw most of the "big stuff" and had a free weekend so did a bit more touring. We took a cooking class making Char Kwai Teow, chilli crab and onde onde. We went to Gardens by the Bay and ate many places including the newly Michelin starred hawker stand. My cheapest Michelin star meal ever.

Friday night we met with about 10 local SPE section leaders for dinner. Monday I gave the keynote address at the drilling conference and participated in the panels, papers and mixers. The Tuesday morning we left the Marina Bay Sands hotel (more impressive looking than a great place to stay) for Changi airport and flew to Beijing.

Beijing

First.... Beijing had beautiful weather with clear blue skies the whole time. Wow!

The schedule in Beijing was far more hectic than that in Singapore. I met with Mr. Wang Dongijin, Vice President, CNPC, Li Luguang, Assistant President, CNPC, Lv Gongxun, Vice President, PetroChina and General Manager, Petro China International Exploration & Development Company and Technical Programme Co-Chairman, Kim E. Code, Managing Director, Shell China Exploration and Production Company, Dan Hill, Department Head, Department of Petroleum Engineering, Texas A&M University and Technical Programme Co-Chairman, Wu Qi, Senior Vice President, PetroChina E&P Co., Liu Yuzhang, Research Professor and Director, RIPED, PetroChina, David Blanchard, Chairman, DB Global Energy Consultants and IPTC Board Chairman and I am sure others I forgot. I knew a lot more attendees since the topic is so near and dear to me. I gave the keynote address along with my friends Ahmed Abou-Sayed, Mark Pearson and Glenn Penny. Jan and I went out to dinner with the local SPE section officers and I gave the closing remarks for the conference.

Jan and I snuck off in the evening for a cooking class at the Hutong improving our dumpling making skills. I participated at the conference in multiple ways and had dinner with my great friend Dianbin Liu continuing our "best Peking duck" quest. We managed to go to church on Sunday and do a little tourism over the weekend. Specifically we had only been to the summer palace in the dead of winter. It was much warmer and greener this time! We went to the 798 Arts district, to church with old friends and bought some pearls at Hongqiao for my sister.

SIngapore Pictures

A few from the cooking class, Gardens by the Bay and around.
Waiting in line at the Hawker stand

Cooking

Gardens

Beijing Pictures

Naturally there were a lot of SPElfies...here are a few.

From our cooking class

A little touring

Dinner with a friend

Shopping for pearls

Some more tourist shots....

Went to the 798 Arts District.... among other things an Andy Warhol exhibit

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) 20,500 miles. SPE travel to date 390,325 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): 41
Australia
Austria
Azerbaijan
Bahrain
Belgium
Brunei
Canada
China
Colombia
Czech Republic
Denmark
Ecuador
France
Germany
Ghana
Kuwait
Indonesia
India
Ireland
Italy
Malaysia
Mexico
Nigeria
Netherlands
Norway
Oman
Qatar
Russia
Saudi Arabia
Singapore
Spain
Switzerland
Thailand
Trinidad & Tobago
Turkey
United Arab Emirates
United Kingdom (Scotland, England)
USA
Vietnam

Operas this month = 0 Operas to date = 49 Two months with no operas? I will shortly fix that!

Well this was a wild trip. Just a few days after getting back from Denver I headed out to Africa without the gf.

Ran into many friends.

I flew to Frankfurt and laid over for one day. I was supposed to fly on to Port Harcourt but I got "Lufthansa'd." Our flight from Abuja onward was cancelled due to mechanical problems. After about four hours without information they claimed we'd have to wait 24 hours and would eventually be transported to a hotel. Not the Hilton where the crew was safely whisked off to but hours later we were crammed in a van. albeit one with AC and a police escort. Halfway to Abuja we turned around and came back to the airport to be transferred to an ancient filthy school bus without working headlights (now 9 pm and dark) and no escort. Reeking of diesel fumes we eventually got to the Chelsea hotel, #37 of 60-someodd on tripadvisor there were of course no Lufthansa people there and we overswamped the staff immediately. Fortunately I didn't believe Lufthansa when they claimed all the morning flights were full and I rebooked on Arik Air. My employer (Baker Hughes) provided the transportation and all other trips. THANK YOU!

I made it to PH in time to go to the University of Port Harcourt. The Nigerian council donated an "elibrary" including new computers and access to onepetro.org and PetroWiki. I donated a copy of my recent book to the elibrary. (See details on the book here.)

I then went on to speak to a very large group of students from numerous universities and met with local section leaders.

On Friday morning I took a great trip to Aba in Abia state to go to the Nigerian LDS temple.

The road is awful with crater-like potholes all the way.

Ran into an LDS Mission President and his wife.

Made it back to the airport in PH and although my original flight was cancelled (notice a trend?) I was able to reschedule on Aero Air. Several interesting stories at the airport but let's go on.

Made it to Lagos and the schedule was hectic. Examples follow of the schedule and every item in bold was one where I gave another speech or remarks.

Student Chapters Contest
Section Officers Workshop
Young Professionals Workshop
"NAICE 40th Anniversary Welcome Reception Cocktail"
Young Professionals Africana Dinner

Opening Ceremony
Tour of Exhibition
VIP Lunch - Day 1
Marginal Field Workshop
"SPE Nigeria Council 2016 Annual General Meeting"
AGM Cocktail

Panel Session 1
ARD/VIP Lunch - Day 2
Women Development Program
Town Hall Meeting with Abuja, Warri & Benin Section Officers
Oil Industry Dinner & Awards

Panel Session 2
"VIP Lunch - Day 3SPE Senior Members Reunion"
SPE Faculty Taskforce/BoT R&D Project
SPE Annual Banquet & Awards

Some pics follow:

Flags flying in front of the hotel.

Gave my old friend David Ogbe a copy of my book for the students at AUST.

Cutting the cake at a banquet...

Nice chance to snap a picture with a few of the many Stanford alumni living in Lagos.

Well, that was busy and off at 5:00 AM to an early flight to Accra. I really enjoyed Accra.

I went straight to the Baker Hughes office and then made calls on, Ghana National Petroleum Corporation, Amaja Oilfield Services, Tullow Ghana LTD, ENI Ghana. At ENI I also spoke with a large group of their employees. That night we had a section meeting that was well attended.

Saturday I was able to attend the local LDS temple. Then a late night flight to London and back to Houston.

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) 4,175 miles. SPE travel to date 369,825 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): 41
Australia
Austria
Azerbaijan
Bahrain
Belgium
Brunei
Canada
China
Colombia
Czech Republic
Denmark
Ecuador
France
Germany
Ghana
Kuwait
Indonesia
India
Ireland
Italy
Malaysia
Mexico
Nigeria
Netherlands
Norway
Oman
Qatar
Russia
Saudi Arabia
Singapore
Spain
Switzerland
Thailand
Trinidad & Tobago
Turkey
United Arab Emirates
United Kingdom (Scotland, England)
USA
Vietnam

Operas this month = 0 Operas to date = 49