The SPE Podcast

SPE Live Podcast: Rising to the Challenge of the Constantly Changing World of Work - A Conversation with Brian Kraus

A major study from ERM, the global sustainability consulting firm, has produced a wealth of insight on a range of topical issues in the field of health and safety. ERM engaged 256 Health and Safety Function Leaders from companies that directly employ 11 million people in addition to many millions of contractors in the 2nd half of 2023. Over 36,000 H&S professionals work with the participating companies which have operations in more than 150 countries and combined revenues of US $7.2 trillion, equivalent to 7.2% of global GDP in 2022. The study builds on earlier studies undertaken in 2018 and 2021.
The engagements with the Function Leaders addressed topical issues in H&S at this time, such as psychosocial risk and the application of AI in H&S, but also revisited a number of themes which were addressed in the earlier studies which are a source of persistent challenge for organizations; an opportunity to examine trends in areas including changing stakeholder expectations, investment in H&S and management of H&S for contractors which undertake higher risk activities in the workplace.
Many fresh insights emerged from the engagements: useful lists of concerns, investments in H&S, uses of AI and approaches to address a broad range of challenges as well as data on ratios of H&S professionals to employees, reporting lines for the function and much more. What has become apparent is that many of the concerns that emerged from engagements with the Function Leaders in 2018 and 2021 emerged once again from the analysis of data in 2024. The context is the pace of change, not just in the field of H&S itself (stakeholder expectations, regulatory requirements, use of technology and more), but also in the nature of work, the composition of the workforce and where work is delivered. The pace of change has accelerated over the last 3 years. And it is clear expectations and impacts on business will continue to rise (the Function Leaders are virtually unanimous on this) and changes in the world of work will continue at a pace. It is not going to get easier.
The data suggest meaningful progress in many areas but also strongly suggest the underlying issues identified in the earlier studies have not been resolved, despite increasing leadership engagement, higher levels of investment and widespread application of software solutions and new technologies. But, in some areas the gap has widened. H&S functions, catapulted into a new paradigm and challenged to access talent with the necessary skills, are stretched, as are the Function Leaders.
Brian Kraus provides a high-level overview of the insights from this seminal study including a number of insights specific to upstream oil and gas.
Moderated by Sue Staley, SPE HSES Technical Director, and Sustainability Director at vPSI Group LL
Speaker: Brian Kraus, Associate Director at ERM

SPE President's Podcast with Terry Palisch: "Creating Our Energy Future" - August 2024

For his final podcast as 2024 SPE President, Terry is joined by his son Austin to take a look back at the last 12 months, as well as talk about the future of both SPE and the energy industry.

SPE Live Podcast: Separation; Design vs Reality

Designing production separators and actually achieving their desired performance levels in reality can be very challenging. In addition to the vessel size, internals suitable for the operating and flowing conditions, piping configuration, instrumentation, operating practices, and production chemicals all play a role in separator performance. This SPE Live will address some of these parameters assumed in the design, how reality can differ, and try to answer any related questions.
Moderated by Henri Witteveen, Lead Process Engineer at Kranji Solutions.
Speakers:o Logan Grim, Senior Oil Process Engineer at Saudi Aramcoo Graeme Smith, Process Engineer at Murphy Oil

SPE Live: Maximizing Utilization of Subsea Well Intervention Equipment

Join us for an SPE Live episode on Subsea Well Intervention with a preview of the upcoming SPE Subsea Well Intervention Symposium on 13-15 August 2024, in Galveston, Texas, where innovation meets the growing demand in this burgeoning market.
This will be a live discussion with industry leaders from domestic and international operating companies about the methods they use to maximize the versatility of intervention processes and equipment to increase return on investment and decrease waste.
Speakers:• Jack Sanford, Senior Advisor at Talos Energy• Agnaldo Magnum de Souza Silva, Implementer of Drilling Rig Technologies at Petrobras.
Moderated by: Billy Pierce, Sr Account Manager at Gilmore
2024 Subsea Well Intervention

SPE President's Podcast with Terry Palisch: "Creating Our Energy Future" - Enhancing Member Value - July 2024

For his July podcast, SPE President Terry Palisch is joined by Simon Seaton, SPE CEO, to discuss the member value survey and what is new with ATCE.

SPE Live Podcast: Generative AI Implementations on Spatial Data

This SPE Live introduces three prominent approaches to generative AI, followed by a presentation of a novel method utilizing two of these approaches to efficiently generate high-quality geomodels essential for understanding the probabilistic distributions of geological properties within a subsurface hydrocarbon play. By combining a hierarchical vector-quantized autoencoder with an autoregressive model, significant acceleration of both unconditional and conditional geomodel generation is achievable through this implementation of generative AI.
Speaker: Dr. Siddharth Misra, Associate Professor at Texas A&M University.
Moderated by Yusuf Ajibola Falola, PhD student, Department of Petroleum Engineering Texas A&M University.

SPE Live Podcast: Energy Transition Through Innovation & Technology – How Europe is Leading the Path

Join us for an SPE Live episode on Energy Transition. Learn how the technical and scientific advancements in geo-engineering can contribute to meeting the challenges of the energy transition with a preview of the upcoming SPE Europe Energy Conference and Exhibition on 26-28 June 2024, in Torino-Italy. This event will join upstream oil and gas technology with clean energy efforts to discuss future pathways of discovery, providing the chance to establish a common ground across disciplines to highlight recent achievements, identifying needs to deploy the value chain of the energy transition, sharing proposed guidelines for optimizing integrated processes and procedures, and discussing the new targets of education in the energy sector.
Guests:
Professor Francesca Verga, Underground Energy Systems Department of Environment, Land and Infrastructure Engineering at Politecnico di Torino.
Terry Palisch, 2024 SPE President. VP of Technology & Engineering at CARBO Ceramics
Moderated by: Pierre-Emmanuel d’Huart, SPE Europe Regional Director. Head of Offshore Technological Development at Saipem
SPE Europe Energy Conference and Exhibition 2024

SPE President's Podcast with Terry Palisch: "Creating Our Energy Future" - The Crucial Role of Soft Skills in Engineering - June 2024

For his June podcast, Terry focuses on the importance of soft skills for engineers, and how SPE can help you in developing these critical skills.

SPE Live Podcast: Gaia Talk: Biodiversity - Perspectives on Current Issues and Challenges

Join us for a conversation on current issues and challenges associated with biodiversity, and thoughts on the outcomes and opportunities from the COP 15 UN Biodiversity Conference.
Speaker: John Finisdore, Principal Consultant, Biodiversity Water & Nature, ERMModerator: David Shackleton, SaaS Product Manager
Additional Resources:
SPE Gaia Sustainability Program

SPE Live Podcast: Pre-ATCE series: Fueling Innovation. Navigating the Oil & Gas Startup Journey

Coming up with an idea and developing an initial product are only the first challenges a startup faces; getting that product into the market and getting feedback from early customers are important next steps.
This SPE Live explores the different approaches to getting products in front of oil and gas customers. It will also look at how to structure those initial engagements, how to translate initial diligence discussions into trials/evaluations, and where one can get feedback on the product and progress to the next stages in the sales cycle. Large, independent, and national oil companies can be intimidating first customers, but many have programs or organizations designed to specifically engage with startups and small companies.
Speakers:
Bryant Mueller, SVP Sales – Western Hemisphere at Datagration.Ervell Boyd, Energy Ventures Analyst at Devon EnergyJosh Evans – CEO at HiVolt EnergyModerated by Nayeem Chowdhury

SPE Live Podcast: Plug and Abandonment – What’s the Big Deal?

Join us for an SPE Live on a brief introduction to the content that will be discussed at the upcoming SPE Virtual P&A Workshop. This event is intended to identify the technical and regulatory challenges our industry faces and discuss how we are tackling these now and planning for the future. During this SPE Live, we will have industry experts engage in long term well integrity methods and challenges to securing wells during final plugging and abandonment to ensure isolation and protection to the environment. We’ll also talk about adoption of new technologies and why the industry struggles to try new things, especially in the P&A space. Come see a glimpse of the incredible presenters we will have in the coming weeks!
Speakers:
Saulo Aleluia Barcelos, P&A Advisor, Petrobras
Matteo Loizzo, Consultant
Moderated by Bart Joppe, Well Abandonment Leader at Baker Hughes
Additional Resources:
SPE Webinar Series: Virtual Workshop – Transatlantic Plugging and Abandonment Operations

SPE President's Podcast with Terry Palisch: "Creating Our Energy Future" - The Importance of Supporting Academia and Students in Navigating the Challenges and Opportunities in the Industry - May 2024

For his May podcast, Terry focuses on the academic side of things, what the future holds for petroleum engineering, and the importance of supporting our universities and students.

SPE Live Podcast: Fostering Future Leaders - The Impact of Mentorship on Women in Leadership

Join us for an SPE Live on Diversity & Inclusion addressing the advantages of mentoring programs for women. Our guests will discuss why companies are implementing these programs, share lessons learned, and share recommendations for starting this practice.
Speakers:• Celina Gioja, Diversity and Inclusion Professional at Celi Gioja• Emily Firth, Europe Market and Business Analyst at Halliburton
Moderated by Miral Tawfik, Reservoir Engineer at Chevron
Additional Resources:
SPE eMentoring Program

SPE Live Podcast: Hydrogen as Part of the Energy Mix – Commercial and Technical Perspectives

A hydrogen economy envisions using hydrogen as a clean, low-carbon, and versatile energy carrier and fuel. It offers benefits in terms of energy security, public health, and economic development. Initially, Blue Hydrogen manufactured from natural gas in combination with CCS could help diversify our market options while helping to reduce greenhouse emissions. It has the potential to generate new job opportunities for many of us in the O&G Industry.
The global market for hydrogen and fuel cells is expected to grow from $5.5 billion in 2018 to $42.5 billion by 2026. However, Hydrogen is certainly not a silver bullet. A rapid expansion in hydrogen usage also requires that we collectively address several challenges and barriers especially in the areas of storage and transportation. Hydrogen and Ammonia should be seen as complementary energy delivery options that will rapidly expand alongside LNG, renewable, modular nuclear reactors, geothermal and small-scale hydro-projects.
This SPE live will introduce the SPE Hydrogen Technical Section and discuss H2 as part of the energy mix, addressing the investment landscape and technical challenges and opportunities.
Moderated by Zachary Evans, Sales Director Underground Storage, DarkVision.
Speakers:
Thomas Major, Managing Partner at MB Energy PartnersPedram Fanailoo, Director for the Low Carbon Segment for North America at DNVAdditional resources via OnePetro Publications:
Pore-Scale Investigation of Caprock Integrity in Underground Hydrogen StoragePredictive Power of Theoretical Adsorption Models for Hydrogen/Coal System: Implications for Hydrogen GeostorageMultiscale Model for Hydrogen Transport and Storage in Shale ReservoirsIn-Situ Hydrogen Production from Natural Gas Wells with Subsurface Carbon Retention (Open Access)

SPE President's Podcast with Terry Palisch: "Creating Our Energy Future" - How Members Can Help Improve The Industry's Public Image - April 2024

For his April podcast, Terry focuses on how SPE engages with our external stakeholders, and more importantly, how we can help improve the industry's public image through programs like Energy4me.

SPE Live Podcast: Artificial Intelligence Systems and Drilling

During the last few years, there has been an increasing focus on automation solutions for drilling, with many of these solutions already in the market. Artificial Intelligence (AI) techniques are usually part of these solutions.
During this SPE Live, we focus on AI systems that are targeting higher levels of automation, some reaching all the way to autonomy. One requirement for such systems to be taken into use is to be trustworthy. But what does this mean and how to achieve it?
At the same time, drilling involves multiple providers, which reflects on the data and information flow, hence adding a new level of complexity for any automation solution. In drilling automation, usually several automation solutions from different providers need to seamlessly work together to ensure safe drilling operations. This raises several challenges when it comes to the stability of such a multi-agent system.
The Verification and Validation subcommittee of the SPE Drilling Systems Automation Technical Section is focusing on how to address the verification and validation of the interplay in a multi-agent architecture with multiple providers and we discuss some of the current activities in this subcommittee.
Speaker: Rodica Mihai, Senior Researcher in the energy modelling and automation group, at Norwegian Research Centre
Moderated by Deep Joshi, Data Scientist at Quantum Capital Group.
Additional Resources:
JPT – Drilling Automation
JPT – Drilling

SPE Live Podcast: Well Intervention: Industry Trends, Innovations, and Technologies Support

Join us for an SPE Live episode on well intervention. Learn about the latest industry trends, innovations, and technologies with a preview of the SPE/ICoTA Well Intervention Conference and Exhibition on 19-20 March 2024, being held in the Woodlands, Texas - USA. 
A Q&A session will then follow with questions from the audience, answered by our guests:• Pierre Ramondenc, Coiled Tubing Domain Head at SLB• Eddie Valverde, VP of Corporate Development at Emerald Surf Sciences• Luis Castro, Asset Surveillance and Intervention Leader at Baker Hughes.
Moderated by: Carlos Torres, Founder and Owner at Royal Oaks Energy Services

SPE President's Podcast with Terry Palisch: "Creating Our Energy Future" - Maximizing Your Membership by Leveraging SPE'S Multimedia Content - March 2024

In this month's podcast, Terry discusses the content created and delivered by SPE'S Multimedia team available to SPE members to help enhance their professional growth and technical expertise. 

SPE Live Podcast: The Future of Well Integrity

Join us for an SPE Live episode on “The Future of Well Integrity” with a preview of the biennial SPE Europe Well Integrity Workshop on 5-6 March 2024, being held in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. We will retrace 2023 from the Well Integrity Technical Section perspective and provide a summary of great discussions held at the annual dinner at ATCE. We will also briefly introduce the upcoming SPE Workshop “The Future of Well Integrity” and provide a short summary of each session:
 Setting the Scene for Well Integrity in the Energy Transition
Leading practices within Well Integrity
Understanding and Managing Risk
The Challenges of Regulating Well Integrity
Well Integrity for CCS
Digital Well Integrity
Measuring What Matters
Future-Proofing Well Integrity
A Q&A session will then follow with questions from the audience, answered by our guests:
Michael Edwards , Founder and President at Edwards Energy Innovation, and Senior Executive Advisor at Partners in Performance.
Kenny MacAllister, Managing Director, SealTite
Kareem Shafi, Carbon Storage Manager, Global CCUS Projects, DRAX
Moderated by: Pierre-Edouard Vincent, Completions and Well Interventions Manager, Trident Energy. SPE Europe Well Integrity Workshop

SPE Live Podcast: Innovation in Hydraulic Fracturing

Join us for an SPE Live episode on “Innovation in Hydraulic Fracturing” with a preview of the SPE Hydraulic Fracturing Technology Conference and Exhibition on 6-8 February 2024, being held in the Woodlands, Texas – USA.
We will retrace 2023 from the Hydraulic Fracturing Technical Section perspective and briefly introduce the following topics (to learn more, register to attend the 2024 HFTC)
• Stimulation and completion designs• Diagnostic utilization• Computational fluid dynamics• Machine learning algorithms
A Q&A session will then follow with questions from the audience, answered by our guests.– Karen Olson, SPE Completions Technical Director, and Senior Completions Advisor at Well Data Labs– Mike Mayerhofer, Director of Technology at Liberty Energy– Kyle Haustveit, Manager of Devon Energy Ventures
Moderated by: Peggy Rijken, Chapter Manager, Geomechanics in the Chevron Technology Center
Additional Resources:
SPE Hydraulic Fracturing Technology Conference and ExhibitionOnePetro Publications:  Hydraulic Fracturing  and Hydraulic Fracturing Fundamentals and Advancements