History of the PBGS: 2004-2005
OFFICERS:
PRESIDENT: Cynthia Black (Digital Prospectors/Oxy Permian)
PRES. ELECT: Sammy Barnhill (Dawson Geophysical Co.)
VICE PRES.: Jim Dunkelberg (Vecta Exploration Ltd.)
SECRETARY: Hoxie Smith (Geospectrum Inc.)
TREASURER: Joe Caputo (EOG Resources)
The Fall program started early with the DISC 2004 program which had been postponed from May. Dr. Paul Weimer presented an excellent one day seminar on “Petroleum Systems of Deepwater Settings” which truly covered the world. The program had a record high attendance according to Martha George (Coordinator) and included geologists and engineers since we had advertised an open invitation to other societies.
The Eleventh annual skeet-shoot and Cajun shrimp boil along with the 42nd Annual Doodlebug Open provided lighter entertainment, as usual. The Doodlebug Open was coordinated by Jim Dunkelberg this year with abundant assistance from Debbie Lawrence and Georgia Briscoe (Pinnacle Seismic), as well as Bill Mueller (Antlers Exploration). We are truly grateful to Debbie Lawrence who has volunteered to chair the Doodlebug 2005. She documented an organizational process which should make this event much easier to pull together in the future.
It is worthy to note that the price of oil broke well over $50/barrel and remained there for some time. Natural gas was around $7/mcf.
Our regular Fall program began with Malcolm Lansley’s (PGS Onshore, Inc.) giving a wonderful presentation on 3D survey design and how relatively small changes can really improve the final product. Distinguished SEG Lecturer, Dr. Heloise Lynn, challenged us to utilize anisotropic and azimuthal analyses to evaluate horizontal permeability. Other talks discussed “Passive Seismic” (Peter Duncan) as a way to use earths’ natural seismicity, and then Mark Egan (WesternGeco) reviewed the use of AVO to derive seismic attributes. In a Newsletter article Jim Dunkelberg stated that people, not software and hardware, were still the most important asset to the industry and coined the phrase “knowledge worker”.
Geophysicists continued to work in the educational community and Hoxie Smith was featured in the Reporter-Telegram in an article on attempts to attract young people to the oil field. Hoxie is the director of Midland College’s Petroleum Professional Development Center.
As a way to celebrate the SEG’s 75th Anniversary, the Board decided to place the $50,000 CD which made a very low interest rate, with the Permian Basin Area Foundation (Jack Swallow, Director). The Board will continue to steward the scholarship fund but this change creates a fund whose assets are better managed and that can be built on well into the future and improves the application process (all online). The Foundation website, www.pbaf.org will post the PBGS Scholarship Fund .
Spring meetings brought us an SEG Distinguished Lecturer program by Greg Partyka on “Spectral Decomposition” for which he received the Virgil Kaufmann Gold Medal award in 2003. Since West Texas is considered by some to be the worlds’ largest beach we also heard a presentation on offshore data acquisition.
The Annual Bar-B-Q is planned for May 19th is always well attended and this year precedes the Annual Meeting on May 20th. The Business Meeting will occur during the Annual Exploration Meeting and awards, SEG honorees, and announcement of the 2005-06 PBGS Board Officers will be made.
The 46th Annual Meeting on May 20 is being held at the Petroleum Club in downtown Midland. Our Keynote speaker is L. C. (Lee) Lawyer, Chairman of the ad hoc SEG 75 Committee, and he will review the history of the SEG and encourage all Sections to remain active and supportive of the SEG. Mr. Lawyer has served in several executive positions within the SEG and currently contributes the column “From The Far Side” to The Leading Edge. Mr. Lawer provided the Keynote Address at our 1988 31st Annual Meeting in his capacity of SEG President during that year.
The theme for the meeting is “Teaching Old Basins New Tricks” and an excellent group of presentations give us a good idea of which of theses “new tricks” we can use. Three papers report on imaging and resolution problems and on how to utilize various processing parameters and data qualities to improve interpretive results (John Smythe, John Castagna and Daniel Cook with John Warn). Fractured reservoirs are covered by two papers including tight reservoirs and karsted reservoirs (James Reeves and E. Charlotte Sullivan). One paper gives us a “hometown” case study of a multicomponent analysis of the Vacuum/Drinkard field in Lea Co., New Mexico (Michael Raines) and another discussion takes us home and abroad to compare and contrast the Permian and Arabian Basins (Donald Rodgers).
SEG membership awards will be presented to PBGS members at the Annual Meeting:
- 50 year members: William L. Basham, Robert M. Boling, and S.T. “Buddy” Miller
- 25 year members: Wendell Creech, Lyle D. Eberly, Bill Keyser, Louis L. Lint, Jay May, Ted N. Noel, and Mark Taylor
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