Comments: Reader Survey

Abstract

Editor's column Last month, JPT concluded its annual readership survey to assess SPE members’ opinions of this magazine’s content, coverage, relevance, strengths, and weaknesses. The information will be used to improve JPT’s quality and to help plan content for the coming year. An invitation to participate in the survey was sent to a random sample of 30,000 professional (non-student) members, representative of the demo-graphics of SPE. Of the respondents, 44% reside outside the US, 82% of them have more than 10 years of experience in the oil and gas industry, 40% are engineers, and 24% are managers. Responses came from members who work for operators, national oil companies, service companies, and consultancies. The most widely read features in JPT are Technology Update, the summaries of technical papers, and Technology Applications, highlighting our readers’ interests in emerging technology, practical deployment of technology, and case studies. This also confirms results from previous readership surveys. Regarding specific technical topics, respondents expressed the most interest in field development projects, mature fields and well revitalization, and horizontal and complex trajectory wells. Looking at some other findings, the overall ranking of JPT rose compared with previous surveys. In this year’s survey, 95% of respondents rated JPT as excellent, very good, or good and 77% rated JPT better or significantly better than other upstream publications, up from 65–70% in previous surveys over the past decade. Just under 90% of readers said JPT was useful to them in their daily job. The summaries of SPE technical papers in JPT have always ranked near the top in readers surveys. JPT’s 42-person Editorial Committee—made up of volunteer members representing all facets of the upstream oil and gas industry—survey scores of technical papers every year for possible publication. Last year, the committee pored over 3,138 technical papers before selecting the final ones for publication in JPT. Their work results in the publication of approximately 130 papers over the course of the year in 42 different upstream technical topics, the best papers representing the state of the art in a particular technology. The summaries of those papers appear in each issue, while the full-length papers are available free to members for 2 months at JPT Online. Speaking of JPT Online, our website has a new look and a new address (www.jptonline.org). The website was redesigned based on the results of reader surveys, a focus group, and industry trends. The revitalized site contains more news and more in-depth coverage of emerging technologies and the latest technology applications, with articles organized by discipline and region, and has a new search engine. Members can continue to download the free technical papers summarized in JPT as well as view the print archives at the site. Please let us know what you think of the changes.