Petroleum++: Listening to Our Members

Abstract

As we return to a full schedule of meetings in person and I get a chance to visit with a large number of our members and discuss the various services and programs SPE offers, it became clear that more communication is needed to make all of us aware of the benefits and value of SPE membership. I plan to describe these services in detail and discuss developments in the SPE Strategic Plan, this month and in future columns. Let me start with mentioning two services of interest to all members. For more than a year now, the SPE Board of Directors has communicated the highlights and major decisions of its quarterly meetings with all the Society’s section chairs and asked them to share the information with the membership at-large at section meetings and newsletters. Probably, a more direct method of sharing this material is needed. The information from the most recent Board of Directors meeting (October 2022 in Houston) and highlights from all 2022 meetings are posted here. Information from future meetings will be posted regularly after each meeting. This practice is important to share the work and decisions the Board is continually making with our members, and it offers an invitation for them to provide any feedback they may consider helpful to continue advancing the mission of our Society. The other point I’d like to mention is that despite the financial challenges we have experienced recently, the contribution of our members to the technical content has never decreased. The number of papers presented at our conferences continued at the same pace. A good example is that during the month of October 2022, a total of 1,382 papers were presented at six SPE events in North America, the Middle East, and Asia Pacific. Attendance at technical sessions at SPE-managed conferences are continuously increasing to reach the pre-pandemic levels. I recently participated in the SPE Middle East Artificial Lift Conference in Bahrain, ADIPEC in Abu Dhabi, and the Earth Energy and Environment (E3) Conference at Marietta College, where attendance was higher than expected. Other programs and services available to our members will be highlighted in future columns.