Techbits Two conferences held recently highlighted the challenges and opportunities unique to E&P activities in two important oil and gas regions, India and North Africa. SPE Oil and Gas India Conference and Exhibition (OGIC) The SPE OGIC, held in January in Mumbai, had an overarching theme of “E&P Business: Excellence Out of Turbulence.” The event, which marked the first conference organized by SPE in India, brought together more than 1,200 industry leaders representing 167 companies from 30 countries to discuss new means of managing risks at times when oil prices undergo wide fluctuations. To open the conference, Murli Deora, the Government of India’s Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas, sent a message that included his best wishes for the conference’s success and emphasized its importance to the region. “We need to deploy our best brains to find technologies which can bring [oil and gas] resources to the realm of affordability and sustainability and at a scale which would aid in furthering the region’s economic activities,” Deora said. “There is no single solution. There is no single company, nation, or technology that can meet our energy challenges, all on their own. Sustainable energy solutions would require increasing collective attention and efforts.” Following the inauguration of the event, a VIP tour of the venue and exhibition space took place, which included dignitaries R.S. Sharma, chairman and managing director of Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC); Sudhir Vasudeva, OGIC chairperson; and 2010 SPE President Behrooz Fattahi. Several of the 30 companies exhibiting at the conference launched new products, including new rotary steerable systems designed to create smoother wellbores and new multiphase-flow measurement devices that do not require separation of fluids. An executive plenary session followed, in which panelists including N. M. Borah of Oil India, Derek Fisher of BG India, A.K. Balyan of ONGC, and James McCallum of Senergy shared their regional and international insights on how oil and gas companies are committed to exploring more efficient methods and integrating advanced technologies to enhance their operations and improve productivity. The first day also included several technical sessions that explored E&P topics such as well simulation, unconventional-resource extraction, reservoir characterization, facility engineering, and drilling challenges. The day closed with a special session titled “Management of Mega Projects,” which addressed the optimum ways to design and manage mega E&P projects, to reduce their intensive capital investments, and the best strategic approaches to improve a project’s overall management process.