Houston Conference Research Articles

Hess’ ‘Drainage’ Wells Show Strong Production but Face Cost and Spacing Challenges

A new kind of horizontal well has emerged from an experiment in North Dakota’s Bakken and Three Forks shales. It uses an uncemented slotted liner to produce hydrocarbons by intercepting fractures that originate from offset wells. Hess Corp. revealed the concept over 2 years ago, confirming at an SPE conference that crude was flowing from the pilot well. The New York City-headquartered oil company also announced that additional trials were in progress, though it withheld specific production figures. The wait for those key details is now over. At the recent Unconventional Resources Technology Conference (URTeC) in Houston, Hess presented its first technical paper on the augmented drainage development (ADD) pilots which it claims have proven the approach to be, at the very least, a technical success. In URTeC 4044110, the company’s authors underlined their optimism in noting that ADD wells “could lead to a step change in productivity and recovery in unconventional developments.” Hess acknowledges that economic and technical hurdles currently stand in the way of that vision. But the upbeat assessment is backed by impressive production data from its inaugural pilot launched in 2021. Placed about 240 ft between two actively stimulated Middle Bakken wells, the first drainage well exceeded expectations, averaging nearly 1,700 B/D of crude in the first 8 days of flowback. Output fell to about 1,500 B/D over the next few days as the nearest actively stimulated well—called a “standard well” by Hess—began its flowback. This was one of several confirmations that the wells were in direct communication. “A lot of bets were lost on this well—maybe not by me, but by a lot of people,” remarked Craig Cipolla, a principle completions engineering advisor for Hess. Cipolla presented the company’s findings at the conference this past summer. He said the ADD well also pumped out about as much frac sand as is seen in a typical shale well, which in addition to tracer data, verified that it was well propped. During the initial production period, the first ADD well achieved about 85% of the output of the offsetting standard wells on the pad. Although this figure eventually dropped to just over 40% over the next 2 years, it was enough for Hess to consider the concept validated. Based on the results from all three pilots, Hess estimates ADD wells in the Bakken can be expected to achieve 10 to 45% of the output of typical hydraulically fractured horizontal wells. On the low end, the oil recovered from distant and low-conductivity fractures likely won’t justify drilling even a wellbore as barebones as the ADD concept calls for. Conversely, if a drainage well produces too much oil it is a sign that well spacing is too tight and that it is overly competing for resources with more-expensive offsets. This is likely the story of why the first ADD well came on so strong.

What You Don’t Know About Chevron’s New 20K Anchor Project

_ After overcoming the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and closing significant technology and regulatory gaps, Chevron’s $5.7 billion Anchor project in the US Gulf of Mexico (GOM) is nearly ready to start producing oil. When it finally does, it will mark the start of the “20K” era for the deepwater oil and gas industry. The term 20K refers to the project’s core technologies, designed to handle wellhead pressures of up to 20,000 psi—a first for the subsea market. The advancement opens the door to previously inaccessible reservoirs by stretching the boundary of deepwater technology beyond the technical limit of 15,000 psi established in the past decade. In particular, the drive to reach such extremes is a response to the demands posed by the Lower Tertiary Wilcox play which Chevron pioneered the development of in 2014 with its Jack/St. Malo project. Output from the high-pressure, low-permeability, and ultradeep formation is expected to rise from last year’s 270,000 B/D to around 750,000 B/D by 2028. This would represent a shift from 13% to nearly 40% of the US GOM’s total of roughly 2 million B/D, according to Enverus Intelligence Research. The success of just a handful of projects like Anchor is crucial for achieving these projections. Located approximately 140 miles offshore Louisiana in about 5,000 ft of water, Chevron holds a 62.8% share in the project, with TotalEnergies owning the remaining interest. The initial phase includes seven wells targeting reservoir depths between 30,000 and 34,000 ft. Chevron has drilled three so far. Anchor’s semisubmersible floating production unit (FPU) arrived in the GOM last year after its hull was built in South Korea and topsides integrated along the Texas coast. The FPU has nameplate capacity of 75,000 B/D but upon delivery, Chevron determined it could make small modifications to boost the facility’s peak throughput to 86,000 B/D—an almost 15% increase. At this year’s Offshore Technology Conference (OTC) in Houston, Chevron’s Anchor project team offered a behind-the-scenes look at their journey to the precipice of first oil. Drawing from several papers they presented, here are some of Anchor’s biggest challenges and achievements. A Project of Firsts The nature of the Anchor project is such that it involves a number of industry firsts and records. At the top of that list is Transocean’s Deepwater Titan drillship which Chevron inked a 5-year $830 million contract for while it was still under construction in 2018. The rig began operations in the GOM in June 2023 as the second eighth-generation drillship ever built but holds claim to being the first ever rated for 20K operations. Originally planned to be a 15K-rated vessel, the Deepwater Titan was upgraded on Chevron’s request to host two NOV-supplied 20,000-psi blowout preventers (BOPs). Combined with the lower marine riser package, the BOP stack weighs in at more than 1.1 million lbs. Chevron points out in OTC 35148 that the BOPs were not needed to drill the wells—for that, 15,000-psi BOPs would have sufficed—but they were required for well control during the completion phase when hydrocarbons are most likely to flow to surface.

A survey of the perceptions and practices of faculty in clinical neuropsychology doctoral training programs: is heterogeneity the norm?

Objective: Doctoral education is a cornerstone in the training of clinical neuropsychologists. However, we know little about perceptions, practices, and needs of the faculty who oversee doctoral training in clinical neuropsychology (CN). Method: Seventy-one faculty from 45 doctoral programs providing CN training completed at least part of a survey assessing characteristics of their programs, current training practices and views, and challenges to CN doctoral training. Results: Over half of CN faculty reported having zero or only one CN colleague. CN faculty reported that the goals of CN doctoral training are research training, clinical training, and acquisition of knowledge and skills reflected in the Houston Conference Guidelines (HCG). CN faculty reported that doctoral trainees obtain more clinical hours than faculty would like and endorsed alternative clinical metrics, including competency-based ratings. CN faculty are divided about the benefits of a required two-year postdoctoral CN fellowship. Conclusions: The HCG states that specialization in CN begins at the doctoral level. CN faculty in doctoral programs are fully immersed in the early development and education of future CN researchers and practitioners. Tensions between clinical and research training in CN at the doctoral level—and student overemphasis on accruing clinical hours—might place CN at risk for failing to make research innovations necessary for our field to evolve and thrive. More CN doctoral faculty are needed to serve as mentors to students, especially for students from backgrounds that have been historically excluded and marginalized. A greater voice from CN doctoral faculty in CN governance is needed.

LHCb Overview

The LHCb experiment has a complete heavy ion physics program, including studies of pp, pA, AA, and UPC events delivered by the Large Hadron Collider, along with a rapidly expanding fixed-target capability. With unique acceptance and detector capabilities, LHCb reaches across the widest range of Bjorken x that is available in the laboratory, accesses an incomparably broad array of light and heavy quark states, and provides measurements of forward bulk phenomena, all down to very low pT. These proceedings discuss results from LHCb as presented at the Quark Matter 2023 conference in Houston, TX.

“Nothing Less Than Justice”

This article analyzes the significance of the 1977 California International Women’s Year (IWY) Conference, one of fifty-six state and territorial meetings held ahead of the 1977 National Women’s Conference (NWC) in Houston, Texas. The NWC was the first and only time that the U.S. federal government funded and authorized an event focused on women’s rights. Utilizing primary and oral history sources, we examine the political mobilization of women of color and lesbians from California. We focus on the efforts of these minoritized women to reach their respective communities and to form coalitions with one another, before and during the state meeting, in order to make collective impacts at the NWC. We make three arguments. First, these California activists built upon a longer tradition of political mobilization within and across communities defined in terms of race, indigeneity, and sexuality. Second, the timing of political engagement by women of color and lesbian-identified activists with the NWC, namely in the late 1970s, challenges the temporal understanding of so-called second-wave feminism, which tends to focus on the 1960s and early 1970s. Finally, the range of political ideas and strategies expressed at the California IWY Conference and the NWC reveals the intertwining of various ideologies and approaches to creating change. The NWC was a state-sponsored political event, but the grassroots mobilization that occurred at the local, state, and national levels enabled women of diverse backgrounds and beliefs to articulate and advocate for their political vision.

Have Offshore Operators Cracked the Code on How To Successfully Run a Megaproject?

_ Offshore oil and gas companies have been told for years that when it comes to delivering on megaprojects, they’re not doing that great of a job. The experts have pilloried piecemeal approaches to contracting and scheduling, blaming them for cost inefficiencies and delays. Analysts have raised concerns that the various teams involved are too siloed, or not brought into the fold at the right time. And lamented on from many a conference podium are the rarely realized benefits of standardization. However, two recent case studies from different sides of the Atlantic suggest that large offshore producers have paid heed to these issues. At this year’s Offshore Technology Conference (OTC) in Houston, Equinor and Murphy Oil Corp. shared details about their latest multibillion‑dollar projects. In separate conference papers the companies said they avoided overengineering new production systems by trying to borrow the blueprints from existing facilities. They also claim to have fully embraced the idea of integrated teamwork and proactive project execution. For Equinor, the result is known as the Johan Sverdrup field which stands in roughly 375 ft of water on the Norwegian continental shelf. Output from the project’s phase one and two facilities topped out in May at 755,000 B/D with one of the industry’s lowest breakeven prices of less than $20/bbl. Meanwhile, Murphy is celebrating the new King’s Quay floating production system (FPS) which delivered first oil less than 3 years after sanctioning. The three‑reservoir deepwater Gulf of Mexico project also bested expectations as it ramped up to 100,000 B/D within its first year of operation. Highlights from these case studies and the strategies that led to successful outcomes are below. Johan Sverdrup: A European Giant In May, Equinor’s Johan Sverdrup field soared past its originally planned nameplate capacity of 720,000 B/D as it hit a plateau rate of 755,000 B/D. The peak figure represents about 7% of European crude demand. The milestone for the majority‑state‑owned oil company came a little over 6 months after it completed a $4.4‑billion phase two expansion project. In OTC 32552, authors from Equinor outline the key strategic decisions that enabled the company to deliver the 29‑well phase two project on time and under budget despite pandemic‑related barriers, equipment failures, and employee strikes. Keep Contractors Close. Equinor emphasized the role of its newest iteration of integrated teamwork—or what it calls the “one team” approach. Vibeke Lossius, a coauthor and project manager for Equinor, described the idea as the glue that held together the operator with its global network of contractors and suppliers. “Our philosophy was that if one fails, we all fail,” she said. “So, it was important to us that the contractors succeeded.” The one team approach grew out of phase one but only involved Equinor’s team leaders. Then as the operator began phase two, it pushed harder to align its goals more closely with those of its contracting partners, which meant bringing them into the tent.

Characteristics of and Professional Issues Experienced by Early Career Neuropsychologists in the United States - Findings from a Survey Study.

Multiple transitions occur during the early career stage of a psychologist, perhaps to a higher extent and with more potent ramifications than subsequent career stages. However, limited information exists on the various expectations, concerns, and challenges experienced by early career psychologists (ECPs) broadly, and more specifically in clinical neuropsychology. Therefore, the Society for Clinical Neuropsychology (SCN)/Division 40's Early Career Neuropsychologist Committee developed a Needs Assessment Survey with the primary goal of identifying various training and professional development issues encountered by ECPs in clinical neuropsychology. A comprehensive survey was distributed electronically via listserv announcements and SCN communication tools (Newsletters and Neuroblasts). Data collection occurred from 29 May, 2020 to 02 August, 2020. The total sample comprised of 89 respondents (85% aged 31-40years; 83% female; 82% Caucasian, followed by 18% Asian; 3% of Hispanic ethnicity). Majority of the respondents graduated from APA-accredited doctoral programs and from postdoctoral programs that adhered to Houston Conference Guidelines. About 7% took >2years to complete their residency and about 10%-15% of ECPs expressed clear dissatisfaction with at least some aspect of their residency training. Becoming board certified in neuropsychology was the highest ranked career goal for ECPs in neuropsychology (45%), whereas 72% indicated difficulty understanding billing and insurance-related issues as the most frequently encountered professional challenge. About 57% of ECPs were concerned about maintaining work/life balance. Specific ways to aid and strengthen trainees and ECPs' professional needs are discussed with a focus on activities that can be undertaken at individual-, department-, profession-, and higher legislative-specific levels. Question: Using survey data, this study aimed to characterize early career psychologists (ECPs) training history and their current work settings, identify their needs, and understand their perspectives about challenges and expectations. Findings: Results reveal that the workforce comprising of ECPs is getting increasingly diverse, and their needs are typically focused on obtaining board certification. ECPs identified areas for improvement in their training, such as increasing their knowledge of billing and insurance, and expressed concerns about maintaining work/life balance. Importance: The Minnesota 2022 Update Conference seems like a promising platform for addressing several of the needs identified by the survey and providing updated guidelines for ECPs. Next Steps: Based on the findings, general guidelines have been proposed for state and local level organizations along with call for action to higher-level legislation.

Why Are We Having Different Experiences? Reflections of the GSA Committee on Institutional Transformation and Social Justice

Why Are We Having Different Experiences?Reflections of the GSA Committee on Institutional Transformation and Social Justice Tiffany Florvil (bio), Alicia E. Ellis (bio), Damani Partridge (bio), Eli Rubin (bio), and Chunjie Zhang (bio) In March 2020, a new GSA committee was formed to address the issues of unequal and troubling experiences, particularly for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color at the German Studies Association conferences. While we started with the well-known moniker, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI), as we began to think beyond inclusion into the existing framework, we requested that our name be changed to the Committee for Institutional Transformation and Social Justice (ITSJ). The new name, we believe, better expresses the needs and the aspirations that we think the GSA as a whole should have. As we began the discussion about changing both our name and mission, Irene Kacandes was chair and Venkat Mani was an active participant. Damani Partridge was on the executive board and came to the committee to discuss the broader critique of "diversity" and "inclusion," particularly in contexts in which these practices and terms did not lead toward institutional transformation.1 Venkat Mani completed his term on the committee in 2021 before the GSA meeting of 2021, and Irene Kacandes completed her term shortly thereafter. Chunjie Zhang subsequently joined the committee in addition to Damani Partridge. Most recently, after the 2022 GSA meeting, we have added a graduate student representative, Sascha Daniels. Since its inception, the committee has held monthly meetings and undertaken multiple actions, with a particular emphasis on the annual GSA conferences in 2021 and 2022. We are most grateful to the editor of German Studies Review, Katharina Gerstenberger, for generously providing us this opportunity to report our past and current work and to continue to expound upon our perspectives for the future. We also invite feedback and comments from the international readership in and outside [End Page 117] of the United States to enrich our work and make the GSA an even better and more creative community that affirms the principles supporting BIPOC, LGBTQI+, and disability scholars. From the start, the committee decided to become more than mere window dressing. We are deeply aware that institutional transformation and social justice cannot and should not only be the committee's responsibility; rather, these efforts demand broad attention and more extensive support from the entire membership. We are, of course, extremely grateful for the numerous invaluable suggestions that we have received from diverse members. It is clear that GSA members have good intentions and offer generous resources such as time and experience so that they, too, participate in change that addresses our overarching concerns, which we will discuss in greater detail below. The committee understands itself as a bridge between the membership at large and the GSA executive board. We will help to identify and move forward the most urgent issues and work to identify solutions and other modes of redress. As an example of our ongoing work, in May 2020, we drafted a letter to the entire GSA membership in the wake of the murder of George Floyd. We also discussed how to have productive collaborations with other scholarly organizations in addressing threats to international students. In 2021, the committee invested most of its energy toward holding a plenary at the GSA conference with the title "From Intent to Action: Inclusionary Practices for the GSA." We offered the plenary as a hybrid event, and are grateful to the GSA leadership, in particular Benita Blessing and Margaret Menninger, for working with us to address the technological challenges. After a short introduction and personal testimonies about issues concerning general participation and experiences of harm at the GSA expressed by some committee members, including Irene Kacandes, Alicia Ellis, Eli Rubin, and Tiffany Florvil, we broke into four groups, three remained online and one in person. While we did not conduct an official count, we estimate that over one hundred conference participants joined the plenary. In 2022, the committee helped draft two statements addressing the war in Ukraine and nationwide anti-trans legislation. At the 2022 GSA conference in Houston, the committee organized the roundtable, Whose Body? Whose State? to address issues of abortion...

The Fight for Fair Training: Fair Employment, Defense Worker Training, and the African American Civil Rights Movement in the South, 1940–1945

The Fight for Fair Training:Fair Employment, Defense Worker Training, and the African American Civil Rights Movement in the South, 1940–1945 Bryant Etheridge (bio) If Thurgood Marshall took offense at being counseled on litigation strategy by someone who lacked legal training, he chose not to show it. John L. LeFlore, the secretary of the Mobile, Alabama, chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), was urging him to make better use of the Supreme Court's recent decision in Missouri ex rel. Gaines v. Canada (1938). It was 1941, and LeFlore was deeply involved in the wartime civil rights struggles of Black Alabamians, especially their fight to gain employment in the state's booming industries. The Gaines ruling, he advised Marshall, constituted a vital doctrinal resource in the fight for fair employment. Marshall informed LeFlore that the NAACP's legal staff, in response to similar requests from most of the organization's branches, was already developing a test case that addressed LeFlore's concerns. At the upcoming annual conference in Houston, Texas, NAACP members from around the country would coordinate legal strategy. LeFlore, Marshall suggested, could contribute to that effort by representing the NAACP branches of Alabama at the June 1941 conference.1 [End Page 501] As LeFlore fought racism in wartime Mobile, he had no higher priority than winning access to good jobs for Black residents. The struggle to overcome white opposition to equal employment opportunity in the city's shipyards occupied him and other local activists for the rest of the war. While employment as unskilled laborers was often open to African Americans, semiskilled or skilled work was not. As a result, moving up the occupational ladder was a civil rights imperative in Mobile, as it was throughout the United States, during World War II. The assault on the Jim Crow racial division of labor was foremost on LeFlore's mind when he contacted Marshall.2 LeFlore proposed to make the Gaines case, a lawsuit that was part of the NAACP's campaign against segregation, central to attacking racialized economic inequality. The case involved an African American plaintiff, Lloyd Gaines, who had applied to the law school at the University of Missouri. The all-white university rejected Gaines's application. Missouri instead offered to pay Gaines's tuition at an out-of-state law school, a workaround that many southern states used to avoid complying with even the separate-but-equal stipulation of Plessy v. Ferguson (1896). Gaines declined that arrangement, and the NAACP's legal team filed suit. In 1938, the Supreme Court ruled that Missouri's tuition reimbursement program was unconstitutional. The ruling left the state with two options for graduate law education: to open a law school for Black students or to admit Black students to the existing institution. Although the decision stopped well short of ending segregation in higher education, it was an important milestone on the long road to Brown v. Board of Education (1954). With the Gaines lawsuit, NAACP lawyers aimed, in part, to make segregation too expensive to sustain. The cost of creating separate-but-equal programs in every area of graduate and professional study, they wagered, would prove too heavy a burden for southern states to bear.3 The faith LeFlore showed in the Gaines ruling as a solution to the problem of fair employment in Mobile's shipyards appears misplaced. The categorical distinction between the NAACP's legal campaign against segregated education, on one hand, and the concurrent but separate fight for economic justice, on the other, underpins our basic conceptualization of the civil rights movement in the 1940s. If alleviating [End Page 502] economic inequality was LeFlore's objective, his propounding the utility of Gaines seems to amount to a non sequitur. Perhaps LeFlore was confused. Perhaps, in offering guidance on constitutional law to an NAACP attorney, he had gotten in over his head and misconstrued the Court's ruling in Gaines. Or maybe LeFlore just screwed up and cited the wrong case. If LeFlore misunderstood the Gaines decision, he was not alone. He informed Marshall that in Mobile, Black residents stood broadly in support of using Gaines as a...

ROPES Offers an Energy Transition Solution to Pipeline Decommissioning

Oil and gas companies around the world are repositioning themselves to face the energy transition—whether that means embracing the fact that the green economy of the future calls for less hydrocarbon use or something more radical, like Lundin Energy’s (now called Orrön Energy) recent move to sell off its oil and gas assets to become a pure renewables player. One certainty is that as companies trend away from oil and gas and toward a lower-carbon frontier there will still be plenty of “cleanup” to do while players figure out exactly what to do with more than 100 years of oil and gas infrastructure. Offshore, decommissioning of platforms and pipelines is a capital-intensive business and one that is expected to grow in the coming years. Last year, IHS Markit released a forecast predicting global offshore decommissioning spending to reach almost $100 billion for the 2021–2030 period, up by more than 200% compared to the previous 10-year period. According to the forecast, nearly 2,800 fixed platforms and 160 floating platforms could be decommissioned. That represents 33% of fixed platforms and 43% of floating platforms currently in operation. Additionally, more than 18,500 wellheads, 2,850 subsea trees, and 83000 km of offshore pipelines and umbilicals currently in operation are subject to decommissioning during the same period. More than 50% of the expected activity is spread across four countries: the UK, US, Brazil, and Norway. The financial burden and safety liability of marine decommissioning have prompted some to look at the potential for repurposing the hardware and using it in moving toward the drive to net-zero emissions: platforms that could be used to host wind turbines, vessels that could be redesigned to collect hydroenergy, and pipelines that could be repurposed for potential battery storage. Repurposing offshore pipeline as energy storage (ROPES) is a concept that is being investigated by a partnership of offshore projects and services specialists Subsea 7 and offshore energy storage startup Flasc. Flasc was founded as a spinoff from the University of Malta in 2019 and is based in the Netherlands. The concept was described in a paper presented at the 2022 Offshore Technology Conference in Houston (OTC 31703). Subsea 7 and Flasc signed a cooperative exclusivity agreement in late 2020 to work toward the commercialization of Flasc’s patented hydro-pneumatic energy storage (HPES) concept offshore. HPES combines pressurized seawater with compressed air to create an efficient, large-scale energy storage device that can be applied across a wide range of offshore applications. Energy is stored by pumping seawater into a closed chamber to compress a fixed volume of precharged inert gas. The energy can be recovered by allowing the compressed gas to push the water back out through a hydraulic turbine generator (Fig. 1). The technology leverages existing infrastructure and supply chains, along with the marine environment itself as a natural heatsink. The first working prototype was successfully tested in 2018, and DNV has granted the technology a Statement of Feasibility based on a technical and commercial assessment. “The hydro-pneumatic technology is at the core of the ROPES concept, but can also be applied to other embodiments,” said Daniel Buhagiar, co-founder and chief executive of Flasc. “Within this collaboration, we’ve looked at doing some different designs and different products, and ROPES emerged as a very interesting opportunity. Typically, we’re looking at doing new infrastructure, [for instance] installing a bundle or a new piece of kit to store the pressurized fluids. ROPES, we thought, was really the low-hanging fruit because the pipeline infrastructure is already there, and we can create a use case for it beyond the typical applications, such as hydrogen and carbon capture, which are not always possible.”

Shallow Water: The Next Frontier for Deepwater Rigs, or Just a Passing Fad?

Petrobras, one of the world’s top offshore operators, has shared new information about how it used an ultradeepwater rig in a place where it was never intended to work—in shallow water. What makes its recent subsea campaign novel is that the Brazilian national oil company avoided mooring the rig and instead relied on dynamic positioning (DP). Two key pieces of technology made this possible. The first is called a blowout preventer (BOP)-tethering system which sits on the seabed and absorbs much of the load being placed onto the wellhead structure. The second is a digital twin software that determines the safety of the rig’s position during drilling. Petrobras is not the first to accomplish such a feat in depths less than 2,000 ft. But it is among the few to recount its learnings in multiple technical papers as it did at the recent Offshore Technology Conference (OTC) in Houston. The fresh insights surrounding the Petrobras projects stem from an initial well drilled and completed 2 years ago with a sixth-generation drillship, the Norbe VIII, owned by Brazilian contractor Ocyan. The new well is in the Albacora field within the Campos Basin and was the first of several planned to be drilled or plugged and abandoned by Petrobras in DP-only mode. Over a 16-day period in May 2020, the Norbe VIII worked in water depths of about 1,475 ft where it successfully tapped into a pre-salt oil reservoir with a total depth of more than 16,000 ft. For both firms, the project in the Campos Basin marked a first. Never before had they used a rig in DP-only mode at such shallow depths, which amounted to about 15% of the rig’s maximum depth rating. Following the first well, Petrobras drilled at least one more in June 2021 in DP-only mode. Notably, Petrobras was in the midst of selling off the Albacora field during its experimentation with DP-only shallow-water drilling. The mature asset was discovered by the state-run operator in 1984 about 75 miles from the coast and has been producing from post-salt reservoirs for the past 35 years. But earlier this year, the company said it was hoping to fetch a higher price based on better-than-expected reservoir tests from the deeper pre-salt target it drilled in May 2020.

Digital Methods of Delivering Education and Training in Neuropsychology.

High quality and accessible education is crucial to secure the future of neuropsychology. Recent and ongoing advancements include the creation of a taxonomy of education and training, progress in delineating relevant competencies, and an update to the Houston Conference Guidelines. Meanwhile, there is also potential for growth in digital methods of delivering education such as podcasts, webinars, and social media platforms. This paper aims to review the evidence for these three methods and to provide recommendations for implementing them across the continuum of training in neuropsychology, from graduate school through postdoctoral fellowship and continuing education. We reviewed the literature on podcasts, webinars, and social media platforms as educational tools that may be applied to improve learning of brain-behavior concepts and clinical skills. Specifically, we (a) introduce and describe each method, (b) discuss benefits and drawbacks, (c) review the literature on satisfaction and learning outcomes, and (d) provide suggestions for implementation in neuropsychology training programs. Podcasts and webinars have strong evidence for satisfaction and moderate support for improving learning outcomes, with the learning outcome literature suggesting equivalency between podcasts/webinars and traditional methods of education. Social media platforms are associated with high satisfaction, but learning outcome data are scarce. Evidence for podcasts and webinars is sufficient to support implementation into neuropsychology education, whereas social media platforms should be used more cautiously. We provide recommendations of select instances in which trainees and educators can use these methods to improve education in neuropsychology.

Sustainable Recovery: Regained Optimism

Upstream investment is the main driver for employment in our industry, and forecasts of company spending are eagerly expected by the service sector. I commented in my January column on the initial activity estimates made by West (Evercore). The forecasts have now been firmed up and the increases range between 15 and 17% in 2022 compared to 2021, with growth in all geographical regions. Evercore even projects that 2022 will be the beginning of a multiyear positive cycle for the industry, following 2021 which was a “renaissance of sorts” for the E&P sector. The US Energy Information Administration (EIA) Short Term Energy Outlook for February 2022 forecasts that US oil production will rise to 12.0 and 12.6 million B/D in 2022 and 2023, respectively. The latter would be the highest level ever reached, exceeding the previous record in 2019 by 0.3 million B/D. In their fourth-quarter announcements, the leaders of major service companies made the most optimistic comments for the past several years. Halliburton’s CEO Jeff Miller stated that “simultaneous” growth will occur in both the North American and international markets with a “momentum that I have not seen in a long time.” For Schlumberger’s CEO Olivier Le Peuch, “a strong multiyear upcycle” is underway as capital spending commitments are set to increase by 20% in North America and in the “low to mid-teens” across the broader international market. Such notes from the service sector are welcome news for SPE, as its financial sustainability depends on the engagement of the industry through trade shows, exhibitions, and meetings. Fiscal year 2022 (which ends on 31 March 2022) was the most challenging one in SPE’s history, as we chose not to diminish the level of service to our members and continued to provide virtual and hybrid information channels. SPE’s account balance was positively impacted by the outstanding performance of its reserve funds in financial markets and the support from the US government through instruments such as the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP). These allowed a considerable reduction in loss to an estimated $3 million. For fiscal year 2023 (ending 31 March 2023), the SPE Finance Committee has retained a cautious outlook, with significant uncertainties resulting from the pandemic situation. Early signals coming from the success of the recent hydraulic fracturing technology conferences and exhibitions in Oman and the US are positive. The financial strategy will be adapted in the coming months based on the results of key events such as IPTC, OTC Asia, and the Offshore Technology Conference in Houston.

What makes for a competitive fellowship candidate? A survey of clinical neuropsychology postdoctoral training directors

Objective: To obtain objective data about the factors that clinical neuropsychology postdoctoral training directors (TDs) look for and prioritize in their review and selection of fellowship candidates. Method: We identified 167 TDs who were overseeing postdoctoral training programs that provided training consistent with the Houston Conference Guidelines. We invited all TDs to complete an anonymous online survey that assessed their expectations as they relate to the selection of fellowship candidates. Eighty-eight TDs completed the survey in full. We used descriptive statistics to analyze the data and investigate potential between-group differences in TDs’ responses across patient populations, training settings, and APPCN member program status. Results: TDs ranked the intensity of candidates’ neuropsychology education and training experiences, their fellowship interviews, and letters of recommendation as most important. Increasing the representation of under-represented minorities and other factors were ranked lower. Minimum benchmarks related to candidates’ scholarly productivity, dissertation progress, and the time they spent engaged in clinical neuropsychology activities during internship were revealed. There were relatively few differences in TDs’ responses when compared across patient populations, training settings, or APPCN member program status. Conclusions: Students may increase their competitiveness for clinical neuropsychology fellowships by obtaining intensive education and training experiences in the specialty, which includes clinical training and coursework, and by producing scholarly work. Students may also benefit from improving their interviewing skills, completing an internship with at least 40% of time spent in neuropsychological activities, and at minimum by having their dissertation data collected before their fellowship interviews.

Professional Practices, Beliefs, and Incomes of Postdoctoral Trainees: The AACN, NAN, SCN 2020 Practice and 'Salary Survey'.

Within a portion of the 2020 professional practice and "salary survey," to update key information regarding neuropsychology postdoctoral trainees. Postdoctoral trainees were contacted via a variety of membership listings, including the listserv used by the program directors of the Association of Postdoctoral Programs in Clinical Neuropsychology (APPCN). Invitations sent in multiple waves to members of numerous neuropsychological organizations via e-messages and physical postcards included the request that postdoctoral trainees participate. The survey website was opened on January 17, 2020 and closed on April 2, 2020, during which time a total of 178 postdoctoral trainees in the USA and 3 in Canada participated. Response rate was estimated to be 56.4%, which adequately represents the target sample. The modal postdoctoral trainee is a woman whose internship was American Psychological Association (APA)-accredited and whose postdoctoral training is in an APPCN program that adheres to Houston Conference training guidelines. Extensive clinical experiences in neuropsychology in the form of externship practica and during internship were reported by the majority of trainees prior to postdoctoral training. There are few differences between APPCN and non-APPCN trainees and reported training experiences. Job satisfaction is high. Salaries appear to have increased substantially in recent years. There is universal interest in pursuing board certification. Support for the empirical foundations justifying assessment of response validity is high. Surveys of postdoctoral trainees continue to provide valuable perspectives regarding training background, clinical experiences, practice beliefs, and incomes of individuals who will soon launch their careers in clinical neuropsychology.

Comment on Cory, 2021: “White privilege in clinical neuropsychology: an invisible ‘knapsack’ in need of unpacking,”

The preservation of the field of neuropsychology as an evidenced-based discipline requires immediate, disruptive, organization-level actions to place assessment methods and research paradigms that reflect the racial, cultural, and linguistic diversity of our society at the heart of our education, training and practice models. In this comment on the Cory article on white privilege, three such concrete organizational level actions are articualted, including adoption of Relevance 2050 learning objectives, a revision of the Houston Conference Guidelines to integrate multiracial/multilingual/multiculturalism within every training experience and competency area, and a pledge from every major national neuropsychology organization to dedicate a percentage of our yearly budgets to directly fund multicultural/multiracial/multilingual norms and cultural competence development.

OTC 2020 Tech Papers Offer a Look Into the Future of Offshore

The offshore oil and gas sector has over the decades come to be defined by megaprojects with 30-to-40-year project horizons. But the future of offshore development will depend on the industry’s ability to find innovative ways to cut costs and slim the capital requirements. Many examples were to be shared with oil and gas professionals at the 2020 Offshore Technology Conference (OTC) in Houston. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this year marked the first time that OTC was cancelled since its inauguration in 1969. Despite the global disruption, the flow of ideas continues. As proof, what follows is a curated summary of some of the papers that were to be presented at OTC. They were selected for their focus on emerging technologies and unique concepts that aim to reduce the cost burden long associated with offshore exploration and development. Their state of maturity ranges from proof of concept to fully deployed. Offshore Adoption of Predictive Analytics Among the most dominant technology arenas in the oil and gas industry’s digital transformation are fast-emerging machine-learning programs that enable predictive analytics. This paper (OTC 30782), produced by software developer Spark Cognition, offers two case studies that show how machine learning is being adopted in the offshore sector.

Comments: The Rise of LNG

Editor's column Natural gas, often hailed as the bridge to an energy future that will include greater demand for alternative energy supplies, may be poised to overtake oil as the globe’s primary fuel source in the next decade. While the 20th century was the Age of Oil, the 21st century will be a combination of both old and new energy sources, Shell executive Maarten Wetselaar said at the recent CERA energy conference in Houston. Oil must now share the stage with gas and a variety of fuels, said Wetselaar, who is the company’s integrated gas and new energies director. The use of coal is projected to decrease in several developing countries trying to reduce carbon emissions, paving the way for increased use of gas and renewable energy for electricity. The European Union is threatening to fine its member nations that do not implement a carbon emissions strategy, and China is in the third year of a 5-year plan designed to limit fossil fuel consumption. Many other Asian countries are following suit. BP’s most recent Statistical Review of World Energy stated that in 2018 gas accounted for the largest gain in world energy consumption, followed by renewables and then oil. These developments, along with new supplies of gas produced by the US shale sector, is raising the status of gas from a regional fuel to a global commodity. Gas trade grew 6% last year, according to BP, with LNG trade surpassing traditional pipeline transactions. Historically, most gas has been transported by pipeline. But vast new sources of gas, from offshore Australia and US shale, have led to the building of LNG ports for export and the creation of new trade routes, principally to Asia. Four new liquefaction plants are being built along the Gulf Coast in the US, which only exported its first LNG cargo in 2016. In addition, Qatar plans to increase LNG output by more than 40% over the next 5 years, building four new LNG trains, according to consultancy DNV-GL. Global demand for LNG rose by 27 million tonnes last year to 319 million tonnes, according to Shell’s LNG Outlook. Demand is forecast to reach 384 million tonnes by 2020. But LNG buyers and sellers are still struggling with pricing. Gas has generally been sold through long-term contracts because of the absence of a spot trade. LNG has often been sold on oil-indices contracts, but the wide swings in oil prices don’t reflect LNG economics. Buyers would like more transparency to reflect regional supply/demand dynamics. A proposed gas cartel formed by some of the world’s largest gas producers—kind of a gas OPEC—has never gotten off the ground. An oil pricing service has introduced the Japan Korean Marker as a possibility, to be used for pricing Asian spot cargoes. And Cheniere and CME Group plan to develop a Henry Hub-indexed futures contract with physical delivery to the US Gulf Coast. The use of any nonoil-indexed mechanism will only increase the stature of LNG as a viable energy commodity.

Technology Focus: Natural Gas Processing and Handling (April 2019)

Technology Focus To cater to the seasonal highs and lows in demand throughout a year, natural gas is stored in underground storage facilities. The need for such facilities arose because increasing (or decreasing) gas production to mirror changes in demand is neither practical nor economical. Therefore, gas is produced and stored during low-demand times and retrieved to meet the highs during winters. This cyclic trend can be observed also in gas-storage inventories [as reported by the Energy Information Administration (EIA)]. The northeast US has the highest concentration of such storage facilities, close to the biggest market. Most of the underground gas-storage facilities are depleted reservoirs, but aquifers and leached salt caverns are also used. The US and Canada were the pioneers in realizing the potential of depleted reservoirs for gas storage and, hence, have several well-developed facilities. What makes depleted reservoirs attractive is the presence of existing wells used to produce the reservoir, plus the geologic and engineering knowledge acquired during the development of the field. All that information is leveraged when repurposing the field for gas storage. Depleted reservoirs also contain some amount of gas already in the reservoir, which decreases the requirement to inject gas as cushion gas. (Cushion gas is immobile gas that remains in the reservoir and allows the reservoir to be used for storage.) Depleted reservoirs are also the most abundant. I would be remiss not to touch upon the Aliso Canyon incident of 2015. Aliso Canyon was the second-largest storage facility in the US at the time. The industry learned a harsh lesson about the repercussions when containment is lost for such facilities. The loss of containment was because of the casing failure of one of the wells (along with having subsurface safety valves removed in the past). This led to 109,000 tonnes of methane emissions by some estimates. One measure that was proposed to reduce such risks is to use offshore reservoirs nearing abandonment for gas storage (instead of onshore ones that are close to populated urban areas). At the time of this writing, the week-to-week change in the natural gas storage inventory was –237 Bcf, and levels remained lower than the 5-year historical average, according to the EIA. This withdrawal from the inventory was less than most forecasts based on the extreme cold temperatures faced by the US. The Henry Hub natural gas prices reached highs of more than $4.5/million Btu in 2018 because of record gas demand. The price has since dipped to $2.57/million Btu because of abatement in the extreme weather leading to lower demand for heating. To learn more, visit the SPE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition in Calgary, 30 September–2 October, and the Gastech Exhibition and Conference in Houston, 17–19 September. Recommended additional reading at OnePetro: www.onepetro.org. SPE 190838 Comprehensive Evaluation of the Dynamic Sealing Capacity of Clayey Caprocks in a Large Underground Gas Storage by Junchang Sun, PetroChina, et al. SPE 192961 Maintaining Flare-Tip Health by Venugopal Bakthavachsalam, ADNOC, et al. SPE 192783 Cutting-Edge Solutions for Sour-Gas Treatment: A Retrospective Study by Kuwait Oil Company by Fahad Al-Ghanem, Kuwait Oil Company, et al.

Personal and Community Connection: Introduction to the Special Issue on Personal Digital Archiving 2018

AbstractOn April 23–25, 2018, the University of Houston hosted the annual Personal Digital Archiving (PDA) Conference in Houston, Texas. The conference is a focused, single-track event that brings together information professionals, students, and non-academics. Though small, the conference commonly attracts attendees from around the world to discuss topics focused on the intersection of personal archiving and technology. The three-day event was comprised of two full days of presentations to all attendees. Over 140 attendees from five countries were in attendance. Two keynotes, nineteen sessions with question and answer panels, seven posters, and six lightning talks were presented. A third day offered two hands-on workshops and a tour of the Houston Metropolitan Research Center. In this introduction, the Chair of the Conference Planning Committee and Guest Editor of this issue, Melody Condron, discusses highlights of the conference, as well as themes and discussion that tie into the papers presented in this issue.