Twenty Y ears of the Oilfield Review
More than 50 years ago Schlumberger started an in-house publication called The Technical Review. Its objective was to distribute articles and guidelines on wireline techniques of value and use to the company’s technical community around the world, including the engineers in the field. Over time, Schlumberger added products and services in domains beyond wireline logging. In 1989, The Technical Review evolved into the Oilfield Review to reflect a broader outlook; this new journal was available to our clients from the first issue. Today’s publication is still doing what its founders intended—conveying technology and experience fromexpert to practitioner and vice versa. I am delighted to be writing this introduction to the 20th anniversary issue. Regular readers know that Oilfield Review articles come from a wide cross section of authors who represent Schlumberger clients, research institutions and the world of academia. This powerful amalgam provides a broad per- spective on technology, in keeping with the nature of the industry. For example, today’s reservoir engineers do more than run reservoir models. Most have a working knowledge of geology, seismic processing, drilling, completions and more, so they can interact effectively with experts outside their field. For that very reason, Oilfield Review articles typically combine contributions from individuals represent- ing several disciplines.
The past 20 years have seen substantial technological progress in the E&P industry, as articles in Oilfield Review bear witness. “Logging While Drilling,” the first article in the first issue of 1989, is a perfect example. It describes how measurements behind the bit provided a first look at the formations crossed by the well. Today, new tools devel- oped in that same technology area look ahead into the for- mations about to be crossed by the bit. We have moved from seeing where we are to seeing where we’re going. That same first issue also presents an intriguing story of seismic techniques in West Africa. In 1989, that area was just opening to offshore exploration, but now it is a major producing region. The article describes an analysis of 2D seismic data that changed the industry’s view of the Douala basin. Compare that with the seismic technology of the 21st century that provides the resolution and the fidelity to map fracture corridors in 3D.
I would like to highlight one final example from that issue, “The Earth’s Heat.” Like many similar scientific articles published over the years in Oilfield Review, it adds context to the physical world in which our industry operates.
Our industry is cyclical, and this anniversary issue appears at a time of reducing activity following the tremen- dous expansion of the past five years. Yet the technology that our industry develops takes longer to perfect than the period of one cycle. Commitment to continued develop- ment is therefore essential, and I regard the Oilfield Review as part of that commitment: Its articles describe new technology in a way that is both technically accurate and accessible to the broad population of technical profes- sionals that form the backbone of E&P activity today. The future of the industry will likely be one of disinte- grating barriers. The divisions that have separated the geotechnical disciplines have been shrinking over the past decade and will continue to do so under the pressure of increased collaboration. A growing number of operations will become digital, and the location of the person with the expertise needed to solve a problem will become almost irrelevant. At the same time, the subsurface expertise of the industry will help the world access new forms of energy, such as geothermal, while also helping solve part of the carbon problem through the long-term storage of carbon dioxide in deep saline aquifers and depleted oil and gas reservoirs. As the world and our industry change, I look for- ward to the next 20 years of Oilfield Review continuing to provide that critical insight into the technologies that the industry will demand.
Andrew Gould
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Schlumberger L imited
Andrew Gould is Chairman and CEO of Schlumberger L imited, a position he has held since February 2003. He started his career at Ernst & Y oung, where he q ualified as a Chartered Accountant. His career at Schlumberger began in 1975 in P aris. Andrew is a member of the boards of directors of Schlumberger
L imited and of Rio Tinto plc. He serves on the commercializ ation advisory board of the I mperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine, L ondon, and is a member of the Advisory Board of the King Fahd University of P etro- leum and Minerals, Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. He is a patron of the P ermits Foun- dation, an international industry initiative to improve work permit regulations for the spouses of expatriate employees. Andrew received a degree in eco- nomic history from the University of Wales. He holds an honorary Doctorate in engineering from the Colorado School of Mines in Golden, USA, and is an hon- orary Fellow of Cardiff University, Wales.
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