ER News
AAPG 2008 Annual Convention and Exhibition
20-23 April 2008 - San Antonio, Texas
Jeroen M. Peters Delegate - European Region
Below are some short personal reflections on the 2008 AAPG Annual Convention in San Antonio, which I attended as House of Delegate for the AAPG European Region.
Given the significant rise of energy prices of the last couple of years, it was not surprising that the meeting was very well attended (more than 7,500 industry people from 73 countries, with 270 exhibiting companies). With the contractor market heating up – rig and seismic rates have now reached levels hardly imaginable only a few years ago – and resource nationalism and political factors limiting the number of significant conventional oil and gas opportunities in the traditional oil and gas producing countries such as Russia, Venezuela and Iran, it is clear that the petroleum industry is in the middle of a major transition.
The presentations on unconventional oil and gas opportunities in many basins around the world, including tar sands, basin centre gas, shale gas and CBM, attracted unprecedented attention during the Annual Meeting. The interest shown for some of the sessions was so overwhelming that the doors of the (big) conference rooms had to be closed well ahead of start of these meetings.
Another marked development is that the shortage of skilled staff is really starting to be felt by many companies, be it international oil companies or contractors. Obviously, this offers significant job opportunities for both experienced and new geoscientists and is already leading to rising pay packages. However, in view of the still limited inflow of new graduates and the fact that all companies are basically fishing in the same resource pond, the net result for the oil and gas industry as a whole – which is struggling to meet increased global energy demand following a period of underinvestment in exploration and oil and gas production capacity – is very limited. Not surprisingly, the AAPG is continuously adjusting in order to meet the new developments and challenges in our industry, including the opening of new offices in London and Bahrain to serve its growing international membership.
The AAPG has also rightly stepped up its game in terms of academic liaison and reaching out to students – participation in the increasingly popular and expanding Imperial Barrel Award is seen by many universities and students as an ideal way to establish closer links with the oil and gas industry and potential future employers.
Attracting new members will be vital for the AAPG, a global, vibrant and profitable organisation with over 33,000 members, in particular because the current membership is aging (like the SPE, the average age of an AAPG member is only just under 50 years old). The House of Delegates (HoD) has been closely involved in a number of membership topics over the last 2 years, including the recent introduction of graduated dues and discussions around options to move our organisation closer to its (increasingly international) members. At the meeting in San Antonio, 18 HoD members from the European Region attended, which was the highest number of any international region. Moreover, one of our European members (Sigrunn Johnsen) was elected as the new HoD secretary/editor – congratulations !
For more information on the HoD and European Region, visit www.aapg.org and use the short cut list to go to the relevant section.