Halbouty Lecture at Salt Lake Meeting

Barrett, Dea Take 'Tag Team' Tack

By LOUISE S. DURHAM
EXPLORER Correspondent

This year's topic is "Rocky Mountain Monumental Gas Discoveries -- ROCKS AND ROLES -- Five Decades of Talent, Mentors, Old and New Breed of Leadership and Entrepreneurship."

It will be presented at 5:10 p.m. on Monday, May 12, in Ballroom A/C at the Salt Palace Convention Center in Salt Lake City.

Editor's note: The Michel T. Halbouty Lecture series is an ongoing special event at AAPG annual meetings. The lecture topics focus either on wildcat exploration in any part of the world where major discoveries might contribute significantly to petroleum reserves or space exploration where astrogeological knowledge would further mankind's ability to develop resources on earth and in the solar system.

An honorarium for the lecture is supported by a gift from Halbouty to the AAPG Foundation.

The Michel T. Halbouty Lecture series marks its third anniversary at this year's AAPG Annual Meeting by taking on a whole new twist.

Rather than the usual solitary lecture, the 2003 program hosts a twin bill, featuring noted oilmen W.J. "Bill" Barrett and Peter Dea.

Barrett, recipient of this year's AAPG Outstanding Explorer Award, is in his fifth decade as a geologist, having earned his stripes way back when.

Dea, on the other hand, can be said to represent the "new breed" of oilman.

Even though admittedly having different management styles, the two presenters have much in common.

For starters, each can boast a significant track record for discovering oil and gas fields in the Rocky Mountain region -- discoveries made both separately and together in a team environment.

The scheduled presentation is officially dubbed a lecture, but look for the two longtime friends and colleagues to provide a soupcon of entertainment as well, albeit the erudite kind.

Given the duo's at-times-similar, at-times-different approach to the business of oil and gas, Barrett hinted they just might engage in a little good-natured verbal sparring on the dais -- along with plenty of info about just how they racked up the string of successes to their credit.

"I see two paramount themes to the program" said session moderator Marv Brittenham.

"First off is the collaboration and teamwork, which has been part of the success of Bill and the people he has mentored," Brittenham said. "Another part of that is the mentoring process itself -- how important it is to our industry.

"Also, they'll be talking about a handful of the giant fields they have been involved in discovering," he added. "It's noteworthy that a lot of these were more resource-based rather than cutting edge frontier exploration -- that is, the resource was there and they found how to get to it economically."

Dea elaborated further:

"We'll likely provide a little bit of historical perspective on the discovery of substantial size gas and oil fields in the Rocky Mountains that spans both our careers," said Dea who is currently CEO and president of Western Gas Resources.

"Within the context of the chain of discoveries, we'll be highlighting some keys to those discoveries," he noted, "which is good solid basic geology and real determination to swing for the fences and strive for finding good company-building prospects and subsequent discoveries."

Particularly intriguing will be the technology aspects of each of the discoveries, which have evolved through time.

Different types of technology had different types of relevance and importance in each of the finds, Dea noted.

"I think what we'll see is a common thread that leads us back to good solid fundamental geological basic principles," he said, "and the spirit to continually persevere and try to knock down barriers to entry or to ignore paradigms that may be out there that will tell other people 'don't drill here because it won't work'.

"In several of the cases what we can see is there were several paradigms at play that prevented others from discovering fields we were involved in over the years."

Heaven and Hell

Dea's collaboration with Barrett dates from the early 1990s when he joined Barrett Resources after departing Exxon. Dea hit the ground running for his new employer, leading the company into the Cave Gulch Field discovery and the Powder River and Raton Basin CBM plays.

Barrett Resources originated in 1981 when Barrett decided to follow his many earlier discoveries for other companies by focusing on development of the rediscovered Parachute, Grand Valley and Rulison gas fields in the Piceance Basin.

The intrepid oilman has pretty much seen it all. So much, in fact, he has his own perspective of heaven and hell, which he enjoys divulging.

While drilling a discovery well in North Dakota during his tenure at Rainbow Resources, Barrett noted that oil shows appeared structurally higher than they should.

"The log looked terrific, with hundreds of feet of pay," Barrett said. "We thought at first it was a pinnacle reef, but it turned out to be a meteorite crater -- an event straight from the heavens."

Indeed, the company went on to sell its interest there for the heavenly sum of $10 million.

Some years later, hell unleashed a bit of fury in a borehole in the Wind River Basin.

"We drilled into 60 feet of Muddy sand, and the well blew out," Barrett said, "and we barely got it under control. It produced seven BCF while under 24-hour surveillance because of the precariousness of the situation.

"Then one day the ground began rumbling, and the well blew out.

"We went through hell for 111 days drilling a relief well to cap it," he said, "and we lost 10-15 BCF of gas."

Barrett, who came out of retirement to launch yet another energy firm, Bill Barrett Corp., will touch on a number of topics during the twin-bill presentation. Much of what he has to say no doubt will inspire even the most jaded veteran, not to mention the new-hire.

"I'll tell about what shaped my career, such as the good mentors I've had," he said. "And I'll talk about some major discoveries and some proven business principles and different management styles I have and Peter has, versus others."