Gries gets Halbouty Leadership Award

Weber to Receive Powers Medal

By SUSIE MOORE, Communications Project Specialist

Koenraad Weber, a pioneer researcher in hydrocarbon recovery and internationally recognized distinguished educator, is the recipient of this year’s Sidney Powers Memorial Award, AAPG’s highest honor.

Weber is joined at the top of this year’s AAPG awardees list by Robbie Rice Gries, president and CEO of Priority Oil & Gas LLC in Denver, who has been named the winner of this year’s Michel T. Halbouty Outstanding Leadership Award.

Weber and Gries, both AAPG Honorary members, are among the 34 award winners who have been announced by AAPG and who will be recognized at the opening session of the 2012 AAPG Annual Convention and Exhibition, set April 22-25 in Long Beach, Calif.

AAPG awards, approved by the Executive Committee, are presented annually to recognize individuals for service to the profession, the science, the Association and the public.

Weber, who received Honorary membership in 2004, served a lengthy career as production geologist with Royal Dutch Shell while simultaneously teaching as professor of production geology at the Mining and Petroleum Engineering faculty at Delft University of Technology, Netherlands.

With Shell he worked both onshore and offshore fields (oil and gas) spanning five continents, having the fortunate opportunity of being involved with projects involving the Niger Delta, the Venezuelan Bolivar coastal fields and the Leman Bank field in the North Sea – to name a few.

Weber also has written many papers and been a sought-after keynote speaker for many conferences in a global capacity.

Gries, who received Honorary membership in 1998, has been involved in AAPG leadership roles on dozens of occasions. She served two times on the AAPG Executive Committee, as secretary from 1995-97, and as president-elect/president from 2000-02.

She is the sixth recipient of the Halbouty Outstanding Leadership Award, given in recognition of outstanding and exceptional leadership in the petroleum geosciences.

Interviews with both Weber and Gries will be published in a future EXPLORER. Biographies and citations of all award winners will be included in a future BULLETIN.

Two annual awards have new names this year:

The Outstanding Explorer Award, now in its tenth year of existence, is now the Norman H. Foster Oustanding Explorer Award, named in honor of the late Norman Foster, a past AAPG president and the 1999 Sidney Powers Award winner.
The “Special Award,” presented to honor people and accomplishments beyond the scope of other AAPG awards, is now named the Harrison Schmitt Award, in honor of AAPG Honorary Member and former NASA Apollo astronaut Harrison Schmitt. Coincidentally, in 1973 Schmitt was the very first “Special Award” recipient, honored for his lunar exploration.

Award winners announced by AAPG and who will be honored in Long Beach are:

Honorary Member Award

Presented to members who have distinguished themselves by their accomplishments and through their service to the profession of petroleum geology and to AAPG.

Adekunle A. Adesida, independent consultant, Lagos, Nigeria
Ibrahim A. Al-Jallal, Sandroses Geological Consultancies, Khobar, Saudi Arabia.
Lee T. Billingsley, Abraxas Petroleum, San Antonio, Texas.
Dudley W. Bolyard, Bolyard Land & Exploration, Centennial, Colo.
Paul M. Harris, Chevron Energy Technology, San Ramon, Calif.
Phillip H. Stark, IHS Energy Group, Englewood, Colo.

Norman H. Foster Outstanding Explorer Award

Presented in recognition of distinguished and outstanding achievement in exploration for petroleum or mineral resources.

Dan A. Hughes, Beeville, Texas.

Robert R. Berg Outstanding Research Award

Henry W. Posamentier, Chevron, Houston.

Distinguished Service Award

Presented to those who have distinguished themselves in long-term service to AAPG.

Edith C. Allison, consultant, Rockville, Md.
Susan M. Cunningham, Noble Energy, Houston.
David A. Dolph, Nexen Petroleum International, Calgary, Canada.
Paul F. Hoffman, Allen-Hoffman Exploration, Houston.
Alain-Yves Huc, Institut Français du Pétrole, Rueil-Malmaison, France.
William A. Morgan, ConocoPhillips, Houston.
Adedoja R. Ojelabi, Chevron Nigeria, San Ramon, Calif.
Victor H. Vega, Equion Energia, Bogota, Colombia.
Mark L. Wilson, Santa Maria Pacific Holdings, Bakersfield, Calif.

Grover E. Murray Memorial Distinguished Educator Award

Presented for distinguished and outstanding contributions to geological education, both at the university level and toward education of the general public.

Andrew Hurst, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, Scotland.
Howard D. Johnson, Imperial College, London, England.

Harrison Schmitt Award (Previously “Special Award”)

Presented in recognition of outstanding acclomplishment that is beyond the scope of other AAPG awards.

Jill Stevens, ExxonMobil, Melbourne, Australia.

Pioneer Award

Presented to long-standing members who have contributed to the Association and who have made meaningful contributions to the science of geology.

Tim T. Schowalter, independent, Granby, Colo.

Wallace E. Pratt Memorial Award

Presented to honor and reward the author(s) of the best AAPG BULLETIN article published each calendar year.

Robert H. Lander and Linda M. Bonnell, for “A Model For Fibrous Illite Nucleation and Growth In Sandstones,” which appeared in the August 2010 BULLETIN.
Both are with Geocosm, Austin, Texas.

Robert H. Dott Sr. Memorial Award

Presented to honor and reward the author/editor of the best special publication dealing with geology published by the Association.

Michael Pöppelreiter, Carmen García-Carballido and Martin Kraaijveld, for AAPG Memoir 92: Dipmeter and Borehole Image Log Technology.
Pöppelreiter is with Shell Kuwait, Kuwait City, Kuwait, García-Carballido is with EnQuest, Aberdeenshire, Scotland, and Kraaijveld is with Shell Global Solutions Upstream, Rijswijk, The Netherlands.

J.C. “Cam” Sproule Memorial Award

Presented to recognize and reward younger authors of papers applicable to petroleum geology.

Alexei V. Milkov, for “Methanogenic Biodegradation of Petroleum in the West Siberian Basin (Russia): Significance for Formation of Giant Cenomanian Gas Pools,” which appeared in the October 2010 BULLETIN.
Milkov is with BP Russia, Houston.

John W. Shelton Search and Discovery Award

Presented to honor and reward the author(s) of the best contribution to the Search and Discovery website in the past year.

Katherine Giles, for the article “Tracking the Migration of Salt Diapirs Using Halokinetic Sequence Stratigraphy.”
Giles is with New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, N.M.

George C. Matson Award

Presented to honor and reward the best oral presentation at the 2011 AAPG Annual Convention and Exhibition in Houston.

Lars Wensaas, for the paper “Source Rock Prediction From Seismic Part I: Links Between Rock Properties and Seismic Attributes.”
His co-authors were Marita Gading, Helge Loseth and Michael Springer.
Wensaas is with Statoil, Trondheim, Norway.

Jules Braunstein Memorial Award

Presented to honor and reward the best poster presentation at the 2011 AAPG Annual Convention and Exhibition in Houston.

Roger M. Slatt and Younane Abousleiman (non-member), for the poster “Multi-Scale, Brittle-Ductile Couplets in Unconventional Gas Shales: Merging Sequence Stratigraphy and Geomechanics.”
Slatt, an AAPG Honorary Member, is with the University of Oklahoma, Norman, Okla.

Geosciences in the Media Award

Presented for notable journalistic achievement that contributes to public understanding of geology, energy resources or the technology of oil and gas exploration.

Nick Eyles, professor of geology at University of Toronto in Canada and an award winning writer, has authored more than 150 publications on ice age geology and environmental geology.