Bigger, bolder and better is what organizers are planning for this year’s Unconventional Resources Technology Conference (URTeC).
The event, scheduled Aug. 25-27 at the Colorado Convention Center in Denver, comes billed as the industry’s only integrated event for unconventional resource teams.
Last year’s inaugural event drew more than 4,300 participants – and favorable reviews from those attending.
URTeC is sponsored by AAPG, the Society of Petroleum Engineers and the Society for Exploration Geophysicists as a showcase and information exchange for various key disciplines in unconventional plays.
“We have no new brilliant methods to do technology transfer,” said AAPG award-winning member Bob Hardage of the Texas Bureau of Economic Geology, who will be participating in one of the many panel discussions planned at the event.
“You have to use a variety of approaches that range from luncheon talks to formal papers at professional meetings, from coffee bar chats to formal presentations before appropriate crowds, and from one-on-one emails to postings on public websites,” said Hardage, a past editor of the EXPLORER’s Geophysical Corner.
“The URTeC annual meeting will be the best venue where technology can be shared,” he added.
Another URTeC panelist agreed: AAPG member Mark Sonnenfeld, vice president of geoscience for Whiting Petroleum Corp., listed technical conferences and publications among the major conduits for transferring information and technology.
And, this year’s URTeC promises to have plenty of information and technology to share: “Overwhelming” was the word used by technical programs coordinators Alicia Collins and Terri Duncan to describe the response to a call for papers for the event.
The Denver conference will include more than 300 multi-themed technical sessions, topical breakfasts and luncheons, a plenary session, interactive panels and some of the industry’s most respected speakers and thought leaders.
The idea behind the conference is to bring together scientists, engineers and business managers to cross-pollinate ideas and encourage an “asset team” approach to exploration and production in fast-developing, unconventional plays.
And, according to surveys of last year’s participants, 100 percent said they found the event useful to them in their jobs and 91 percent said it succeeded in creating sessions of interest across disciplines.
Almost 200 exhibitors participated in last year’s show.
Cores from several unconventional reservoirs will be on display during exhibit hours, allowing attendees to view the actual rocks and compare analyses and results summarized by service companies that performed the studies. Cores are expected from Haynesville, Bossier, Eagle Ford, Marcellus, Utica, Woodford, Niobrara, Tuscaloosa and Bakken.
The opening plenary session will have a panel of experts addressing the topic of “Using Science and Integrated Technologies to Develop Unconventional Plays.”
Other interactive panel discussions will include “Nimble Independents: Moving the Needle With Innovation and Execution Excellence,” “Converting Technology Into Dollars,” “Emerging International Plays” and “Water Management and the Link to License to Operate.”
For more information or to register.