Facilities discipline

Silviu Livescu, the technical director for SPE’s Digital Science and Engineering Analytics (DSEA) discipline, asked me whether the unprecedented ability to identify underperforming wells and the rebound in wellhead oil and gas prices has led to a boom in well remediation activities (e.g., well cleanouts, reperforation, acidization, refracturing, and sidetracking). To be honest, I don’t know. But I don’t think remediation activities have increased much over the prepandemic levels.

Having struggled to commit some 6,000 words into a Word document for the first time in a long time in time to meet the 2022 Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition (ATCE) deadline (with more than “a little help from my friends”, coauthors, and colleagues), I was left wondering Was this a good use of our collective time? Was this the best way to get our message across to its intended audience Of course, the answers are It all depends on the author’s personal and corporate objectives.

When I was 29, my manager assigned me to write the initial draft of a Tubulars Design Manual for the corporation. Then, as a throw-away line at the end of the kick-off meeting, he added that for the next 6 months, he expected me to present lectures on casing and tubing design at the company’s training center.