May-June 2021
Living the Crude Life – May/June 2021
“The electric frac is a fantastic step forward. I don’t think it’ll displace the industry overnight but slowly but surely. You know we have gas ready and available to consume over there in the field and with a little bit of processing, an electric system enables us the ability to...
The Death of Petroleum Engineering… is an Exaggeration
Despite the advances that renewable sources of energy can provide, the use of fossil fuels is not dead nor is the future for those working in the petroleum industry. However, the discipline is in transition like the industry itself. If a recent article in the New York Times describing the...
Letter from the Publisher (May-June 2021)
Texas and 20 states filed a lawsuit against the Biden Administration in March for canceling the Keystone XL Pipeline. The executive order halted the high-profile pipeline project, which included Canadian partners and immediately cut thousands of high-paying, blue-collar jobs across several states. Biden revoked the pipeline permit just hours after...
Career Downturn Leads to Journey of Discovery
For Connor Albrecht, landing a job in the vice-grip tight oil and gas labor market came down to simple doggedness and inventiveness. After being pink slipped as a petroleum engineer earlier this year in the industry’s latest bust, Albrecht knew he needed to start some high-octane networking. “I became more...
Facilitating a Safe Work Culture Without Policing It
Achieving the “buy in” mentality of a successful safety culture is a daunting task of epic proportions. It involves persevering through teaching, coaching, mentoring, preaching and sometimes begging. When accomplished, the duration of this utopia seems fleeting as it eventually begins to fade as the notorious villain of complacency creeps...
App Puts Safety Lessons in the Palms of Workers’ Hands
While graduating from Texas A&M with a mechanical engineering degree, Dillon Bloodworth never expected that he would later be paving the way with an intuitive app designed to bring safety awareness straight to the hands of a workforce that needed it most. Now, with his Oilfield Lessons Learned app, he...
LWD Versus MAD Pass Formation Sampling in ERD Wells
In the oil and gas industry, the complex design and engineering of Extended Reach Drilling (ERD) wells, which may have horizontal sections spanning more than 20,000 feet, introduce significant challenges to meeting specific drilling and geological well objectives. Drilling to ensure that all reservoir objectives are met requires the deployment...
For ESG Investors, “Clean Fracs” Could Mitigate Environmental Impacts
It is no secret that the upstream oil and gas industry has been under increased scrutiny from environmental, social and governance (ESG)-conscious investors and the public regarding the environmental impact of their operations. One issue that has been under particularly intense scrutiny is what happens with methane gas (the primary...
Your Oil Field Job Has Been Automated. What Now?
While there are some who may still wax poetic about the days of cassette tapes, CD players and boomboxes, reports show that Gen Z represents roughly one quarter of the oil and gas workforce. Still, there are probably some of you reading this who do not know what those things...
“Creating Together the People’s Energy Plan” was the sub-theme of my book entitled, America Needs America’s Energy. A dependable energy plan is necessary for all of us. Our nation, states, cities, corporations and consumers are all faced with the challenge of “striving for energy efficiency and environmental preservation.” In mid-February...
Looking to the Future: Carbon Capture and Storage
One industry that will be worth about 1.4 trillion dollars by 2050, and which as of today has reached the significant investment figure of $300 million, is the carbon capture and storage (CCS) industry. This was mentioned in the report created by Vivid Economics titled Greenness of Stimulus Index in...
Sun Coast Resources: Help is on the Way
Long fuel trucks with Sun Coast Resources’ blue, yellow and white logo emblazoned on the sides are a familiar sight to those of us in Texas driving along the I-10 corridor, as is the story of Sun Coast’s founding by 23-year-old Kathy Lehne – one of the unique entrepreneurial stories...
Interview with Dr. Ryan Todd, CEO and Co-founder of Headversity
Headversity is a workplace mental health support service that helps employees talk and deal with their mental health, often a frowned-upon topic in industries such as oil and gas. If anything, during the pandemic, we have been able to open up more about our mental health and it is becoming...
Young Professional in the Oil & Gas Industry: Interview with Ahmed Tarabily
Alan Alexeyev: Tell us a little bit about your current (or most recent) position and what you do, as well as how you found a job? Ahmed Tarabily: I was a field engineer with Schlumberger, under Cameron’s Surface System Division, specializing in flowback and production well testing operations. I found...
Reducing Lifting Cost with End-to-End Commodity Transportation Management
Oil and gas producers may not have control over the direction of their commodity prices, but lifting cost is a lever that can be applied to lower breakeven and improve profitability. One area that may not immediately come to mind to reduce lifting cost is the expense associated with safely...
