Interview with 2014 SPE President Jeff Spath

2014 SPE President Jeff Spath Jeff Spath is a member of the Schlumberger executive management team as vice president of industry affairs and is the 2014 SPE President. He will take office during the 2013 SPE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition, to be held 30 September–2 October in New Orleans. Previously, he was president of the Schlumberger Reservoir Management Group and was president of Data and Consulting Services. He began his career with Flopetrol-Johnston Schlumberger as a field engineer conducting well tests onshore and offshore Louisiana and has worked for 30 years in various global positions in reservoir engineering, research, and management. Spath is a recognized leader in the development and application of reservoir engineering and production enhancement techniques, including well testing, reservoir simulation, and nodal analysis. He is the author or coauthor of nearly 30 peer-reviewed publications and holds 14 patents. An SPE member since 1983, Spath has served on many SPE committees and in many sections around the world. He was a Distinguished Lecturer during 1999–2000 and served as Technical Director of Management and Information during 2005–2008. He was elected an SPE Distinguished Member in 2011. Spath also currently serves on the Management Committee of the International Association of Oil & Gas Producers; the petroleum engineering advisory boards at Texas A&M University, the Colorado School of Mines, and the Natural Petroleum Council; and on the United Nations Global Energy Board. Spath earned BS and MS degrees in petroleum engineering from Texas A&M University and a PhD degree in reservoir engineering from the Mining University of Leoben in Austria. What are your goals as SPE president? One goal would be to further globalize the Society. There is no doubt that SPE has made huge strides internationally from what was once a predominantly North American member society in the 1970s and 1980s. Today, more than half of our members reside outside North America. We have to continue to follow the upstream oil and gas business to the new frontiers, the new basins, and the new regions of exploration such as Greenland, east Africa, and the Caspian. Not just for the sake of member growth, but to make SPE more local and more relevant by adding professional sections and student chapters so critical to achieving success—both for industry and for individuals—in these new regions. Secondly, we need to increase the degree to which SPE engages and collaborates with other organizations. We all accept that reservoirs are becoming more challenging to dis-cover and produce. They are smaller, more complex, and they exist in increasingly hostile terrains under more difficult temperatures and pressures. Not to mention the challenges created by nanoperm shales and ultraheavy oil.