American Oil and Gas Reporter - July 2018 - 38

Industry In Motion
The collaborative expertise of the professional societies that sponsor and endorse
URTeC provides a deep technical base
that covers the entire workflow spectrum
throughout the life cycle of unconventional
projects, from initial exploration through
enhanced recovery. It also provides key
insights into the environmental, regulatory
and market trends that impact all of those
activities. The cross-functionality and integration of the many disciplines needed
to develop resource plays is what makes
URTeC special. It brings together in one
place everything that oil and gas operating
companies need to succeed.
URTeC 2018 Program
One measure of URTeC's effectiveness
is the high percentage of papers presented
by oil and gas operators themselves. Our
hope when URTeC was established was
that the program would evolve to the
point where oil and gas companies would
share their best practices and field experiences using advanced technology. I am
proud to say that nearly half of the papers
at this year's URTeC are authored or coauthored by operating companies.
That is phenomenal. I believe operators
are willing to share what otherwise might
be considered proprietary information
because they recognize the importance
of learning from one another to enhance
asset value, foster cross-disciplinary technical collaboration and ensure a sustainable

future for all industry participants in resource plays.
URTeC 2018 seeks to propel the industry's ongoing success, and push the
boundaries of what's possible in tight oil
and shale gas development. The technical
program officially begins Monday morning, July 23, but events actually get under
way on Saturday, July 21, with a series
of eight preconference short courses. Another 11 short courses are offered on
Sunday. Topics run the gamut, from seismic interpretation to production forecasting, artificial lift and surface facility
issues for multiwell pads.
Registration opens at 6:30 a.m. on
Monday, with the conference convening
at 8:30 a.m. with an address from Steven
Winberg, assistant secretary for fossil
energy at the U.S. Department of Energy.
An opening plenary session themed
"The Shale Revolution: Getting Down
to Business" immediately follows, with
panelists Vicki Hollub, president and
chief executive officer of Occidental
Petroleum Corp; Scott Tinker, director
of the Bureau of Economic Geology,
state geologist of Texas, and the Edwin
Allday Endowed Chair in Subsurface
Geology at the Jackson School of Geosciences at the University of Texas at
Austin; and Bob Brackett, senior analyst
at Bernstein Research.
The exhibition hall opens at 10:00 on
Monday morning, featuring 150 companies

showing their newest technologies and
services. The exhibition hall is open from
10 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Monday, 9 a.m. to 6
p.m. on Tuesday, and 9.a.m. to 1 p.m. on
Wednesday. A variety of special events
and networking opportunities are scheduled in the exhibits area all three days.
The first round of technical sessions
begins at 10:20 a.m. Monday. More than
300 technical papers arranged according
to 14 themes will be presented at this
year's URTeC. The program also features
multiple special sessions, panel sessions,
and topical breakfasts and luncheons.
Technical sessions run until 5:35 p.m. on
both Monday and Tuesday, and conclude
at 3:30 Wednesday afternoon.
Back by popular demand this year is
the "operators' forum," where technical
representatives from oil and gas companies
present insights on breakthrough technologies and field applications related to
different aspects of completion optimization, performance prediction and reservoir
characterization, and well spacing and
field development.
For the first time, AAPG is offering
the U-Pitch Pavilion on the exhibit floor
at URTeC. Held from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Monday-Wednesday, the pavilion is designed to connect technology startups and
entrepreneurs with innovative ideas to investors and potential industry partners.
To register to attend, visit
urtec.org/2018.
r

Douglas Valleau is AAPG co-chair of the 2018 URTeC and principal of Strategia Innovation & Technology Advisors LLC in Conroe, Tx. He previously served as director of
unconventional engineering and geoscience technology at Hess Corp., responsible for
progressing innovation and technology development to improve the understanding and
performance of unconventional reservoirs. Prior to joining Hess in 2011, Valleau held
various management and geoscience positions with ConocoPhillips, Burlington Resources, Maxus, BHP, Monsanto and Gulf Oil. While at ConocoPhillips, he was part of
the team that discovered the Eagle Ford Shale. Valleau holds an M.S. in geoscience from
the University of Florida.
DOUGLAS
VALLEAU
38 THE AMERICAN OIL & GAS REPORTER

http://www.urtec.org/2018

American Oil and Gas Reporter - July 2018

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