1,721,069 research outputs found
Book review: adapting to climate uncertainty in African agriculture: narratives and knowledge politics by Stephen Whitfield
Full text linkIn Adapting to Climate Uncertainty in African Agriculture: Narratives and Knowledge Politics, Stephen Whitfield addresses the pressing issues of smallholder adaptation to climate change and the ‘green revolution’ in Africa, and illustrates how knowledge politics is shaping agronomic development across the continent. This timely volume invites readers to think more critically about the institutional norms behind the scientific research influencing development narratives, writes Remy Bargout
E&P Notes (November 2017)
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Permian Winning Streak Could Be Running Out
Stephen Rassenfoss, JPT Emerging Technology Senior Editor
Hot shale plays tend to fall short of expectations after a few years, and the Permian Basin will be the next big test of the pattern.
A recent technical paper by Robert Clarke, research director for Lower 48 Upstream for Wood Mackenzie, questions whether future drilling in the Permian will hit 5 million B/D in 2025 as the consultancy has predicted. Based on what he has been learning recently, some of it reported in SPE technical papers, the actual results could be worse or better, depending on how well the industry solves the problems that will come with intensive development in the Permian.
Startup Aims To Advance Rocket Fuel Technology for Fracturing
Stephen Whitfield, Senior Staff Writer
A startup company in Canada is developing a tool that may help operators realize savings in resources and manpower in their fracturing operations. The PSI-CLONE tool from RocketFrac Services uses a proprietary solid rocket fuel mixture as a propellant fracturing mechanism which eliminates the need for significant water volumes. When loaded into the tool, deployed down a well, and ignited, the propellant releases high-pressure gas and creates enough pressure to produce fractures at targeted sites along the wellbore.
The PSI-CLONE tool, which holds the propellant, is reusable. Once the propellant has burned out completely, the tool can be reloaded with another block of fuel. The company states that the system requires a single coiled tubing unit, as opposed to the multiple pumper trucks and water tanks used for hydraulic fracturing, and requires three to five onsite personnel
Total Signs Deal With Chevron for Gulf of Mexico Acreage
Supermajor Total increased its footprint in the US Gulf of Mexico, capturing seven prospects operated by Chevron. The agreement covers 16 blocks.
Total, which recently increased its stake in the US Gulf of Mexico with its takeover of Maersk Oil, will participate in the seven wells through sharing between 25–40% interest. The prospects cover two promising plays: the Wilcox in the central Gulf of Mexico, next to the Anchor discovery; and the Norphlet, in the eastern Gulf of Mexico, near the Appomattox discovery. The first well already spudded in late July on the Ballymore prospect in the Mississippi Canyon.
Energy Panel: Efficiency Focus Still Necessary in an Era of Transition
Stephen Whitfield, Senior Staff Writer
The oil price downturn has changed the way the oil and gas industry does business, and a panel of analysts and industry executives said that reinvention and creativity will be essential to surviving in a new reality. Held at the Global Energy Transitions Summit on the Rice University campus, the panel discussion featured an extensive look at how companies have managed to stay afloat in the current economic landscape.
In September, oil prices reached their highest levels since April, but while industry hopes to see that figure sustain above 60, the panelists cautioned against getting overly enthusiastic. Greg Hill, president and COO of Hess, said “lower for longer” was still the primary factor behind his company’s operational strategy, and that it is not advantageous to build a business plan based on the possibility of future oil price growth.</jats:p
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
E&P Notes (February 2017)
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Petroleum Engineering Schools Begin To See Enrollment Declines
Stephen Rassenfoss, JPT Emerging Technology Senior Editor
Enrollment in US petroleum engineering programs has peaked and is on the downslide, matching the short-lived surge in the 1980s, when a generation of engineers were graduated.
Lloyd Heinze, the petroleum engineering professor at Texas Tech University who compiles this annual survey, does not think the current downturn “will be as bad” as the one 3 decades ago. The big question is: Will that long trough be repeated after a decade where the industry stepped up its recruiting to hire college graduates in time for the many workers nearing retirement?
That will depend on the level of industry hiring in coming years, which he said is impossible to reliably predict because hiring plans are subject to sudden changes.
Four Misconceptions That Lead to Drilling Automation Failure
Trent Jacobs, JPT Senior Technology Writer
Drilling automation is one of the most promising emerging technologies that the oil and gas industry has to look forward to. The potential benefits span the spectrum from health and safety to lower costs and repeatable well results.
But before this technology leaps from pilot to center stage, early adopters will be challenged to create new managerial strategies that improve the interaction of human crews with automated rig systems, according to one expert.
“In all the projects that I have worked on, what I have found is that the issues involving people were much bigger than the technical issues,” said Bill Koederitz, chief technology officer at GK Plus Innovations, during a presentation at a recent SPE Gulf Coast Section event.
Commercial GTL Project Opens in Southeast Texas
Stephen Whitfield, Staff Writer
Infra Technology, a company specializing in the development of synthetic fuels from natural gas, coal, and biomass, opened the first completed small-scale commercial gas-to-liquids (GTL) project in the state of Texas. Located in Wharton, a small town 60 miles southwest of Houston, the plant will produce synthetic crude oil from natural and associated gas.
The Wharton plant is Infra’s first plant in the US. The company has been operating pilot plants in Russia for the past 7 years.
Modularly constructed, the plant utilizes GTL technology based on the Fischer-Tropsch process, where hydro-carbons are created through a series of chemical reactions. The plant will operate in two stages. The first stage involves the production of synthesis gas (syngas) through a reformer that converts solid fuel into gaseous reactants. The technology processes feedgas with varying density, from dry methane to heavy gases.
Energy Policy Uncertain in the Wake of Brexit Referendum
Stephen Whitfield, Staff Writer
With an uncertain future spawning from the Brexit referendum, the British government is seeking to maintain as much consistency in its energy policy as possible. A representative from the British Consulate of Houston said there will be changes to the way goods, services, and people move from the UK to the EU, and while very few concrete statements can be made about how Brexit will impact the oil and gas industry, investment in Britain’s offshore and onshore assets will be critical for the country moving forward.
In a presentation hosted by the SPE Gulf Coast Section’s International Study Group, Cynthia Conner examined the potential challenges and opportunities facing the oil and gas industry in the wake of Brexit. Conner is a senior policy lead at the British Consulate of Houston and a member of the Global and Economic Policy Group at the British Embassy in Washington, DC.</jats:p
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
E&P Notes (April 2017)
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Artificial Intelligence Holds Promise for Seismic and Drilling Data
Stephen Whitfield, Senior Staff Writer
As the oil and gas industry forges a new landscape in the wake of the financial downturn, an expert argued that artificial intelligence (AI) technologies could potentially have a disruptive, valuable impact on operations in the near future.
In a webinar hosted by SeeAlgo, an AI consulting firm, Adnan Siddiqui discussed the ways in which AI and machine learning can improve project efficiency. Siddiqui, a principal at SeeAlgo, examined AI technology’s potential roles in several facets of oil and gas operations including seismic interpretation and well control event prediction.
Ignored Signal During Hydraulic Fracturing Offers Instant Feedback
Trent Jacobs, JPT Digital Editor
A Denver-based startup company is trying to fine-tune a technique that would give shale producers instant gratification by explaining one small aspect of the behavior of fracturing fluids during a horizontal well completion.
The subject of this research is known as the water hammer effect and, though others have investigated, no one has yet made complete sense of it. Founded in 2014, the oil and gas analytics firm Well Data Labs recently completed a study that aimed to get closer to unraveling the mystery.
Because the signature of the water hammer signal is determined by the makeup of the wellbore and near-wellbore fractures, the engineering team behind the research believes the raw data can be crunched into a report that describes the quality of a well’s connectivity with the producing reservoir.
PDC Optimistic About Wattenberg, Delaware Assets
Stephen Whitfield, Senior Staff Writer
Since selling its assets in the Marcellus in 2014, PDC Energy has undergone a major strategic shift in its hydraulic fracturing operations, focusing primarily on its acreage in Colorado’s Wattenberg field while entering the Delaware Basin in west Texas. As the independent exploration and production company enters the third year of this new operational focus, its top executive said there is plenty of reason for optimism.
Speaking at a luncheon co-hosted by the Independent Petroleum Association of America and the Texas Independent Producers and Royalty Owners Association, PDC President and Chief Executive Officer Bart Brookman gave an overview of recent developments at the company.
Brookman described the Wattenberg as a highly productive region for PDC, and that the company hopes to increase efficiency in the operation of its 96,000 acres. PDC utilizes a near-even split of standard-, mid-, and extended-reach laterals in the Wattenberg. Brookman said the company plans to drill each new well with monobore technology, saving approximately 1 day in spud-to-release times. It also plans to move from a 4½-in. liner to a 5½-in. casing on its laterals, which will allow for larger completion volumes and higher completion rates.
Independent Shale Producer is Driving Permian Well Improvements With Clean Sweeps
Trent Jacobs, JPT Digital Editor
Good housekeeping has proven to be a big difference-maker for Houston-based Callon Petroleum.
The independent shale producer recently published a study showing how it developed a data-driven workflow to predict which wells will suffer the most screenouts, allowing them to build in time for a preventive completion practice known as a clean sweep.
“It’s not a new concept. It’s not a fancy technology,” said Nancy Zakhour, a completions engineer with Callon who worked on the study. “It’s just us trying to better understand which differences made to our operations are impacting production and whether or not we can leverage that to our advantage.”
The company attributes its approach to clean sweeps to better proppant placement and higher production. While supporting figures have not been disclosed, Zakhour emphasized, “We came to know that whatever we did with the sweep enhanced the wells’ productivity.”
Her confidence in the effectiveness of the clean sweeps is partly backed by hydraulic fracturing models that indicated that the fracture designs themselves were not the chief driver of well performance. Run post-completion, Zakhour said the models showed how the clean sweeps were allowing otherwise inactive perforations to be successfully “pumped to completion” with a full dosage of sand.</jats:p
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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