15 December 2009
Dhahran
The flight from Bahrain to Damman lasted 20 mins—the shortest flight this year! Damman airport is in the middle of nowhere and the taxi had a way to go to the Carlton al Moaibed Hotel. Thirty-eight students were waiting for me the next morning. The host, Mahmoud Hedefa (Saudi Aramco) had picked up the notes the night before from customs, so once again the lecturer and notes just made it in time! The warm audience was helped by the presence of Inamullah Janjua (Baker Hughes) whom I had taught on the MSc PE programme in Dubai and Haithim Al Hindi (Saudi Aramco) who had been an undergraduate at Edinburgh University and had enjoyed running around the Bruntsfield Links in Edinburgh which is where I walk my dog every morning.

Over lunch I chatted with Charles Vanorsdale (SA) who was working in the reserves division and admitted to having responsibility for the recovery factors—I had been seeking someone with this responsibility in an operator. He also told me about the "Event Solutions" team effort in the company, where teams of specialists worked a reservoir problem in an intense fashion over a 3 month period. These broad specialist teams might be seen as the geoengineers and have some success.

Haitim drove me over to the DGS dinner in the Meridien Hotel and back and we discussed opportunities for further studies and a possible return for him to Edinburgh. In the evening, I was invited to the Dhahran Geoscience Society dinner to give a version of Petroleum Geoengineering and chose to talk about the various things that had been my survey topics throughout the year: recovery factor, integration, CO₂ activity along with those other topical subject: Peak oil and the Big Crew change. In the audience was Shiv Dasgupta (Saudi Aramco) along with HWU alumni Oloruntoba Ogunsanwo (Schlumberger) and Mohammed Al Saksh (Saudi Aramco).

13 December 2009
Muscat
The event that consumed the most time between DISC courses this month was the "Battle of Gilmerton Core Store." UK plc (through the British Geological Survey) had decided that storing oil industry core in Scotland at a site in Gilmerton (South Edinburgh) is too expensive and wanted to combine it all on a single site in Central England/Central UK. John Underhill (Edinburgh University and incoming EAGE President) and I found ourselves in a heated argument in the Scottish Parliament together with Ministers trying to reverse the relocation decision by the BGS. Far from being a local Scottish issue—we were unable to find any support for this across the UK, neither North nor South of the border—this seemed to be a "kick-in-the-teeth" for the user community. This issue is more to due with the lack of (UK) Management understanding of the value of core to new exploration, improved oil recovery and carbon storage opportunities than seeking public value for money against the UK's blooming national debt! At time of writing there are questions being asked in Westminster and we hope for a full review of the situation.

Our students started their exams and I had to deal with some hiccups there and then back to West Asia I went. The flight through Amsterdam to Abu Dhabi and on to Muscat was uneventful. I arrived in heavy rain in Muscat. Caroline Hern (Shell) picked me and came prepared for the floods in her 4x4. In Muscat when it rains the wadi's become active and dangerous. In the two days I was there many lives were lost in the heavy rains. Apart from driving down the highway at one point which was more like a canal, I got safely to the Hyatt Hotel.

I met my driver Tala (Mark Tours) who was going to be my faithful companion for the next two days—filling me in on all the local concerns about the rain. Early on he was saying lovely rain and enjoying the post-rain freshness after 8 months of dry weather. After 24 hours of heavy rain he was beginning to wish it stopped! Of course I made great store of having "bought the rain" from Scotland!

The day prior to the course was spent with Shell in their brand new office (talking research) and then (after lunch at the PDO club) with the afternoon spent in PDO (with the modelling group). The latter couldn't have been better preparation for the DISC course as many of the issues raise in the round table discussion were those that would be addressed (to varying extent) in the DISC course next day. At the end a few extras were signing up! In the evening, I gave my "Sustainable Petroleum Engineering" talk and this went down well with a broad audience at the Muscat Geological Society evening. Andy Rawlinson (PDO) turned up with his son—Andy had worked in the Gearhart mudlogging shack with me 30 years ago—and now was in operations with PDO. This has to be the longest standing industry colleague that I was to meet this year. What was most encouraging about this course was the positive feedback that I got from Richard Terres (PDO, Corporate Strategy and Portfolio Manager) who commented that the issues covered were on the mark and up to date. A further meeting with Richard Torres was helpful for me as it made me realise that PDO operated a complete energy system for the interior of Oman and had had to address the co-steam/energy generation to supply both subsurface and surface energy needs. This showed impressive coordination and clear energy-leadership role and coupled with more effective use of produced (fresh) water showed that PDO were certainly attacking the sustainable petroleum engineering agenda.

Some sleep and up early the next morning for the 27th presentation of the DISC course! Presentation to audiences dominated by the major IOC's is always a bit daunting. Chief Petroleum Engineer, Joop Castelijns made a little introduction at the outset which emphasised the need for improved teamwork and a focus on improved recovery. Caroline said it went down well because several said they come along for the morning but couldn't stay the whole day—actually stayed to the end! Clearly the integrated approach played well with both Shell and PDO. Whilst Shell has a very good reputation in the industry for integration the general concerns seem to be that this could be improved and that the 'younger generation' tended to do things—or not do things—because the software either has the capability do something or not! My response to this is that the training and mentoring needs to address this—so that the development of a modern "fit-for-purpose" geoengineering competency will guard against. As well as the Shell/PDO domination of the audience, Occidental were there too.

9 November 2009
Abu Dhabi
After an important research meeting and seeing my group of student mentees at the University, I was glad to have an unexpected weekend at home (only thanks to the cancellation of the Egypt DISC location!) and set out for Abu Dhabi on Monday morning. Who should I be sitting next to on the flight to Abu Dhabi but Carlos Abreu (Petrobras) who had hosted my DISC course in Rio earlier in the year! He was travelling to Muscat with a group of colleagues to look at Carbonate reservoir analogues at outcrop. I spent the flight catching up on my DISC diary and marking student oil field reports.
 
I had been asked for some comments for a BP Middle East Outlook publication (BP were sponsoring the Abu Dhabi location—as they had, the Aberdeen course). I was asked "Why is it so important for the various subsurface disciplines to converge?" I responded that it was a no-brainer as I don't feel the 1400+ technical folk I had met so far this year want to stay the way we are and they certainly didn't want to go backwards (from the feedback I had had in Aberdeen!).
 
Gary Mercado (BP) was the local host for the course—so that is two courses in a row that BP has supported—for which we (SEG/EAGE) are doubly grateful. Numbers were higher than expected with about 55 showing up. My old friend Jorge Gomes (ADNOC/Partex), another former PhD student, turned up first to make sure that I felt at home amongst friends. ith former PhD student, Jorge, also a MSc Petroleum Engineering Master's alumni from Edinburgh, and others PE MScs from Dubai (Adeola Adebari) and Tomsk (Alden Balakanov), Reservoir Evaluation and Management (Geoengineering) alumni (Luis Ramos (ADNOC/Partex), Khalifa Choueli) and Geoscience for Subsuface Exploration Appraisal and Development Alumnus (Ayyam Kouraj) in attendance—I had been involved in teaching 10% of this class before too! Almost the whole range of Heriot-Watt's PhD/MSc offerings to the industry was represented in the class! I had some interesting follow-up meetings with Schlumberger—in preparation for an upcoming internal teleconference on skills requirements for industry—and it seems that the "Petroleum Geoengineering" might be about to take off in that organisation. As I have pointed out in my DISC this year, Jeff Spath (Schlumberger DCS) had already called for the need for Engineering Geologist/Geological Engineers at an SPE Reservoir Modelling Forum in Dubai back in 2005!—certainly Donatello Astratti and colleagues attending this course added to the significant Schlumberger contingent that I had met around the world this year!
 
The challenge for me had always been—in coming to the Middle East—to make sure there was enough in my material to make the geoengineering agenda clear in carbonate reservoirs. This I feel was achieved, but to the individual who asked for a carbonate version in the course, I repeat what I said in class—the geoengineering framework is the same in carbonates, but we as an industry are not clear how to put the pieces together for these complex reservoirs. This is very much (research) work-in-progress but a carbonate-specific Petroleum Geoengineering course might effectively remain a few years down the line. This location was one where the geologists actually outnumbered geophysicists and with Doug Boyd (BP) we had a welcome (albeit rare) petrophysicist in attendance! Interestingly, this course was over by lunch time—but lunch time was 3:30 in the afternoon after an early start at 7:30! Any DISC lecturer should have a strong constitution—of course! As I wrote this, I was reminded of the fate of Rodney Calvert (DISC 2005) who sadly passed away the year after his course. I was also reminded of the fate of Prof Laurie Dake—one of our HW Petroleum Engineering colleagues at HWU - who sadly died in the middle of a course he was giving in Australia. For a teacher, to be able to teach up to the end of one's life is, I believe, the greatest honour—and people never forget their teachers!
 
In the evening, Jorge treated me to a memorable meal on the beach in front of the splendiferous Emirates Palace and a trip round the local sights in his open-top CO₂ emitter! He told me that ADNOC had just initiated the first CO₂ injection pilot in the Middle East—Romaitha Field—and with the high per-capita CO₂ footprint that Abu Dhabi has this is certainly a welcome sign of leadership in tackling the issues.
 
Following the course, I travelled up to Dubai to spend a day mentoring HWU students on the HW Dubai Campus (where we have a total of 1300 students on range of undergraduate/postgraduate courses). Travelling along the road from Abu Dhabi to Dubai, I was also reminded of our alumnus Frank Halford of Schlumberger who lost his life in a car crash along that road. I remembered the drifting sand, slow trucks and wandering camels in the past along that road—but my lady taxi driver took me rapidly and safely along the new highway. Later, whilst I was in Kuwait, I was to see a BBC World programme discussing road safety and suggest that a global campaign by UN could save so many lives.
 
I also saw my eldest son on my travels, who is doing part of his legal training in Dubai. He and I spent a few evenings together and drove up to see some local scenery towards the horn of Oman. We left our car at the border inside UAE because of his company insurance. However, thanks to a resourceful and very friendly customs officer—Abdullah - who drove us to Kasab (and back!) and his friend Mohammed who took us out in his Dhow, we actually got to see a dolphin at sea. We were also able to see the magnificent outcrops of limestone in Oman along the cruise that are reservoir analogues for the various reservoirs in Middle East. I dropped in to Kuwait for my first visit in order to discuss research with KOC on the way back to Edinburgh with some new carbonate photos to illustrate layering and fault styles.

3 November 2009
Aberdeen
My week in Madrid on the "way back" from Houston, was interesting in reflection of my earlier DISC visit. Teaching in Repsol's 'Centro Superior de formacion' in Mostoles, I discovered a Repsol "Climate Change/Change your Mindset" document from 2007. My DISC survey has shown that there is above-average CO₂ activity/interest in the attendees from the course in Madrid. The same hotel management also discourages smoking and encourages energy-saving and recycling (they happily recycled my beer bottles!).
 
Barely back from Madrid and I'm off again—this time on a short train ride from Edinburgh…or so I thought! The weather interrupted my travel again. Heavy rain had washed away the railway line at Stonehaven so we had to get on a coach between Dundee and Aberdeen.
 
The course was held at BP's offices at Dyce and the 38 attendees were dominated by the hosting company. How would it compare with my Repsol, ENI, Total-dominated days? A link to earlier courses was provided by one Repsol attendee who missed the course in Madrid and who flew to Aberdeen to catch up with the course. Giles Watts (BP) hosted the meeting—he's an old friend and long-time EAGE stalwart. Pinggang Zhang and Pedro Alves (BP) were the two former alumni in the group, Robert Trythall (BP) and Gary Marsden (Talisman) were previous acquaintances. BP was one of the companies that was coming out with a well perceived integration structure—however, having reverted to functional structure in 2008 (what I call entering the "post-asset" period), there was some concern that this had been going backwards with regards to integration. I felt the audience was both engaged and enthusiastic—one young attendee wanted a bigger book on Petroleum Geoengineering—but I told him the course manual was all there was at the moment (inspiration to write one!). We agreed that there had been improvements in North Sea recoveries—due to application of technology—but the average global recovery didn't seem to change much with the feedback I received. I was interested to note BP's very smart new office even produces its own bottled water.
 
In the evening we had a Heriot-Watt Alumni dinner and I was able to get a lift back to Edinburgh in the morning—this DISC course certainly had the lowest carbon footprint of any outside HWU.

23 October 2009
Houston
In Edinburgh I had been on a field trip with the students and listened to their presentations—now I was back on the road again. First stop was London for a presentation of a research project to the Industry Technology Fund to do some work with Beau Webber in Kent on CryoNMR in Carbonates. I bumped into Shiv Dasgupta (Saudi Aramco) at Heathrow—also heading for the Houston SEG on the same flight.

The DISC was given in the Hilton Americas Hotel next to the Convention Centre in Downtown Houston. The city centre was surprisingly quiet as I arrived in the early evening. There were 60+ registrants for the course and I was mindful of the feedback from my earlier visit to Houston. I needn't have worried about the class they interacted well and gave a lot of positive feedback. Alan Curtis (BHP) and Jim DiSiena (Chevron and ex-Unocal) were old friends and it was nice to see them both again. I had lunch with JP Blangy (BP) who told me about his integrated "Tiger" (Team Integrated Geoscience Engineering Resources) team in BP's operational Gulf Coast group. His team's focus is more on the drilling of wells in the Gulf Coast where close integration between geoscience and engineering technology was critical in drilling and planning expensive and complex wells. We both agreed that this aspect of "geoengineering" was equally important to the industry as the improving of oil recovery and one that leading companies were working very hard at. A comment was made by one of the attendees that the average world recovery factor—on which I was conducting a survey—had not changed much in 30years! If it is true that we really haven't improved recovery factors in 30 years then this is a depressing message for the advocates of new technology.

I came out to Houston via a meeting in London and I had to return via Madrid for a week's teaching on Repsol's internal MSc course in Madrid so I saw Houston for one day! Just after we took off for Atlanta to catch my international connection, the pilot decided to turn back because a fuel gauge went out. I wont be rushing to fly Delta again, but I did arrive in Spain having only lost a half day of teaching and Liverpool had beaten Manchester United, so things were looking up again!

7 October 2009
Moscow
Back in Edinburgh I had undertaken the start of my years' teaching duties. HWU—in its petroleum courses—has had a massive 50% increase in student numbers. This means the classes are very, very full and is perhaps a sign of the "recession." BP took us out for dinner to discuss University—company relations and they insist they'll keep hiring. The demand for petroleum courses seems as buoyant as ever. I also arranged a keynote lecture from Cairn Energy on their operation in Rajasthan to give the petroleum engineers something to chew on Corporate Social Responsibility.

My flight from Amsterdam arrived just before the flight from Paris—so I was also able to greet Etienne Robein (of Total and the former EAGE president) as he came through the gate. He was also due to present on one of the EAGE's series of Education Days.

There were 23 students with 20% being previous HWU students, from Edinburgh, Tomsk and Madrid—so I think maybe my old friends just want to see me again! Also, there were four young Russians—from geology, geophysics and reservoir engineering—from RepsolYPF—making the link back to my previous audience in Madrid. One of the attendees from CGE (Central Geophysical Expedition) remembered my first Geoengineering lecture in 1997 at the EAGE in Paris! I don't think the industry has changed much with respect to integration in 10 years—but perhaps the need for change has become more appreciated now. At lunch I met with local EAGE President Igor Kerusov (PetroAlliance) and we discussed a potential EAGE/SPE meeting on reservoir modelling for Moscow in 2010. Simultaneous translation is another factor to account for in setting the agenda for the day—but nevertheless I was able to get through 'core' material and finish close to scheduled close (thanks to Ludmilla and Lubya for their translation).

24 September 2009
Milan
This next location required me making a short hop across the Mediterranean. What I have learned is that in each location I will likely learn something new, have some good experiences and good food, and meet an old friend—Italy would prove to be no exception to the rule.

I enjoyed my day off after arriving in Milan. I passed the La Scala box office and luckily secured a ticket for the evening's performance of Monteverdi's Orfeo. After an evening in the underworld—where man's influence over mother nature is questioned—I felt ready for the next day's discussions. Perhaps Geoengineering is actually the "Underworld Engineering" envisaged by our ancestors!

As I got on the underground train on Line 3 at Duomo—I saw Stan Cullick (Halliburton) and his wife! I knew Stan 20 years ago as the Mobil representative on the Reservoir Heterogeneity Project that funded my PhD at Heriot-Watt in the 1980's. It's a small world—or should we say "Piccolo Planet" perhaps here in Italy!

To the DISC course—hosted in Eni's splendid conference centre a short walk from the Crowne Plaza hotel. A number of interesting points came from the course—which had more discussion than in many other locations. It initially appeared there weren't any Petroleum/Reservoir Engineers in the audience—but my later feedback indicated there were three—and the rest split equally between geology/geophysics. I met Patrizia Rocchini (a Chief Geophysicist) for the first time, and she told me she's actually a "Pat from Corbetta" in Itay—which we both found spooky! Eduardo Berendson had published previously on teamwork and the cultural challenges—so we agreed to exchange ideas.

Some of the discussions on teamwork in Italy and between our professional societies were very interesting. I do feel the EAGE has a role in integration—which is unique—and should not be merged away. I was encouraged by the obvious remaining challenges we face and the enthused to carry on tackling these! Some asked whether we needed a "new name" for things we being doing to some degree for a long time—that's a good question—but I feel we need new models for integration as the job hasn't finished and the challenges are getting greater.

22 September 2009
Madrid
Having a class down stairs in the same hotel meant a relaxed start for me. The 37 attendees were mostly from RepsolYPF (with the rest being from CEPSA). A little surprising was the diversity of the audience—Spanish, Egyptian, Indonesian, French, Italian, Libyan, Lebanon, Dutch, and Romanian. I had met Pieter Pestman 20 years ago in the Netherlands, Alejandro Gouvenour had been a student at ISE Mosteles and therefore had been to HWU, and Jose Luis Pena had attended a course of mine previously—again there were many acquaintances in the audience. Amongst the audience was rare attendance by management—Susana Villaverde (Repsol) —and this was good, as there is a message for management within this one-day course (the need to reward integration, for instance). We had some interesting discussion about teamwork and organisational structure over lunch. RepsolYPF might be a model for teamwork in Spain, but, as Spain lies low in the European list for teamwork approach to project work, according to a published management study, seems, relative to its oil industry peers, to lag behind (my ongoing survey of integration in companies will publish on this issue at the end of the 2009 DISC tour). We also discussed the relative disinterest in the PhD qualification in Spain. These are strictly seen as only being of relevance to people pursuing academic careers—and this must be reflected in the development of new ideas and use of new technology within the local industry—all critical to the Petroleum Geoengineering challenge. Previous experience of organising the EAGE/SPE Europec Annual Conference in 2005 in Madrid had also revealed to me the relatively small number of society members and low number of technical contributions from the domestic oil and gas industry. As someone said, the domestic Spanish industry is relatively small. However, this DISC was better attended than some locations with a bigger industry catchment and I was very grateful for that.

17 September 2009
Stavanger
I had thought the Norwegian's and I would be too closely related in outlook to "surprise" them—however, I was to be pleasantly surprised by the enthusiasm of the class for the approach I was presenting. There were many interesting comments: Our company doesn't valued generalists as much as specialists; the history-matching department is separate; we are seeing a move away from assets back to disciplines—all of which resonated with the message that I was bringing—that we haven't solved the integration problem. I was convinced the Petroleum Geoengineering vision was as welcomed in Norway as anywhere. There were some familiar faces—Piotr Misiarz (of new start company, Lotos E&P) had been a post-doctorate research associate at HWU with Colin Macbeth and Chris Kent (BP) who reminded me that I had said after a brief meeting 15 years previously "Our paths will cross again" —and after our (his) long and winding journey in between—they did indeed cross again.

15 September 2009
Paris
The course was to be held in the Total Tour Coupole—most appropriate for the Total Professor of Petroleum Geoengineering. There was a modest attendance and management was blamed for keeping some away with other higher priority meetings. Pierre Raingeard (Total) and Thierry Coleu (CGG/Veritas) were two that I had known before. The former said that the course would make an ideal introduction to their Reservoir Geoscience course where the engineering links to geoscience were emphasised. The French work hard at the integration— "3G"; Geologie, Geophysique et Gisement—but attendees nevertheless suggested they could do even better.

25 August 2009
Ahmedebad
I was invited over to see the Institute of Reservoir Studies (IRS—part of ONGC and visited core analysis, micro-CT, SEM, PVT and Thermal Recovery Labs). The latter lab under Dr Sur was one of the smartest labs I have seen and clearly has been developed with close links to Prof Gerd Moore's lab in University of Calgary. ONGC are involved in air injection studies in India's extra heavy oil onshore play. We were accompanied on the tour by two students— Sushmita Dutta and Utsab Ghosal (who would be attending the course the next day). This day was useful for me because it helped me further understand the challenges and opportunities facing the petroleum industry in India.

The course was located out at a country club at Gandinajar— nearly one hour's drive away. We met Dr Marathe (Head of the IRS) who introduced the meeting and as a reservoir engineer he recognised the power of integration and expressed the fact that we should be try to raise the recovery factor. He also noted that whilst the rock type concept was well appreciated—it wasn't always easy to incorporate these in the reservoir model. Clearly there is a strong petrophysics group in IRS and these concepts are institutionally embedded. I suggest that Manika Prasad (Colorado School of Mines, who originally hailed for IRS) used these for sampling rock physics because of the IRS culture. PPD shared a paper he'd submitted for SPE publication—very much along the lines we were also promoting and had submitted to SPWLA. It will be interesting to see who get their work published. I hope that I illustrated some Geoengineering approaches with rock types at their heart. Driving around Ahmedabad, amongst the cows, rickshaws, monkeys, parrots, camels I saw several nodding donkeys! PPD even had a work-over rig working in sight of his front room. I hadn't imagined that Ahmedabad would actually be sitting on a working oilfield.

20–21 August 2009
Beijing
We met in the very formal seminar room at 8:30am after a traditional Chinese breakfast— which has become quite familiar after my many previous trips— but is not what a westerner might expect! There were around 85 students— predominantly employees of BGP with a small western representation from ROC OIL (Bohai) Ltd. I discovered that BGP has 10 000 employees— but no-one involved in making Rock Physics measurements— this I found strange and clearly something that would change in the 4-D world! From the questioning, I could see that China was also involved in tight gas sand prospectivity and this had come up in the US/Canada. There are lots of issues in reservoirs with less than 3% porosity—but not a lot that I could advise knowledgeably on. We had a good time on the exercise as we weren't rushed for once. With sequential translation both audience and lecturer were allowed more time to think! Yuguang Zhao, who was my long suffering translator for the two days, did a good job by all accounts. As a research geophysicist, he was rather challenged by relative permeability, well testing skin and the Lorenz plot— although he perceptively observed that once he understood the concept, it was much easier to explain—I certainly know how he feels!

18 August 2009
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
After arriving in Kuala Lumpur early in the morning (enjoyed watching "Rock on Board" remembering how we listened to Radio Caroline/Luxembourg as teenagers) and taking a short rest— I ventured out to the big shopping mall at the base of the famous twin towers- Petronas' iconic headquarters in the city centre. Walking back to the Equatorial Hotel with a coffee in my hand, I heard a "Hello Patrick" from someone coming up behind me! It was Solomon Assefa— who was a PhD student at Reading University during the Pegasus project back in the 1990's— now working for Schlumberger on seismic inversion projects. We happened to be walking past Schlumberger's office— so perhaps it was only likely that I would bump into someone I knew!

It is always nice to know that one is staying in the hotel that is also hosting the course—as it means a more relaxed start. I was taken aback at the number of chairs there were in the Ballroom— the final class size was 203—the largest yet by far! I felt like Usain Bolt— smashing his 100m record by .11 seconds (to 9.58s). Saibah Bt Md Sahad did a good job as part of a very supportive Petronas geophysics team in organising the logistics of such an event. There were 'friends' in the audience—this time, Abdolrahim Ataei (Heriot-Watt MSc PE 2009 and PhD Alumnus 2003) was quickly on hand to make me feel at home. Even an old MSc Alumnus (Class of 1991) Fabian Loh of Schlumberger kindly popped in during lunch from his nearby office to say hello. Of course, like old lost friends we indulged in some colleague-updating. In this location there seemed to be a healthy attendance of the three main disciplines— and lots of interest from all sides. I heard an interesting comment from Dr Deva (Senior Geophysics Advisor at Petronas), he has called his group inside Petronas "Quantitative Geophysics" rather than "Quantitative Interpretation" as the "latter implied geology"! I found this a revealing comment in its relation to integrated studies.

24 June 2009
Jakarta, Indonesia
We had lived in Indonesia for almost two years in the 1980's so, on disembarking at Jakarta Airport, the immediate scent of kretek cigarettes took one right back to those days. The traffic in Jakarta was even busier than I remember it as we took a taxi to the Marriott Hotel. We explored the nearby mall in the afternoon.

It was a short drive to the Shangri-La hotel the next morning. Yosi Hirosiadi (Pertamina) picked me up and helped me settle in to the new location. The HAGI president, Elan Biantoro (BPMIGAS) opened the session. We had 22 students included the son, Adhilaksana, of one of my close former Unocal colleagues, Sumar Mahadi, whom I was informed had retired and was living in Jakarta and whom I plan to look up on my next trip. In the evening, Fanny Herawati (Jewel Suite) kindly took Kate and I round town. A meal of grilled fish, cumi, and udang washed down by Bir Bintang in a small local restaurant on the way down town was most welcome—as it reminded us of all those great meals we used to have in Balikpapan. We ended up for a coffee in the bizarre, 1930's, setting of the Batavia Café, whilst the local youth gathered with their shiny new motorbikes and high-tech mobiles in the square below, forming a sharp juxtaposition between two centuries. Fanny had told us that whilst the oil industry had slowed, there was a strong growth in the local market for reservoir modelling software which was driving a local demand for Petroleum Geoengineering skills and it was suggested I should return for another course at the 2010 SEG/HAGI meeting.

22 June 2009
Bangkok, Thailand
We were met in Bangkok by our good friends—Neil and Pat Smith—of 30 years standing. We stayed in their apartment block and were treated to a day of expat life with a visit to the famous Chatuchak market and ending up in a bar seeing the British Lions lose narrowly to South Africa at rugby after an inspired comeback.

Neil Smith (MOECO) had organized the DISC as the opening event of a new SEG group in Bangkok and assembled a class of geophysicists, engineers, and geologists. Chevron, as meeting sponsors, and PTTEP were well represented. Former Unocal colleague Peter Western (Nucoastal) and HWU alumni Dan de Vertueil (a BG secondee to PTTEP) were in the class of 50+. Thailand is a difficult place to practice Petroleum Geoengineering in the sense that few reservoirs had models as they deplete "too quickly" after being discovered and put on stream. There are apparently no examples of time-lapse seismic in Thailand to date. Nevertheless the challenges and rewards of closer integration remained relevant and appreciated by the audience.

In the evening, I gave my talk on the "Petroleum Industry Sustainability" to the SPE/SEAPEX meeting and that also attracted a healthy audience of 90+—"good for a Monday evening." One senior industry representative said how much he'd enjoyed the full (and record) 9 hours of me talking that day! I was certainly relieved to be able to shut up later in the evening.

19 June 2009
Tokyo, Japan
After a heavy schedule of student team project assessments I was off on my travels again. The journey to Tokyo was unremarkable except that on landing the plane was directed to the cargo area as we were carrying 16 horses! We took the bus to our Hotel—Grand Pacific Le Diaba—in one of the newer districts—where we had an amazing view of the harbour from our room on the 24th floor. We took the shuttle over to Shanagwa area and did some exploring. I had a good "steak frites" for lunch. We met up the first evening with Norio Arihara from Wasada University, who has been a regular attendee at past Heriot-Watt and Stanford Universities Reservoir Modelling conferences. Norio treated us to a banquet—sushi, tempura, Kobe beef and saki—we had certainly arrived in Japan in style.

Hideki Saito (Oyo Corporation) was my host for the DISC. He arrived promptly to meet me at 8:30 in the hotel Lobby (everything in Japan proved to be on time!). We walked to the nearby National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology building. The whole area of Odiaba—which had been reclaimed from the sea 20 years ago—was a fairly high tech park with a stunning TV building. There were 40 students including Steve Horne who had been a student of Colin MacBeth's 10 years previously and was now working in Tokyo. A notable feature of this class was the single female—the industry in Japan being fairly male dominated. I was interested to see a note posted on the lift saying that walking the stairs and not using the lift saved 14kg of CO₂—this amount is equivalent to that generated by my 80 000kms of DISC flights (per student taught). I received some very positive feedback including invites to return to Tokyo (where Japex are developing integrated teams) and Kyoto University. Kyoto is particularly attractive as it's meant to be a more beautiful part of Japan. Sunset over Tokyo and the night-time cityscape from Odiaba with views of the Rainbow Bridge were certainly memorable. We were up early the next morning for our bus to Narita and on to Bangkok. We saw lots of skate boarders—including a new articulated, two wheels in-line, version—but none with dogs on.

9 June 2009
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
I always think of Amsterdam as my "technical-family" home—the EAPG, then EAGE and now EAGE/EUROPEC meeting has been a regular point of call for the last 20 years—and I have been influenced and stimulated by this environment. Having also lived in Holland and with many European friends across all the disciplines, this is where I like to be in a professional context. A workshop on "Conditioning Reservoir Models to Dynamic Data", on the day before my DISC, was interesting: It tended to focus on automated or assisted History Matching and discussed the need for deeper integration of disciplines, multi-scale modelling, the limitations of traditional methods and really emphasised, most emphatically, the case for Petroleum Geoengineering—and far from feeling "misguided" - I felt that my message was "coming home". I also received feedback on the earlier feedback which was spooky—and also revealing!

A pre-DISC dinner overlooking the beach with EAGE President Phil Christie and SEG President Larry Lines and other EAGE, SEG and SPE staff was a welcome distraction. The trouble with a dinner the night before a DISC presentation is the fact that any post-dinner alterations tend to come out wrong the next day! Unfortunately the EAGE's generous hospitality meant that I referred to the wrong millennia the next day—year 1009 and not 2009!! Oh well!!

Another Unocal ex-associate—Andrew van der Weerd - was in the audience which was essentially 50:50 geology and geophysics. It was disappointing to not see more than the three engineers in the 60+ audience—but this reflects the widely held view that the engineers are so loyal to the SPE, that they wouldn't consider an EAGE workshop—"not for them". One roundabout piece of feedback was received from a TNO friend—TNO is a Dutch organisation that works across the disciplines and for which I have the greatest respect. He'd heard from a colleague that the course was good and was looking for another location in Europe to catch it.

Watched on BBC World News in a hotel in Amsterdam is the bizarre story of a skate-boarding dog in Tokyo—called Bazooka!! As Tokyo is the next DISC location—I can't wait to see this!! With news of the oil price rising to $72, the industry could look to a more positive outlook and the mood of the conference was fairly positive—except for concerns over the onshore US sector.

27 May 2009
Edinburgh, United Kingdom
It was nice to be on the home patch with no extra travelling. The group of Heriot-Watt, Edinburgh, and BGS students was an extra DISC, to widen exposure to Petroleum Geoengineering amongst our own engineering and geoscience research community. It was a lively session with some good feedback.

The crash of flight AF447 in the middle Atlantic on 1 June came as a shock. This may actually have been the crew and plane which took us to Rio, just two weeks before. This set our feedback (and every thing else) into context!

22 May 2009
Bogota, Colombia
We flew for six hours up to Bogota from Buenos Aires, along the edge of the Andes at one point, and landed amongst the notably green farming countryside of Colombia. We were met by Mauricio (representing the local Petroleum Geology and Geophysics society ACGGP) who drove us to the hotel in the lee of some mountains on the northern edge of the city. We walked across the street and had our first cup of Colombian coffee.

I had agreed to give a talk on that evening to ACGGP on the "Sustainable Petroleum Industry." The talk went down well and stimulated some interesting discussions on Peak Oil/Not-Peak Oil in Colombia and local biofuel consumption—the Colombian President has set targets of doubling the oil production to 1million barrels per day and using 50% biofuels for motor transport by 2016. I discovered that it was actually the Colombian President who was visiting our hotel that afternoon and by the next day all the heavy military presence had gone.

We had a nice room in the hotel for the meeting with views across Bogota to the mountains. The class was dominated by geologists for a change, with a lot of young people which was good to see. The Petroleum Geoengineering concept seemed to go down well with very positive feedback over the lunch table. After class I had some detailed discussions with a BP geologist and an engineer on some modelling challenges they were experiencing in one of their fields.

In the evening we met up with Paul Casey (whom I had met in Dallas on my recent DISC visit there) for a meal in our hotel and he filled us in on some of the local issues. The next day another former student—Javier Sanchez, working now for Ecopetrol—took us on a sightseeing trip down town—the oldest square in Bogota for coffee and up the funicular railway to Restaurante Casa I Cerro de Monserrate for lunch—before we caught our flight. There were splendid views of Bogata, as the mist cleared, whilst we ate lunch with the city sitting in a clear syncline between two cordilera. Javier cheered me up by saying he used my course to teach his staff. Javier and his friend—Javier doesn't need a car in Bogota as there are 10,000 of the small yellow cabs—dropped us at the airport in good time. Paul Casey had warned us to leave at least 2.5hrs prior to check in and also advised us to get our airport tax exemption stamp before queuing for check-in. "Thank you" Paul—we needed every minute for the five baggage checks! A false start on the taxi out to the runway, with a return for more refuelling, and we were on our way back home through Paris. South America in seven days—some experience!

20 May 2009
Buenos Aires, Argentina
We had a quiet trip down to Buenos Aires where we were met at the airport by Gustavo Carstens (Secretary AAGGP) who drove us to the downtown hotel. In the evening we met up with Gustavo and Patricio Marshall (AAGGP President) for some local beers before went off to dinner with Olivier Kirstetter (Repsol YPF and a former PhD student). Diner for three was two of the largest steaks I had seen in a wonderfully authentic Buenos Aires restaurant!

Skipping breakfast the next morning—still feeling replete from the night before! I went downstairs to the DISC meeting room in the hotel. There was a healthy attendance—more geological than geophysical with a healthy number of engineers. There were three RepsolYPF students from three different years of the cohorts we teach in Spain and I was able to bring them together. There was also someone I had known from more than 25 years previously, Mark Ferguson who used to work for Pennzoil when I was working for Unocal in the Netherlands and was now with Wintershall in Buenos Aires. The re-association with former colleagues from all through one's career will be one of the best memories that I take from the DISC. One attendee admitted that being a (geological) consultancy preparing geological models for another (reservoir simulation) consultancy for a client had its own particular integration challenges!

Kate and I treated ourselves to some more fine Argentinian beef and wine in a restaurant—Cabana las Lilas—on the refurbished dockside in Puerto Madero just a short walk from the hotel.

18 May 2009
Rio de Janiero, Brazil
After a short break in Edinburgh spent largely marking exam scripts we are off again! Thanks to a pet-sitter in the form of the daughter of a Marathon Geophysicist, Kate is able to accompany me on this South American leg of the DISC tour.

We arrived in Rio very early as the sun was rising and did a few tourist things, like dip our feet in the ocean and visit Corcovado. What an amazing view of an amazing city you get from the top!

My lecture was given in the offices of the Sociedade Brasileira de Geofisica (SBGf). Renate had organized a taxi and met me in the street—otherwise I might have had difficulty getting to the 25 floor in the right tower! There are 4 staff and they share tiny quarters with a lecture room and a board room. The class of 28 meant that there weren't too many spaces left. I could see Petrobras' iconic downtown building from the window.

The friendly face in the front row was this time around provided by Gianluca Badalini (BG) whom I had known when he was a post-doc working in the North African Research Group in Oxford Brookes (later moved to Manchester University). Carlos Abreu (Petrobras) proved to be my host and took me for lunch where we discussed the various links between HWU and Petrobras—existing and potential. A number of the audience had visited HWU—usually because of links with Colin MacBeth's Time-Lapse Seismic project. I was pleased to find that Carlos had been one of the first cohort (1 of 13 and the only geophysicist) on the MSc in Petroleum Geoengineering at UNICAMP in the early 1990's and was now head of Reservoir Geophysics for Petrobras. We agreed that Guilherme Vasquez, whose business card said "Seismic Petrophysics" might also wish to consider himself a geoengineer! Because of the long interest in Geoengineering in Brazil, it seems clear that Petrobras might be encouraged to take a more pioneering role in this integrated approach going forward.

Fernando Zaider from Geofisica Brasil asked me some questions—which he quickly turned into an article on the SBGf website: where you can read all about the tour in Portuguese.

1 May 2009
Golden, Colorado, USA
The flight up to Denver was uneventful, but the shuttle didn't get me to my hotel until 12:30 as we had to go back a few stops to switch bags with someone who had taken the wrong bag. Luckily the Table Mountain Inn was just a short walk from the Green Centre at Colorado School of Mines where the course was held. Steve Hill (SEG President-Elect) and Larry Irons (Denver Geophysical Society and Fairfield) walked me up the hill. It was nice to be teaching at CSM because I have long admired their Geological and Geophysical Engineering approaches. I had rather a surreal conversation with an attendee whose business card said Geo-Engineering Specialist but had always wondered exactly what that meant! It was an honour to have Manika Prasad in the audience as I made a big pitch in my talk for her approach to Rock Physics. After the lecture I went for my first ever meal in a Tibetan restaurant where I had a Yak Sizzler and has some good discussions with Steve and Larry on climate change and other world issues. Golden is a town with a lot of history, as is very well displayed on the new Avenue Bridge across the Clear Creek, the site of many former—and often swept-away—bridges. The town's name and its street names, like Prospector Alley, hark back to former boom times in mining—now the town is dominated by the large Coors Brewery. The next day Steve was my guide round the Colorado Railroad Museum in Golden and—after the best steak ever for lunch at the local Texas Steakhouse—the minerals and fossils at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science before flying home.

31 April 2009
Houston, Texas, USA
The night before the talk, I ate sushi, I watched women 10-pin bowling on TV and saw someone roll 9 strikes in a row to defeat someone with seven strikes in a row. That was as good as illustration of the power of dedication and practice, as one is likely to get—and a message to me as the lecture tour develops—keep working at improvements. The say you need to spend 10 000 hours doing something to become expert! The Houston lecture is to be videoed and I don't know if the folk in Calgary were winding me up—make-up, etc.—but at least I'd had my hair cut in Calgary by a Lebanese called Mohammed with whom I was able to have an interesting discussion on international affairs.

They selected the perfect location for the course—the WesternGeco Geo-Collaboration Centre with very comfortable facilities and a very supportive technical staff in attendance. Bill Fahmy (ExxonMobil) and Frank Dumanoir (PGS) were the local organising committee representatives and the presence of another ex-Unocal friend (Randy Cooper) and a former student (Oleg Yakovlev), now both with Marathon, meant that I was immediately put at ease. My class exercise certainly got the discussion going again. Geophysicists seem to find it very difficult to get their heads round the idea that we can extrapolate from a well to a 2D volume in the near well area—with just geological analogue data and nothing else. I explained that this is usually what we do as seismic does give us the required resolution and there are few other data at this scale.  A geological model informed by well test data is the best we can presently do for these scales. This event was videoed (with no make-up!)—so I hope it was a good show—can't wait to see the movie!

The taxi ride back to George Bush International Airport was fascinating.  We were "entertained" by a very outspoken rant, on a talk radio show, about the current policies being pursued in the States (on swine fever, immigration, Fiat's link up with Chrysler, etc, etc)—like nothing I've before heard in the UK! The driver and I both agreed it was certainly useful to understand the passion felt for politics in this country and the benefits of free speech.

29 April 2009
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Travelling up to Calgary for the weekend I travelled back a season. We had snow and everyone was a bit confused as to whether spring was over—even the Canadian Geese were confused, hanging around down town in the street and on rooftops, as if they had stopped off on the way north waiting for winter to end! I saw a large half-white rabbit in the park by the river wondering when to ditch the winter coat. Having taken in a musical (Dirty Rotten Scoundrels) and a film (Letters from Litein) and visited with my thesis father (Jerry Jensen, University of Calgary) and then with my wife's cousin, I was well rested before meeting my next audience.

As I travel around, I often have surprising encounters with old contacts. Bumping into a former MSc student—Peter Dunlop—in the hotel lobby in Calgary was a typical one of these. Working for Talisman in Aberdeen, he was visiting for an internal company seminar and had just checked out. We had dinner together before he headed out to the airport for his trip home. Such encounters make travelling round the international oil patch such unexpected fun.

The audience in Calgary was the most geophysically-dominated—85%—to date. The audience was in excess of 100 and that says a lot for the scale of the geophysics community in Calgary. One nice comment in the feedback from a "Chief Geophysicist with 21 years" was "This course is fascinating for me" and a more revealing item of feedback on recovery factors "Sorry, I'm a geophysicist"! Jennifer Leslie-Panek and Jim Racette of Nexen provided the all important backup and I was introduced by my long-time friend and former Unocal colleague—Steve Later of University of Calgary. In general the industry in Calgary seemed to be in a healthy shape with rumours of large mergers not unexpected at this time.

23 April 2009
Dallas, Texas, USA
The trip up to Dallas was a short one—in a small jet (due to the recession?). The Dallas location was very close to what used to be Mobil's Research Centre—now a high school!—and reminded me of visits there in the past. The presentation was made in the Ellison Miles Geotechnology Institute at Brookhaven College. One of the D&M guys commented that they were employing a couple of our Tomsk Polytechnic graduates and that they were doing very well—feedback that is always nice to hear. I was fortunate to have Paul Casey of Geomodelling staying on business nearby. He was attending the course and became my dining partner for two evenings with useful local knowledge and transport. The audience was boosted by a number of students from University of Oklahoma—brought down by Kurt Marfurt (DISC 2006) with whom I was able to share experiences. One attendee had come down from Alaska for the event—which I found impressive. In both Midland and Dallas, I heard the same message—oil was doing OK but the gas business was on the slide (largely because of the industry success in building up the shale gas business). While I was in the US, President Obama—announcing offshore wind licences—also stated the importance of a strong domestic oil and gas industry as the country transitions to new energy technologies. The announcement of CCS initiatives in the UK Budget, also while I was away, was a notable step forward for this technology—and a number of course attendees were themselves working on CO₂ EOR. The one frustration in Texas was that I couldn't find anywhere to recycle my newspapers and because I'd been presented with two pieces of trophy-rock, I had to ditch my accumulating pile of newspaper! Gaylon Haigood and Mary Davies provided the all important local support that made the day a great success.

22 April 2009
Midland, Texas, USA
This was expected to be one of the longer tours—nearly two weeks in North America. Early fog at London Heathrow meant I missed a connection to Dallas. However, one of the benefits of the downturn is that switching flights is easier and a Houston connection actually got me to Midland, TX earlier than was originally intended. My rest and recuperation day included an SEPM lunchtime seminar on Sequence Stratigraphy of the Permian Basin and a visit to the Midland Oil Museum followed by a dinner. Coming to lecture in Midland—in the heart of the oil patch—made me feel somewhat apprehensive. Martha George, WesternGeoco's entire staff in Midland, made me very welcome at the Midland Convention Center across the street from the hotel. In the museum, I found a patent for Corbett's Straight Line Rig from 1879; in those days drilling straight holes was probably a challenge! The audience was very receptive and as usual some of the class had mutual (Unocal) connections. It was a geoscience-dominated audience.

26 February 2009
Adelaide, Australia
I never even thought that I would need to get a visa for Australia. That was until I read about Australian Visas on the bus in Friday's free Metro newspaper on the way home! When I figured out I would actually need to do this, it was Saturday afternoon! I submitted for e-visitor registration and, at Kate's suggestion, ETA visas on line as it wasn't clear which one we needed—and the former suggested a two-week delay! We waited nervously as the hours ticked by. Thirty minutes from leaving the house on Sunday I had secured my ETA visa! Check-in went smoothly and they never asked for my visa—perhaps big brother knew that I had one! An Australian fellow-traveller—Daphnia—adopted me at Amsterdam. I think she thought that I'd not make it without her help. My routing took me through Amsterdam and Kuala Lumpur arriving in Adelaide for my first-ever visit to Australia on 23 February. On arrival the immigration officer noted that I was indeed "in his system", but he wasn't going to indicate whether my earlier panic had been justified!

Mark Bunch and Ross King (two post-Docs at the Australian School of Petroleum—ASP—at Adelaide University) picked me up as I registered at the hotel and took me for lunch in the McClaren Vale wine country. Local colour was provided by various parrots and cockatoos and a kangaroo in the next door field provided an appropriate backdrop to lunch.

The CO₂CRC group at ASP, under John Kaldi, was my host for an interchange of activities between that group and our Scottish Centre for Carbon Storage. CO₂CRC were leading the Ottway Project where 50 000 tonnes of CO₂ had been pumped into an underground storage site in southern Australia. In the evening, we met with host—Dennis Cooke—at the impressive downtown offices of Santos (Southern Australia and Northern Territories Oil Search) and joined SEG President-Elect, Steve Hill and his wife, Elanor, for dinner. He informed me that they were expecting one of the largest DISC audiences for the region the following day.

My DISC lecture was well attended by 125 folk drawn across the geophysics, geology, petrophysics and engineering disciplines. The lecture was given in the Mawson Building in the University of Adelaide which also hosts a splendid museum in the name of a famous Australian Antarctic Explorer. Certainly the stuffed penguin at the door must have experienced many colder receptions than the one I received! One attendee offered an alternative to the term "Geoengineering"—"enginology"—but I'm not sure it sounded any more comfortable to the ear! Technical discussions in response to the DISC material I presented were all very positive. I was left with the impression of a vibrant Australian oil industry and a healthy interest—and critically, from two students at UoA, doing internships in ASP—in its future.

I introduced my survey at this event—on integration/disintegration (bigger companies seem to do better, with exceptions); oil recovery factors (no surprises); recognition of the term "Geoengineering" (39% had heard of the term), and affiliation (respectively 30% SEG, 10% EAGE, 14% SPE, 9% AAPG) according to the forms returned. As I travel around these questionnaires may give some interesting trends. On the subject of integration in the work-place, one person offered "we moved into an open plan and stopped working together" which is why I emphasize that integration between disciplines at a technical level is equally important as the physical proximity of staff.

The next day, with taxi-driver Pradeep, as he drove me to the airport in his taxi, we discussed the recent Oscar success of Slumdog Millionaire and both agreed it was a great positive movie for the times. Singapore Airlines took me to Moscow for my teaching week in Tomsk. This leg of the trip would involve a significant temperature change, from +32^oC to - 20^oC!

Furthermore, I had some nice email feedback from one attendee "I really enjoyed your DISC. Those of us (i.e., part of a specific group) present seemed to find the experience inspiring. We achieved more at our workshop the following day than had been expected and I can't help feeling it was due in some part to sharing a language as geoengineers. Certainly your philosophy of the modern modelling workflow is something we drew from frequently." More positive feedback like that, and I will certainly feel all the travelling this year could be worthwhile!

4 February 2009
London (Gatwick), United Kingdom
The week in which the UK saw the worst snow in 18 years was a good one in which to start DISC 2009! In these wintery conditions, there was a concern about my travel options down to Gatwick. On the flight down, an article on "The School of Life" in the BA magazine was promoting several famous aphorisms, including "I don't care what is written about me so long as it isn't true", attributed to Katherine Hepburn." Sure enough my evening flight to Gatwick was cancelled so I had to travel via Heathrow. Despite this, I was able to get to the hotel on time and saw my favourite team Liverpool lose to Everton in extra-time (the famous goal - that wasn't seen live because of an embarrassing technical glitch by the TV company!). Let's hope the football episode wasn't to be a negative omen for DISC 2009.

The class assembled on time and I was very well supported by Karin Merkens. The very glossy book(let) had just arrived on Monday, when some of the Education Days Lecturers hadn't been able to because of the snow. There were some familiar faces in the audience. I was honoured to have Ian Jack—the SEG's first DISC Instructor—in my class. His positive feedback was very encouraging. Chistophe Ribiero (a former PhD student) and a number of Total staff from Aberdeen also helped to get the series of to a positive start.  My return to Edinburgh was by sleeper—and uneventful.

My post-class feedback was very positive. One person asked for more explanation of the engineering terms—as he was a geophysicist. This is useful feedback and whilst I will do more to encourage the audience to identify concepts that are not known or clear, I always intended that the role of a one-day overview course was to teach individuals where their knowledge gaps might be and that perhaps the student could then use the course as a baseline (or benchmark) to measure their multidisciplinary knowledge and identify where they should seek out more training. One individual thought that the course should have been in Central London—but with representation from Aberdeen in the audience—Gatwick perhaps provided a low carbon location—as the classroom was directly accessible by foot from terminal building and train station!

Go here for complete details about the 2009 SEG/EAGE DISC.

The SEG/EAGE Distinguished Instructor Short Course is sponsored by SEG and EAGE.