Industry Highlight: Hart's 2003 Special Meritorius Awards for Engineering Excellence
These annual awards by Hart's E&P honor new products and technologies that offer innovation in concept, design and application. The 14 award winners, selected from a record number of entries, reach across a broad range of disciplines. Awards will be presented at the Offshore Technology Conference in early May.

DOE Highlight: Diesel Fuel Eliminated in CBM Hydraulic Fracs
Following extended study of CBM hydraulic fracturing issues, EPA and industry has reached a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) addressing the use of diesel fuel in these frac treatments. During December 2003, the three service companies that pump the majority of hydraulic fracturing treatments, Halliburton Energy Services, Inc., Schlumberger Technology Corporation  and BJ Services Company, signed a MOA in which the service companies, "agree to eliminate diesel fuel in hydraulic fracturing fluids injected into coalbed methane production wells in underground sources of drinking water..."  DOE assisted EPA in its study of the impacts with a white paper prepared by the National Energy Technology Laboratory included in the report. The MOA is available on EPA's website at the following address: http://www.epa.gov/safewater/uic/pdfs/moa_uic_hyd-fract.pdf

PTTC Highlight: North Midcontinent Case Study Information Now Online
Culminating a year plus effort, the North Midcontinent Region and KU's Tertiary Oil Recovery Project now have extensive case study information online for Arbuckle polymer gel treatments for water control, Gas Gun well stimulation treatments and 3-D seismic for locating small Arbuckle features. Workshops to present highlights are scheduled in Wichita and Hays