Industry Highlight: Expandable Drill Bit Provides An Alternative
Winner of a Hart's Meritorious Engineering Award, Weatherford International's expandable drill bit "Xpandabit" provides an alternative to traditional hole openers and bi-center drill bits for drilling oversized wellbore sections. It can drill up to 40% larger diameter than the "pass through" size of the last casing string. Once the enlarged section is drilled, it collapses back down to original size for recovery.

DOE Highlight: Natural Gas Presentations Available
Presentations from the NETL sponsored "Gas Industry Forum" (Session 10) -- part of the "Natural Gas Technologies II Conference - Ingenuity and Innovation," which was held February 8-11, 2004 in Phoenix, Arizona are available online. NETL Director Rita Bajura's presentation on "New Horizons in Natural Gas Technologies" provided an excellent picture of how the different elements of DOE's gas-related R&D tie together.

PTTC Highlight: New Leadership Taking PTTC Forward
PTTC elected new leadership during its March 22 Board meeting in Washington, DC. The new leaders, all of whom have been involved with PTTC for years, are taking PTTC forward in 2004. New officers are:
Chairman Brook Phifer, Nico Resources, LLC, Colorado; Vice Chairman Brian Sims, Independent, Mississippi; and Gene Ames III, Ames Energy Corp., Texas. Other newly elected Board members include Ken Oglesby, Oak Resources Inc. SPE Board Representative and Richard Straeter, Continental Resources of Illinois, Inc., Midwest Region. Now moving to Immediate Past Chairman is Jim Bruning, Bruning Resources LLC, Arkansas.