Industry Highlight: OTC Recognizes 15 New Technology Innovations
New in 2004, the Offshore Technology Conference (OTC) created a "Spotlight on New Technology" program to showcase new and innovative offshore technologies. Criteria evaluated by a panel of judges include: new and innovative, proven, broad interest, and significant impact. 15 technologies are recognized this year. Since offshore technologies are often adapted for subsequent land application, one need not be an offshore player to benefit.

DOE Highlight: New Technologies Boost Venoco's Offshore California Production
In a DOE-supported field demonstration project, Venoco has applied three newer technologies to increase production and find new reserves in its South Ellwood Field in the Santa Barbara Channel in California. Through 3-D modeling and visualization, Venoco was able to redesign old wells to produce oil with less water, plus identify pockets of new oil. Further technical information is available in a case study published in the Petroleum Technology Digest in World Oil.

PTTC Highlight: Diverse, Valuable O&G Data Available Through PTTC Web Network
Low-cost O&G data are important to independents and consultants, but their resources to "find" this data are constrained. To shorten data access time, PTTC's regions work hard to find and connect producers to data of interest to them. Example "finds" within PTTC's website network include:
Appalachian Region: O&G Decline Curves for West Virginia Reservoirs (p. 12, newsletter)
Midwest Region: Illinois O&G (ILOIL) Internet Mapping Service
North Midcontinent Region: Gel Polymer Production-Side Treatments in Kansas
Rocky Mountain Region: Case Study, Evaluating Completion and Recovery Using Simple But Powerful Technique
Southwest Region: New Mexico State Land Office Lease Sale Data

Trivia Question:  Since "barrels" only contains one "b," how did the standard abbreviation for barrels become "bbls?" 

Trivia Answer: In the early development of the petroleum industry, the 40-gallon barrel used by many industries was increased to 42 gallons to compensate the buyer for evaporation during transport. Because of significant fraud and misrepresentation, the only barrels guaranteed to be 42 barrels were the blue barrels manufactured for and used by Standard Oil. Thus the standard measure for oil became the blue 42-gallon barrel or "bbl". Malcom Pitts of Surtek alerted PTTC to this trivia. In an interesting side note, in discussions with a Middle Eastern grad student the next day—he readily knew the answer. Did you?