It is the start of a new year, and AAPG is making an assessment of its strategic goals. One of those goals is to develop more intersociety cooperative efforts.
On Nov. 21-23, AAPG participated in the first joint international event among Society of Petroleum Engineers, Society of Exploration Geophysicists and European Association of Geoscientists and Engineers in the Middle East. The International Petroleum Technology Conference, or IPTC, was held in Doha, Qatar. The inaugural conference was managed by SPE with assistance and sponsorship from AAPG, SEG and EAGE, especially with regard to developing the technical program.
Doha is an important site, as Qatar has extensive gas reserves. The North Field is the largest single non-associated gas field in the world, and Qatar is developing the capacity to be the leader in world LNG exports.
Doha also is a beautiful modern city and its people were gracious hosts.
Approximately 2,500 people from around the world attended the three-day conference. The official sponsor for the event was Qatar Petroleum. The two principal sponsors included ExxonMobil and Shell.
Since 2000, AAPG has nearly doubled the number of intersociety cooperative projects around the globe.
This year, for example:
- AAPG and EAGE are acting as Conference Secretariat for the upcoming GEO 2006 conference and exhibition, which is held on even years in Bahrain. GEO 2006 is owned and operated by Arabian Exhibition Management. SEG is a key sponsor for this three-day event.
- In two months AAPG will participate for the first time in the very successful winter NAPE show in Houston. AAPL is the general partner in the program and IPAA, SEG and AAPG are limited partners. We encourage all AAPG members to support this program.
- APPEX London 2006 will be held March 6-9 in London. The sponsoring entities include the Geological Society of London (GSL), the Energy Institute (EI), the International Organization of Oil and Gas Producers (OGP) and the UK Department of Trade and Industry (DTI).
- Also, this year, AAPG participated in the launch of Geoscience World, a digital aggregate designed primarily for universities. Along with AAPG, the co-founders of this project are GSA, SEG, GSL, SEPM, MSA and AGI; including AAPG, a total of 22 societies participate in this program.
Datapages is perhaps one of AAPG's most successful intersociety programs. Datapages' goal is to digitally capture geoscience data, especially society archives, and ultimately place this data into usable search and GIS formats.
Currently, over 30 societies participate in the Datapages program. Recently the Canadian Society of Petroleum Geology (CSPG) and the Indonesian Petroleum Association joined the Datapages program. AAPG also helped Petroleum Abstracts develop their new digital delivery system.
For more information go to: http://datapages.com/
Of course, almost all of AAPG's conferences are held jointly with other societies. AAPG's Annual Convention always is held jointly with SEPM, and last year in Calgary the host of AAPG's annual meeting was the CSPG.
This year's international meeting in Paris was held with the Institut Français du Pétrole as host, and next year we will travel to Perth, where the host will be the Petroleum Exploration Society of Australia. This should be a great event.
AAPG is constantly looking for new projects with our sister societies. This year we signed agreements to develop joint workshops with SPE and EAGE.
The next IPTC is scheduled to be in Dubai in 2007.
If you have any ideas on good intersociety joint projects, please let us know.
I wish all of you a happy and very productive new year.