During the height of the pandemic, Society of Exploration Geophysicists Executive Director Jim White and I discussed how we could work better together – delivering an innovative conference for petroleum and energy geoscientists that also involved other geoscience disciplines focused on solving real world challenges.
Our elected leaders at the time – AAPG President Rick Fritz, SEG President Maurice Nessim, the AAPG Executive Committee and the SEG Board of Directors – supported the vision for AAPG and SEG to create a new, joint annual meeting: the International Meeting for Applied Geoscience and Energy, or “IMAGE,” conducted in cooperation with SEPM.
Opening Session, Exhibition Attractions
The event kicks into gear on Sunday, Aug. 28, with the IMAGE opening session. Starting the proceedings with welcome addresses from AAPG President Steven Goolsby and SEG President Anna Shaughnessy, we’ll then recognize our top award winners, including the AAPG Sidney Powers medalist and the Michel T. Halbouty Outstanding Leadership Award recipient. SEG will recognize its top award winners, too, and the American Geosciences Institute will award its Marcus Milling Legendary Geoscientist Medal.
The opening session concludes with a special presentation and discussion featuring AAPG past President Scott Tinker as moderator and panelists who will share from their experience and discuss the importance of energy access and reducing global energy poverty.
We’re eager and ready for IMAGE ’22 in Houston at the end of this month, and hope that you are, too.
The end of the opening session kicks off the Icebreaker Reception and opening of the exhibition. Please join us on the show floor for a time to connect with longtime friends and meet new people.
We’ve got a lot of exhibitors who want to meet you, too. Their participation at IMAGE ’22 is critical to the success of the event and they will showcase the latest available data, new technologies and solutions to help you solve problems and do your job better.
The exhibition floor is where you can find oil and gas opportunities from across the globe, as the International Pavilion makes its return with countries eager to talk about their E&P activities.
Also returning to the exhibition this year is U-Pitch, our new technology showcase, organized by Dr. Susan Nash, AAPG’s director of innovation and emerging science/technology. On both Monday and Tuesday the U-Pitch stage will feature panel discussions from investors who will talk about what they are looking for in terms of technology focus areas and investment opportunities. But, the bulk of the time will consist of 15-minute pitches by inventors and entrepreneurs seeking investment and talking about their business ideas. Do you want to see the cutting edge in new technology? Plan to swing by the U-Pitch stage.
Technical Program
The IMAGE ’22 technical program is the core of the event with technical talks, strategic and technical panels and poster presentations spanning Monday to Wednesday.
As I reviewed the program, several of the panels and sessions that stood out to me for petroleum geoscientists include:
- Guyana Suriname Basin: challenges and opportunities
- Basin and play-scale characterization of unconventional resources
- International basins: exploration and prospecting
- Characterization of shales and tight reservoirs
- The business of deepwater: past, present, and future
- Deepwater sedimentary systems: science and discovery
- Integrated reservoir characterization: from grains to giant fields
- Petroleum reserves and resources evaluation and management
But there are many other panels, covering a diverse array of topics, such as:
- Geoscience solutions for the energy transition
- Low-carbon solutions
- How to win in the digital future
- The geosciences sustainability atlas: opportunities and roadmap
- Emerging technologies
Featured Speakers
On Monday evening, don’t miss the AAPG Foundation’s 2022 Michel T. Halbouty lecture featuring Cindy Yeilding.
Building on her experience as a petroleum geologist and industry executive, Yeilding will talk about how the “explorer mindset” that Halbouty so valued and uniquely embodied can be expanded and applied to many aspects of energy and the environment – it’s how geoscientists will continue to thrive in a low-carbon world.
IMAGE ’22 welcomes Dr. Sean Gulick of the Jackson School of Geosciences at the University of Texas – Austin as the all-convention luncheon speaker on Monday with a talk titled, “Life and death by impact: drilling for clues.” Dr. Gulick will present some of what he learned drilling the Chicxulub impact crater, cause of Earth’s most recent global mass-extinction event.
At the luncheon, the AAPG Foundation will also present its annual Teacher of the Year Award.
Much-Deserved Thanks
If you’ve ever been involved in developing and delivering a meeting like this, you know the amount of both volunteer and staff effort that goes into it. I want to thank our four co-chairs – Wafik Beydoun and Olga Nedorub of SEG and Rick Fritz and Anne Draucker of AAPG, along with their respective committees – for all of their hard work.
I also want to thank Alan Wegener and the AAPG/SEG Joint Events Team – a group of professional staff from both organizations who have come together to produce this fantastic event. I’m proud of their efforts.
IMAGE ’22 – your annual meeting. I hope you’ll join me in Houston later this month.