September 2017

As President John F. Kennedy famously said in his 1962 speech at Rice University in Houston, difficult challenges serve “to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills.” I am happy to report that the super basin concept I wrote about in my July column is working to focus energies and skills within AAPG.

Just days ago we, here in North America, experienced a full solar eclipse. As daylight turned to twilight in midday, outside temperatures fell, and we witnessed one of the grandest celestial dances as the moon slipped between Earth and sun. Awe and wonder is a natural and human response to such an event.

As a candidate in 2016, “the Donald” introduced a new plan: his “America First Energy Plan.”

In this article, we demonstrate the identification of organically rich sweet spots within the Point Pleasant interval using 3-D seismic data, the available well and core data.

I read the words of this headline in a local paper in Buenos Aires on my way to Neuquén to celebrate the official inauguration of the first Shell-operated Early Production Facility in Vaca Muerta. These words have since stuck with me.

Bob Esser, a longtime AAPG Foundation Trustee Associate who for nearly 25 years has kept the group informed and often entertained regarding the current state of the petroleum industry, has been named the recipient of the 2017 Trustee Associates Service Award.