EXPLORE THE POSSIBILITIES

NINETEENTH SPE IMPROVEDOIL RECOVERY SYMPOSIUM

IOR2014 NEWSVolume 4, Number 1, 2014

April 12-16, 2014, Tulsa, Oklahoma

First Female iOr PiOneer amOng 2014 inducteesThe first woman to be named an IOR Pioneer is among the esteemed group of petroleum scientists to be so honored at the 19th Improved Oil Recovery Symposium, scheduled for April 12–16, 2014, in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

The biennial symposium, sponsored by the Mid-Continent Section of the Society of Petroleum Engineers, is the world’s larg-est gathering of petroleum scientists and oil and gas industry professionals focused on advancing knowledge and technology to improve and enhance oil and gas recovery.

The 2014 IOR Symposium will honor the five distinguished IOR Pioneers at a special recognition dinner on April 14, 2014, at the Renaissance Hotel and Convention Center in Tulsa—also the site for the conference. They are Betty Felber, S.A. "Raj" Mehta, Karl Miller, Ahmad Moradi, and Norman Morrow. Articles on each of the 2014 IOR Pioneers follow this one.

The five honorees will be recognized at IOR 2014 for their significant contributions to the fields of improved oil recovery (IOR) and enhanced oil recovery (EOR), according to Dwight Dauben, chairman of the IOR 2014 Pioneer Awards committee. While the number of awardees typi-cally ranges from three to five, the inclusion of 11 nomi-nees apparently helped support a number of awards at the higher end of the range.

“The committee has opted to award the top five candi-dates to receive the IOR Pioneer Award for 2013,” said Dauben. “I agree with the decision, given the large num-ber of excellent candidates and the limited opportunities to make the awards.”

Dauben noted that the award recognizes and expresses special appreciation to individuals who have pioneered and made significant advancement in the technology for improving oil recovery.

“I think that improved oil recovery processes will continue to be important for the longer term. The selection of deserving candidates, along with the publicity that surrounds these awards, will help to put a focus on IOR and also encourage others in their involvement in the technology.”

Over the past 30 years, 67 individuals have been recognized as IOR Pioneers, including this year’s group (see table, p. 2).

Award’s criteriaDauben, a Tulsa-based petroleum consultant and a 2002 IOR Pioneer honoree, described the basic criteria for being nominat-ed as an IOR Pioneer as early and long-term involvement in the development and/or application of IOR and EOR: “[The term] ‘IOR’ implies processes that improve oil recovery during the secondary and tertiary phases of recovery. It includes the classic…EOR processes that are designed to improve displacement or sweep. These EOR processes include the injection of chemicals, gas, polymers, or the generation of heat into the reservoir. IOR is a broader term that includes not only the classic EOR processes but also any process that results in the improvement of recovery beyond that achieved by standard methods.

“I think that improved oil recovery pro-cesses will continue to be important for the longer term. The selection of deserving candidates, along with the publicity that surrounds these awards, will help to put a focus on IOR and also encourage others in their involve-ment in the technology.”

Dwight Dauben, Chairman, IOR Pioneer Committee

Dauben

 

 

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Volume 4, Number 1, 2014 Page 2

These include improved waterflooding techniques, use of horizontal wells to improve secondary recovery performance, pres-sure maintenance, gravity-assisted gas- or water-injection, water shut-off, cold production of heavy oil, and the in-situ upgrading of heavy oil. The drilling, logging, and completion of wells are excluded from consideration even though that can impact recovery.”

Additionally, according to Dauben, nominees must be involved in and enjoy industry recognition for their involvement in one or more phases of IOR activity, including laboratory testing, software development or application, project design, field appli-cation, and monitoring of field performance. A prospective IOR Pioneer must also be a member of SPE during that IOR activity and generally have established two to four decades of her or his career to the development and application of leading-edge technology designed to increase recovery from the older oil fields.

30 YEARS OF IOR PIONEERSYear IOR Pioneers

1984 Francis R. Conley, Lloyd E. Elkins, Ted M. Geffen, L.M. Holm, Howard A. Koch, Jr., Fred H. Poettmann, R. Vincent Smith, P.L. Terwilliger, L.W. Welch, Jr., Phillip D. White

1986 Robert J. Blackwell, Ben H. Caudle, Lincoln F. Elkins, Claude R. Hocott, Michael Prats

1988 E.R. Brownscombe, Elmond L. Claride, H. Robert Froning, R.L. Reed

1990 W. Barney Gogarty, John P. Heller, Joseph J. Taber

1992 Ted R. Blevins, R.C. Earlougher, Henry J. Ramey, Jr., Arlie M. Skov

1994 J.C. Melrose, Necmettin Mungan

1996 Robert S. Schechter, Lowell R. Smith, Ben Sloat, Fred I. Stalkup

1998 William E. Brigham, C. Robert Fast, George J. Hirasaki, Thomas K. Perkins

2000 Bob Barnett, Larry W. Lake, Richard Nelson, Burton B. Sandiford

2002 Howard Ferrell, S.M. Farouq Ali, W.C. Hardy, W.L. Martin, George L. Stegemeier

2004 Philip J. Closmann, Harry Surkalo, G. Paul Wilhite

2006 Jae H. Bae, Don W. Green, Hossein Kazemi, Franklin M. Orr Jr., Gary Pope

2008 Dwight L. Dauben, Kishore Kumar Mohanty, Kenneth Sorbie, Randall Scott Seright, Michael R. Todd

2010 Wang Demin, Jeffrey A. Jones, Gordon Moore, David Zornes

2012 Chun Huh, Brij Maini, Malcolm Pitts, William Rossen

2014 Betty Felber, S.A. "Raj" Mehta, Karl Miller, Ahmad Moradi, and Norman Morrow

Volume 4, Number 1, 2014 Page 3

iOr PiOneer PrOFiles

Felber a trailblazer On several cOuntsIf trailblazing a path results in being the first among peers to achieve a milestone, and that qualifies someone to be recog-nized as an IOR Pioneer, then Dr. Betty J. Felber is a pioneer in more ways than one.

Apart from being the first woman chosen as an IOR Pioneer, she is also the first (former) US Department of Energy (DOE) employee to be named an IOR Pioneer.

That latter point might be a mild surprise to those unaware of the strong role DOE has played in supporting R&D in enhanced oil recovery and improved oil recovery over the decades. Until recently, DOE also was a major financial supporter of the SPE Mid-Continent section’s biennial IOR symposium.

Surprise certainly describes her reaction to being named an IOR Pioneer: “I was shocked,” she said. “Grateful as well. Couldn’t believe it.”

Then, in being asked what winning the award means in the context of her work in the field of IOR/EOR, she responded with what her friends and colleagues would quickly recognize as one of her typically straightforward, if slightly quirky, answers: “It will certainly be a good thing to have on my resume, especially when I am giving it to someone who does not know me yet.”

Given her perspective as not only a pioneer in IOR but also as a petroleum scientist who has worked in the field for a major integrated oil company, an independent oper-ating oil and gas company, an oil field service company, as a government bureaucrat, and as an independent con-sultant, Felber notes that the current robust state of IOR and EOR “has been a long time coming—so long that some of the same errors committed in previous applica-tions are being committed again.”

That wry observation aside, she added, “I’m very glad that there are some companies that are trying EOR now.”

Pioneering workFelber also cited another first: She was the first woman from the engineering side of Amoco Production Research to go to the field.

“We applied the sweep improvement system I invented in the field. It was the first time ever applied. It was near June 8, 1973.”

Dwight Dauben, IOR Pioneer Awards Chairman, in his nomination of Felber for the Pioneer award, noted that he has known and worked with her since she started her career at Amoco Production Research.

He pointed out that her development of new chemical systems for improving sweep in waterfloods and other IOR projects led to the successful implementation of a major enriched gas drive project in Canada.

“She was also instrumental in the development of a chemical system for improving the sweep efficiency in carbon dioxide flooding projects,” Dauben added. “The Amoco work led to the granting of six United States patents and two Canadian pat-ents.

The current robust state of IOR and EOR “has been a long time coming—so long that some of the same errors committed in previous applications are being committed again.”

Betty Felber, 2014 IOR Pioneer

Felber

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Career path Dr. Felber joined MAPCO and later CNG Producing Company after leaving Amoco. She worked on a wide array of projects involving reservoir studies, reserve analyses, unitization studies, core analyses, pressure-volume-temperature studies, and the implementation of a major polymer flood in South Central Oklahoma.

Felber later joined Core Labs in the design and successful implementation of a 350,000 b/d water disposal project in Nigeria. Her work on the project entailed conducting laboratory studies and designing injection wells and surface facilities. She lived in Warri, Nigeria, for the duration of the project. Included among her other major projects are studies to improve operating efficiency in Gabon, evaluation of reserves in Albania, and development of new drilling guidelines for the Neutral Zone between Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.

Additionally, Felber worked for DOE for a number of years in a technical and supervisory capacity. She represented the US government on a 13-nation board of the International Energy Agency’s Cooperative Project on Enhanced Oil Recovery. As a consultant, Felber has been involved in the design of underbalanced drilling fluids, well completions, and conformance applications in waterflooding and carbon dioxide EOR projects. She has also served as a consultant in waterflood and CO2 projects in Osage and Kay counties in Oklahoma. Additionally, she has been an instructor for the University of Tulsa in the areas of waterflooding and improved oil recovery technology.

Dr. Felber has long been active in a leadership role in the Society of Petroleum Engineers. She has served on the SPE Mid-Continent Region board of directors for many years and has edited the chapter’s newsletter, both roles she continues today. She was chosen as a Distinguished Member of SPE International in 2008 and served as the General Chair for the 12th SPE/DOE Improved Oil Recovery Symposium in 2002. She has retained a slot on the IOR Symposium planning committees since that time and has also taught continuing educational courses on IOR field projects at the last two symposiums.

Felber has a BS from Oklahoma Panhandle State University and an MS and PhD from Oklahoma State University, all in chemistry. She is also has a diploma from Harvard University’s Senior Executive Fellows Program.

mehta third cOnsecutive u. OF calgary PiOneerDr. S.A. "Raj"Mehta completes a trifecta of consecutive IOR Pioneers that are on the faculty of the University of Calgary in Alberta.

In 2010, his fellow co-director of the In Situ Combustion Group at the university, Gordon Moore, was recognized as an IOR Pioneer at the 17th Improved Oil Recovery Symposium.

In 2012, University of Calgary faculty colleague Brij Maini was named an IOR Pioneer at the 18th IOR Symposium.

Further demonstrating that the Canadian university is a hotbed of pioneering IOR and EOR R&D, Mehta was nominated for the IOR Pioneer Award by yet a fourth University of Calgary faculty colleague, Dr. S.M. Farouq Ali, who was named an IOR Pioneer at the 13th IOR Symposium in 2002.

Pioneering workIn nominating Dr. Mehta for the award, Dr. Farouq Ali noted that, “In addition to his long advocacy for air injec-tion-based oil recovery processes, Dr. Mehta has been a champion of global education and training in petroleum engineering and has been responsible for the creation of many successful international education programs.”

“In addition to his long advocacy for air injection-based oil recovery processes, Dr. Mehta has been a champion of global education and training in petro-leum engineering and has been responsible for the creation of many successful international education pro-grams.”

S.M. Farouq Ali, nominating Raj Mehta as a 2014 IOR Pioneer

Mehta

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Mehta has spent his entire academic career providing teaching and leadership in petroleum engineering education with a focus on EOR, both at the University of Calgary and around the world, Farouq Ali added.

Additionally, Mehta has worked with the In Situ Combustion Research Group at the University since 1986 and served as co-director of the group along with Dr. Moore since 1991. In his role with the group, Mehta has authored more than 300 papers, reports, and patents related to in situ combustion.

“In addition to his technical direction, Dr. Mehta’s keen business skills have been instrumental in building up the research group’s capacity,” Farouq Ali pointed out.

Today, the In Situ Combustion Research Group is a multi-million dollar facility staffed by 12 full-time researchers supported by the Group’s ongoing research work—most of which comes from the petroleum industry, both Canadian and international. In 2006 the Group was awarded the ASTECH Innovation in Oil Sands Research sponsored by Syncrude Canada Ltd.

The primary focus of the group for many years has been the development of the heavy oil in situ combustion project in Mehsana, India, since the early 1990s—the world’s largest such project. Principals in the group provide technical advice and training of personnel, as well as the design, construction, and setup of a thermal laboratory at ONGC’s Institute of Reservoir Studies in Ahmedabad, India, with ongoing collaborative research.

Mehta has been invited to deliver training programs worldwide, including the Society of Petroleum Engineers International (SPEI) training program on IOR in Bakersfield, California; the UNITAR Centre for Heavy Crude and Tar Sands training pro-grams for IOR in Albania and Romania; the Technology Research Center of the Japan National Oil Corporation; and technol-ogy exchange and training programs on IOR with MOL Rt. and the Hungarian Hydrocarbon Institute in Hungary.

His strong international outreach efforts resulted in the University of Calgary appointing Mehta Director of International Programs for the Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering. In this role, he has developed programs with Petroleum University of Technology in Iran, Petronas in Malaysia, Universidad Industrial de Santander in Colombia, and many others. For such accomplishments, he was awarded the University of Calgary President’s Internationalization Achievement Award.

Service to industry and academiaIn addition to Dr. Mehta’s extensive research commitments, he still teaches the second-year engineering course in thermody-namics, junior and senior petroleum engineering classes in drilling and well logging, and a graduate course in thermal recov-ery methods.

He was named “Petroleum Engineering Professor of the Year” by students of the Schulich School of Engineering at the University of Calgary and was recognized for his teaching with the SPE Distinguished Achievement Award for Petroleum Engineering Faculty by SPEI.

At the graduate level, 40 students have completed Masters- or PhD-level degrees under Dr. Mehta’s supervision, mostly in EOR and particularly air injection topics. He currently supervises 12 graduate students.

Mehta served for several years on the SPE Distinguished Lecturer Selection Committee, both as a committee member and as a chairman. In that role, he used his worldwide scope of contacts to ensure that IOR topics were addressed by qualified indi-viduals from around the globe. In 2008, the SPE Rocky Mountain Section awarded him a Regional Service Award. He is also a recipient of The Canadian Bureau for International Education Internationalization Leadership Award.

Career pathDr. Mehta currently is a professor of oil and gas engineering and the Director of International Programs in the Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering, Schulich School of Engineering at the University of Calgary.

His prime research interests are in the areas of high-pressure combustion, including mechanisms associated with high-pres-sure air injection/in situ combustion-based oil recovery processes; flue gas injection-based IOR and CO2 sequestration; gas phase combustion in porous media; safety aspects of underbalanced drilling operations; rheological aspects of oil-based and

Volume 4, Number 1, 2014 Page 6

complex drilling fluid systems; safety aspects of drilling, completion, stimulation, and workover operations; specialized downhole tool design and development; near-wellbore stimulation processes; and explosions and safety aspects associated with the energy industry.

Mehta also serves as a consultant to Canadian and international energy companies in the areas of IOR and drilling and com-pletion safety and is a co-founder and director of Hot-Tec Energy Inc., a Calgary consulting and lab services company focused mainly on EOR/IOR processes and oil field safety.

He has been on a number of boards, including the Canadian Energy Research Institute, The Petroleum Society of the Canadian Institute of Mining (CIM), and the University of Calgary’s International Education Council. Dr. Mehta has also served as the Chair of the Publications Board of the Petroleum Society of CIM and on the SPE Distinguished Lecturer Selection Committee. In December 2013, he was appointed to the Council of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada for a 3-year term.

Other professional affiliations include the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of Alberta, the Combustion Institute, Canadian Heavy Oil Association, Canadian Association of Drilling Engineers, the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers’ IRP 18 (safety hazard management) Drilling and Completions Committee.

A registered professional engineer in Alberta, Mehta holds BEng and MS degrees in mechanical engineering and a PhD with specialization in oil sands combustion technology from the University of Calgary.

miller's sagd innOvatiOns Field-PrOvenThe second Canadian to be named an IOR Pioneer for 2014, Dr. Karl Miller was nominated by 2002 IOR Pioneer awardee Dr. S.M. Farouq Ali, who emphasized that Miller’s “innovations have been actually implemented and proven in the field.”Dr. Farouq Ali contends that “when it comes to field implementation of a variety of EOR ideas to different types of reser-voirs, Dr. Miller has no equal.” Over a 35-year period, Dr. Miller has worked on projects ranging from coal gasification and (kerogen) oil shale in Colorado to SAGD in Alberta, “and just about everything in between,” Dr. Farouq Ali noted. “He is also a prolific writer and has pub-lished nearly 40 papers on several subjects, especially steam injection.”

Most of Miller’s career has been spent in nearly two decades—split by more than a decade, during 1981–1991 and since 2004—with Husky Oil in Calgary, with an interim stint as a consultant, also in Calgary.

“He has been instrumental in making [Husky’s] projects commercially successful in the Lloydminster area and in Alberta,” Farouq Ali pointed out. “Pikes Peak [SAGD/cyclic steamflood project] in the Lloydminster area] is among Dr. Miller’s big successes. As a cyclic and steamflood project, it performed better than the best of the California projects.

“Then came a big challenge: to continue field development in areas of bottom water. Here Dr. Miller developed several ingenious approaches to minimize the deleterious effects of bottom water.”

Dr. Farouq Ali also cites Husky’s Bolney cyclic steam/SAGD project, also near Lloydminster, where Miller developed technology for improving SAGD recovery by incorporating offsetting vertical production wells, use of sacrificial outside SAGD pairs to control water influx, and use of single vertical well SAGD technology.

“A potential problem [with advancing IOR/EOR technology] I see, however, is overreliance on numerical models, with too little time spent thinking about the fundamental physics of the pro-cesses that are involved and about the actual rock and fluid properties and their variations.”

Dr. Karl Miller, 2014 IOR Pioneer

Miller

Volume 4, Number 1, 2014 Page 7

“Dr. Miller also carried out groundbreaking work on horizontal well applications, [and] not only in the context of SAGD. He did early field studies on the sinuosity and poor lateral accuracy of horizontal wells. Later, he determined the situations where vertical wells were equally—or more—effective than horizontal wells. These ideas were employed in various field projects of Husky Oil.”

Miller’s perspectiveUpon being notified that he was an IOR Pioneer awardee, Dr. Miller said, “I felt very surprised to have been considered for the IOR Pioneer Award, and I felt very humbled to have received it.”

Winning the award, he continued, “has encouraged me to continue to emphasize in the work that I publish, and to the young-er engineers that I mentor, the need to consider and to discuss the practical and economic aspects of both existing and pro-posed IOR/EOR processes.”

Miller also reflected on the current state of IOR/EOR developments, noting the “huge strides” that have been made especially in the area of thermal EOR applied to heavy oil and bitumen exploitation.

“As a result, the state-of-the art has continued to change, and this trend will likely continue,” Miller said. “A potential prob-lem I see, however, is overreliance on numerical models, with too little time spent thinking about the fundamental physics of the processes that are involved and about the actual rock and fluid properties and their variations.”

Career pathDr. Miller currently is a reservoir engineering specialist with Husky Energy at Calgary. In addition to his pioneering work in SAGD recovery from heavy oil reservoirs, he provides technical support to Husky’s cold production and post-cold production processes. He also focuses on identifying heavy oil and bitumen exploitation technology advances worldwide.

But Miller didn’t start out to be a guru in heavy oil and bitumen recovery in the Americas. During the early 1970s, he worked in diamond synthesis, glass manufacture, and explosives research—in particular in the areas of pulverized coal combustion and gasification to fire glass furnaces and the prevention of methane/coal dust/air explosions in coal mines.

In the latter half of that decade, Miller went to work for two divisions of Occidental Petroleum. That entailed modifying in situ oil shale technology development for Occidental Oil Shale and the evaluation of alternate energy processes, including coal gasification, for Occidental Research.

Overall, Miller has spent 33 years working and publishing in the area of improving heavy oil and bitumen recovery in North and South America. His areas of work have included cold production, post-cold production using solvent and in situ combus-tion, water flooding, in situ combustion, and steam processes with a variety of vertical and horizontal well configurations. From 1981 to 1991, he doubled production at two heavy oil EOR projects while improving their economics.

Honors, professional association serviceAmong Dr. Miller’s 31 publications was one selected as the best article published in the Journal of Canadian Petroleum Technology in 2003 and one named second runner-up best paper given at the Petroleum Society of Canada’s annual confer-ence in 2004.

Additionally, he has taught heavy oil short courses around the world.

Among his other honors are the Petroleum Society of Canada’s Outstanding Service Award (2004) and Lifetime Achievement Award (2009) and the SPE Canadian Region Outstanding Service Award (2011).

Miller is a member of the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of Alberta; the Petroleum Society of Canada, where he served on the board of director from 2007 to 2009, as chair of the society’s international technical meeting, and co-chair of several conferences; SPE Canadian region, where he was chair of the Heavy Oil Special Interest Group and co-chair of several conferences and workshops; and the Canadian Heavy Oil Association.

Miller has a BES in chemical engineering and a PhD in engineering sciences, both from Brigham Young University.

Volume 4, Number 1, 2014 Page 8

mOradi: PiOneer PrOliFic FOr Patents, PubsAmong the most prolific of IOR Pioneers, Dr. Ahmad Moradi counts more than 50 publications and more than 50 patents in his long and illustrious career.

Almost the entirety of that career has been spent working as a research chemist with Phillips Petroleum Co. (now ConocoPhillips) in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, where the company was founded.

Dr. Ahmad Moradi was nominated jointly by IOR Pioneers Dr. Randy Seright (2008) and Dr. David Zornes (2010). In his nominating letter, Seright cited several important contributions that Ahmad Moradi has made to improved oil recovery.

“Chief among them,” he noted, is that “he provided what is widely acknowledged as the definitive characterization of HPAM [hydrolyzed polyacrylamide] stability when divalent cations are present in brines.”

Following that work, Seright added, Moradi was instrumental in the development and characterization of important EOR polymers and gels that have greater stability at elevated temperatures.

“Dr. Moradi’s work has and continues to provide the central guideline for where HPAM may be used at elevated temperatures.”

Moradi’s perspectiveDr. Moradi said he was “quite delighted” in being selected as an IOR Pioneer, adding, “It means my colleagues valued my contributions.”

Regarding the state of IOR/EOR technology today, he noted that the field “has gone through a lot of changes in my 34-year career. It is pleasing to see the improvements in various aspect of EOR applications.”

Career pathDr. Moradi’s latest stint with ConocoPhillips has been as a senior research chemist specialist since 2010, where he has been involved in evaluation of swellable polymeric microparticles for mobility control and profile modifications.

That followed an 8-year term with Bartlesville-based Green Country Petrophysics, where he provided service to ConocoPhillips and its predecessor Phillips evaluating polymers for EOR applications in Bohai Bay oil field off China and Kuparuk River oil field on Alaska’s North Slope.

Until the Green Country “detour,” Dr. Moradi worked as a research chemist for various divisions at Phillips, uninterrupted, from 1980 to 2002. His work for Phillips focused mainly on research into polymers and their role (especially their stability) in a range of EOR applications, including:

• Evaluating water-soluble polymers for flooding applications at Tabasco field on Alaska’s North Slope.• Evaluating low-toxicity metallic, as well as organic, crosslinking systems for preparation of gels in treatment of low- to

high-temperature reservoirs to increase their oil recovery.• Directing research in Norway to synthesize thermally stable water-soluble polymers. • Evaluating foaming surfactants to reduce CO2mobility in the South Cowden Unit in West Texas and East Vacuum

Grayburg San Andres Unit in New Mexico.• Using low-toxicity crosslinking systems in a pilot test at North Burbank Unit, in Osage County, Oklahoma, which is the

largest single producing unit in the state.• Designing and developing low-toxicity crosslinking systems used in combination with water-soluble polymers for perme-

ability contrast corrections in low- to medium-temperature reservoirs.

“IOR/EOR has gone through a lot of changes in my 34-year career. It is pleasing to see the improvements in various aspect of EOR applications.”

Dr. Ahmad Moradi, 2014 IOR Pioneer

Moradi

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• Evaluating surfactants for CO2 foam treatments.• Designing and evaluating of a number of thermally stable crosslinking systems suitable for use with water soluble poly-

mers under hostile-environment conditions.• Magnetic resonance imaging of cores to monitor fluid flow mechanisms in fractured reservoirs.• Evaluating surfactant systems to reduce formation damage from drilling and completion fluids. Honors, professional association serviceConocoPhillips has formally recognized Dr. Moradi as its employee with the most patents issued in the United States.

He was co-editor of a special issue of the Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering, which covered selected papers form the 2nd International Non-Renewable Energy Source Congress in Tehran, Iran.

Since 2000 he has served as an associate editor for the Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering.

Dr. Moradi also served on the Program Committee for the SPE International Symposium on Oilfield Chemistry during 2000–2006 and was session chairman, polymers and materials division, for the American Chemical Society (ACS) national meeting.

In the 1970s he earned the Robert A. Welch Foundation pre-doctoral fellowship at the University of North Texas and the foundation’s post-doctoral fellowships at the University of North Texas and Texas Christian University.

In addition to his memberships in SPE and ACS, he is a member of the Alpha Chi Sigma professional chemistry fraternity.

Dr. Moradi has a BS in chemistry from the University of Tehran, an MS in chemistry from Tennessee Technological University, and a PhD in chemistry from the University of North Texas.

mOrrOw’s career very deFinitiOn OF ‘PiOneer’If ever an IOR Pioneer awardee exemplified the label of “pioneer” in the most literal sense of the word, it would surely be Dr. Norman Morrow, judging from the comments of his peer petroleum scientists in nominating him for the award. Morrow was an overwhelming choice for the award.

“The description of IOR Pioneer could hardly fit anyone or any situation more aptly than Prof. Morrow’s role in the develop-ment of low-salinity flooding for IOR,” attested Dr. William R. Rossen, professor of reservoir engineering and head of the petroleum section in the Department of Geoscience and Engineering at Delft University of Technology in The Netherlands.

The field was unknown before Prof. Morrow and his students published a series of papers in the late 1990s, contends Rossen, adding that the field now is the subject of intense research as well as application.

“At the 2012 Tulsa IOR meeting, there were two sessions on low-salinity flooding, as well as some additional papers in other sessions,” Rossen pointed out. “My impression is that most major integrated oil companies are investigating or implementing this approach. Prof. Morrow’s role as practically sole originator of a major field of IOR is, I believe, unique.”

Morrow has long been regarded as one of the world’s leading experts on wettability, noted another colleague, Dr. Don W. Green, University of Kansas emeritus distinguished professor.

“His research…has focused on understanding of basic phenomena that affect oil displacement and recovery by improved oil recovery processes at the pore-scale level,” Green said. “Phenomena studied include wettability and capillarity, structure of residual oil saturation, effects of interfacial tension on displacement, wettability and contact angles, mobilization of residual oil, and correlation of the capillary number with residual oil, among others.”

Dr. Green also pointed to the financial support given to his research group by several major companies over a period of sev-eral years: “Much of this funding has been unrestricted, indicating a high level of respect for his work,” he said.

Volume 4, Number 1, 2014 Page 10

Morrow’s perspectiveIt’s perhaps unsurprising that, while he acknowledged, “I am honored that colleagues have recognized my contributions through the SPE IOR Pioneer award,” Dr. Morrow’s own perspective is focused on the work still left to be accomplished.

“Much of my more recent research has focused on spontane-ous imbibition and waterflooding,” he said. “There is much room for improved fundamental understanding of these pro-cesses and how they relate to most other IOR processes.”

He also would like to see a return to form for basic R&D in the oil and gas industry—harking back to the days when most major oil companies had major ongoing research pro-grams devoted to unlocking the secrets of oil and gas reser-voirs and subsurface processes.

“The high current level of IOR/EOR activity justifies the re-establishment of more industry laboratories comparable to the numerous renowned production research laboratories of former times,” Dr. Morrow noted.

Career pathDr. Morrow has served on the faculties of two major universities recognized for their oil and gas research legacies since 1976.

Currently, he is a professor of chemical and petroleum engineering at the University of Wyoming, where he has worked since 1992 and has held the Wold Chair of Energy since 2004. Much of his research still focuses on enhancing low-salinity water-flooding and on a better understanding of wettability and spontaneous imbibition. He is also a Distinguished Scientist at the University of Wyoming-affiliated Western Research Institute.

Prior to his stint at the University of Wyoming, Dr. Morrow served on the faculty of the New Mexico Institute of Mining & Technology (1976–1992), where he headed the petrophysics and surface chemistry area at the New Mexico Petroleum Recovery Research Center and was an adjunct professor of petroleum engineering.

Morrow also was a senior research scientist at the Petroleum Recovery Institute in Calgary (1969–1976) and a senior scientist for Esso Production Research Company (1964–1969).

Honors, professional association serviceDr. Morrow’s many honors and publications are too numerous to even list a fraction of them here.

As an active member of SPE, he was an SPE distinguished lecturer and served on the SPE Publications Committee and Education & Professionalism Committee. He has been on the editorial review committee of SPE’s Journal of Petroleum Technology and Canadian Journal of Petroleum Technology.

Dr. Morrow also founded a biennial international conference on reservoir wettability in the 1990s. He has about 180 publica-tions and 4 patents resulting from his research.

He won the Kapitsa Gold Medal of Honor from the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences in 1999 and was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2001.

Dr. Morrow is also a member of the American Chemical Society, Society of Core Analysts, and the Petroleum Society of the Canadian Institute of Mining, among others.

He has a BS in chemical engineering and a PhD in mineral engineering, both from the University of Leeds.

“The description of IOR Pioneer could hardly fit anyone or any situation more aptly than Prof. Morrow’s role in the development of low-salinity flooding for IOR. Prof. Morrow’s role as practically sole originator of a major field of IOR is, I believe, unique.”

Dr. William Rossen, nominating Dr. Norman Morrow as a 2014 IOR

PioneerMorrow

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Volume 4, Number 1, 2014 Page 12

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Volume 4, Number 1, 2014 Page 13

IOR 2014 General Chair.........Sada JoshiEditor.......................................Robert WilliamsPresentation Editor..................Kristi LovendahlIOR 2014 Logo........................Greta Creekmore

NINEtEENtH SPE IOR COMMIttEE ROStER

StEERING COMMIttEE

Sada Joshi, General Chair Joshi Technologies, International Inc.Dwight Dauben Dauben International Energy ConsultantsBetty Felber ConsultantMohan Kelkar The University of TulsaJon LaRue Midstates Petroleum CompanyW.F. Lawson The University of TulsaDwight Rychel ConsultantPhil Schenewerk ApacheMichael Whitten Cased Hole Solutions

PLANNING COMMIttEE

Technical Program Chairman David Smith, ConocoPhillipsRegistration Chairman Dwight Rychel, Consultant

Registration Coordinator Kristi Lovendahl, ConsultantComputers/Networking Jack Coursey, Sarco SolutionsFinance Chad Roller, Midcon Energy

Reports Monica Song, ConsultantPublicity/Advertisements Robert Williams, Consultant

Webmaster, Publications, Graphics Kristi Lovendahl, ConsultantSymposium Logo, Graphic Design Greta Creekmore, Cimarex Energy

Exhibits & Tech Update Series Doug Storts, Williford CompaniesExhibits Assistant Marsha Whitney, Consultant

Pioneer Awards Dwight Dauben, Dauben Int’l Energy Conslts.Continuing Education David Zornes, Consultant

Continuing Education Assistant Chirag Patel, Joshi Technologies Int’l Inc.Continuing Education Assistant Teri Nichols, ConocoPhillips

Arrangements Doug Norton, Warren American Oil Co.Social Events Lori Watts, The University of TulsaSponsorships W.F. Lawson, The University of TulsaSponsorships Jon LaRue, Midstates Petroleum CompanyGeology Field Trip Norm Hyne, The University of TulsaTU Student Support Lori Watts, The University of Tulsa

TU Student Support Scheduling Doyle Kindle (Student Pres., SPE, AADE)TU Student Support Scheduling Luke Wittenbach (SPE Student VP)

IOR Administrative Assistant Lori Watts, The University of TulsaSPE Meetings Manager Brannon Jahnke, SPESPE Conference Program Manager Barbara Majefski, SPE

SPE MID-CONtINENt SECtION OFFICERS(See www.spemc.org for more information about the SPE Mid-Continent Section)

Chairman Rita Behm, Cimarex EnergyVice-Chairman (Programs) Bryson Wolfe, BakerHughesSecretary Adam Brazeal, FTS InternationalTreasurer Ashley Jorishie, ApacheDirector Betty Felber, ConsultantDirector Dwight Rychel, ConsultantDirector Tom McCoy, Cimarex Energy Director Phil Schenewerk, Apache CorporationDirector Steve Tipton, Newfield ExplorationPast Chairman Michael Whitten, Cased Hole Solutions