Happy New Year! I’m pleased to welcome you to the first edition of the 2022 SPE-GCS newsletter. I want to take this opportunity to wish our members and affiliates a Happy New Year. Reflecting on 2021, we witnessed a promising industry ready to embrace the energy transition while providing energy for the world. This is an exciting moment for the Gulf Coast Section. As the global economy continues to recover, the outlook for 2022 and beyond continues to improve. The industry is much healthier, with a few remarkable mergers and acquisitions that will speed up growth initiatives at a high rate of return. The price of oil rose to a new record level in the last few years and most of our colleagues are happy to return to work.
In section news, I would like to thank John Vozniak. Under his leadership, we’ve been able to map out a plan to boost our membership drive, engage section members, and organize events and activities to benefit members in the region.
The section continues to operate and survive because of the support and help of our remarkable volunteers across the region, as well as manufacturing, supply, service and operator companies. Their support comes in the form of event sponsorship, direct funding and membership fees. I believe the section would not be where it is today without the support of all these groups and people. On behalf of the board, thank you.
To review some of the key highlights of last year: We witnessed a record number of service and operator companies across the value chain redefine their thesis and offerings, and undertake internal initiatives to harness the opportunities derived from the meaningful use of data and technology. Historically, we have saved terabytes of data without taking meaningful insights from it. Reflecting on the success of open innovation and collaboration, the industry is learning from other heavy equipment industries that have made headway into leveraging big data and analytics, IoT, mobile devices, cloud computing, robotics, drones, artificial intelligence, wearable technology, and collaboration and social tools. The Gulf Coast Section is exploring avenues to expand our technical offerings in the digital technology domain, and I hope our members will benefit from them.
Toward the end of 2021, a fear that oil prices will drop was spurred by the prospect of a more significant than expected omicron virus and the dent in global crude demand. We saw a slight decline in prices toward the end of the year. I’m optimistic that with more individuals getting the vaccine, people returning to work and greater confidence in the commodity market, prices will stabilize to allow service and operator companies to speed up strategic growth initiatives at a high rate of return – and return excess capital to shareholders. The future for the industry looks bright.
As I reflect on last year and consider the year ahead and the many challenges to come, I wanted to share my hope that you will each consider adding two New Year’s resolutions to your list:
Resolution #1: Family comes first. Spend time with the people you love.
Resolution # 2: Be a servant leader at work, home and in your respective communities.
All the best. Until next month, Nii Ahele Nunoo