Dear Colleagues and Friends,
On behalf of SPE Oslo, it is a great pleasure to welcome you to the Oslo Section of Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE). During 2020 we have experienced a dramatic pandemic that has been affecting us all in our work- and daily life. SPE Oslo followed the advice of the government and cancelled all in-person events in spring 2020. We are now planning for the season 2020-2021, which will be in a different package from what we are used to due to continued uncertainties of the pandemic.
In 2020-2021 we will still have several exciting events covering a variety of disciplines within the oil and gas industry. One of the changes for this season is that SPE central has made the Distinguished Lecturer program virtual. Travel restrictions makes it difficult for our DL`s to travel and their safety is vital. We still hope you will find it interesting to participate virtually to learn and discuss interesting topics.
The industry has been flooded with webinars and presentations, and it is difficult to compete with professional organization that do this for a living. SPE Oslo is run by volunteers that use their spare time to set up a good program, generate income through sponsorships and run the section as best as we can. We would therefore encourage and appreciate any help and suggestions of interesting topics, presenters or potential sponsors that you might think of. If you are interested to get involved in the section, please let us know and we would do our best to accommodate this.
Meeting in person to network and have informal talks is an important part of the section, and perhaps the biggest motivation to join the events for several of us. As the coming season progress, we will try to open for hybrid or solely in-person events. The X-mas meeting (Julebord) in December will hopefully be the first in-person event, depending on how the pandemic progress.
Finally, I would like to take this opportunity to thank our members and sponsors, without your continued support none of the activities would have been possible. Partnerships with our sponsors and members are vital to the success of this section.
Øyvind Salvesen
Chairman, SPE Oslo