Industry Speakers Confirmed for Energy Forum Live - Oil & Gas Conference

More than 30 experts from the field of shale development and hydraulic fracturing have been confirmed as speakers and panelists for the inaugural ASME Energy Forum Live – Oil & Gas, which will take place in San Diego in March.

"Shale Development and Hydraulic Fracturing: Capturing Unconventional Opportunities" will be the theme of the conference, to be held March 17-19, 2014. The three-day Forum will provide a platform for sharing technologies, applications and solutions required to compete in the global shale development marketplace. The Forum will offer attendees exclusive access to potential customers, suppliers, entrepreneurs, investors, and innovators, resulting in increased commercial opportunities for all involved.

The conference’s keynote session, “Shale Revolution and Global Energy Opportunities,” will feature Torstein Hole, senior vice president of Statoil; Greg Andrews, vice president of operational excellence, upstream unconventionals, at Shell Energy Resources Co., and Fersheed Mody, manager of global research and technology at Apache Corp. This opening session, from 1:20 p.m.-2:30 p.m. on March 17, will focus on shale development, its impact on society and the economy, and the challenges and opportunities associated with this approach.

Nine sessions will follow over the next three days, including “Taking Advantage of the Global Shale Revolution” and “Enabling Technology: Hydraulic Fracturing” on Monday, March 17, and “Technological Excellence for Effectiveness and Efficiency,” “Technologies for Completion and Fracturing — Efficiency, Economics, and Optimization” and “Production Enhancement: Artificial Lift and Re-Fracturing” on Tuesday, March 18. Wednesday’s sessions will focus on such topics as technologies for reducing the environmental impact of shale development; opportunities, strategies and economics for competing in the shale market; water management in shale play; and a review of specific shale development case studies.

Speakers participating in these sessions include high-level representatives from leading contenders in the shale development field, including Jeff Meisenhelder and David Rowatt of Schlumberger; Sam French and Martin Rylance of BP; Doreen Chin from Shell; and John Bearden, Satya Gupta, Randy La Follette, Rustom Mody and Douglas Stephens from Baker Hughes.

Other confirmed speakers include David Blackmon, FTI Consulting; Matthew Crump, Weatherford International; John Felmy, American Petroleum Institute; Peter Foster, Qittitut Consulting LLC; Chad Joost, Stewart & Stevenson; Keith Peach, Weir Oil and Gas; Kent Perry, Research Partnership to Secure Energy for America; Jeremy Pitts, OSComp; Mohamed Soliman, Texas Tech University; Melissa Stark, Accenture; Tim Stephens, Saint-Gobain Proppants; Dan Themig, Packers Plus Energy Services; and Jim Venditto, Trican Well Service.

The conference will conclude with a special panel session, “Environmentally Sustainable and Competitive Solutions,” on March 19. The session, from 4:45 p.m.-5:30 p.m., will consist of a panel discussion and Q&A regarding the various environmental concerns and issues associated with the advancement of shale development and hydraulic fracturing. Panelists will include Rich Haut, senior research scientist at the Houston Advanced Research Center; ASME Fellow Darrell Pepper, professor and director of the Nevada Center for Advanced Computation Methods at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas; and Mark Zoback, professor of geophysics at Stanford University.

For more information on the ASME Energy Forum Live — Oil & Gas, or to register, visit http://go.asme.org/energyforumlive, or contact Christine Reilley, ASME Emerging Technologies, by e-mail at reilleyc@asme.org. Sponsorship and table-top exhibition also are available; please contact Greg Valero at valerog@asme.org.