On June 21, CEE welcomed a delegation of visitors from Canada and Mexico. The visitors were in the United States under the auspices of the Department of State's International Visitor Leadership Program. Their program was titled "North American Energy Security in the 21st Century: A Sub-Regional Project for Canada and Mexico." The delegation was composed of six energy sector professionals. CEE’s Dr. Foss and Dr. Gurfinkel discussed the current North American energy outlook, the growing importance of LNG, and opportunities for increased energy cooperation in the region.

The next day, June 22, Dr. Gülen presented a paper at the 11th Annual Conference of the International Society for New Institutional Economics [Link] in Reykjavik, Iceland. The paper was titled "Improving Regulatory Agency Efficiency and Effectiveness: Best Practices, Processes and Organizational Structures." [PDF] Dr. Gülen also chaired a session on Property Institutions and Market Performance and was a discussant in the Decentralization and Deregulation session. 06/29/07

In May and June, the Bureau’s Center for Energy Economics hosted two international delegations. A group of 24 energy industry specialists attended CEE’s international capacity-building program "New Era in Oil, Gas & Power Value Creation" [Link]. In its seventh session, this year’s program welcomed professionals from 10 countries, including Angola, Benin, Cote D’Ivoire, Ghana, Kenya, Mexico, Nigeria, Peru, Tanzania, and Togo. Delegates represented regulatory agencies, ministries of energy, national oil companies, and universities in these countries.This 2-week

program addresses energy value-chain fundamentals and commercial energy investment complexities with a unique integration of tools, activities, and concepts. New Era emphasizes the relationship between energy value-chain economics, technology, and operations with policy and regulatory frameworks necessary to host commercially successful investment. The program included in-class sessions, group projects, and individual assignments. As part of the program, participants also had site visits to the Freeport LNG terminal, Dow Chemical, City of Lake Jackson CNG fleet, Railroad Commission of Texas, Public Utility Commission of Texas, and the Lower Colorado River Authority. CEE also organized an Upstream Oil and Gas Study Tour for a group of External Directors from the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company (upstream company of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation). This 3-week-long program included lectures organized by CEE and visits to companies and agencies in the Houston area. The group also traveled to Austin to meet with the Railroad Commission of Texas and The University of Texas at Austin and met with the Bureau’s Ian Duncan and Eric Potter. In addition to a presentation about Bureau activities, the group’s visit included a tour of the Austin Core Research Center. 06/28/07

On June 15, Maersk Oil and Gas AS
hosted a lecture by Martin Jackson in Copenhagen, which was attended by
Maersk staff and members of Copenhagen University, the Geological Survey of Denmark, PGS, Altinex, and Dong Energy. The talk, titled “Tectonic Squeezing of Salt Stocks: Field Observations from Arctic Canada and Laboratory Simulations,” included AGL scientist Tim Dooley’s modeling results
and field mapping with Chris Harrison of the Geological Survey of Canada. 06/27/07

In May, Steve Laubach and Julia Gale from the Bureau, along with Ian Dalziel from the Institute and Brian Horton of the Department, presented papers at the Geological Society of London Continental Tectonics and Mountain Building conference in Ullapool, Scotland. The conference celebrated the centenary of the 1907 British Geological Survey memoir, The Geological Structure of the North-West Highlands of Scotland, considered by many to be one of the most important publications in the history of structural geology. This milestone drew many influential figures, including John Ramsay (pictured here)—widely viewed as the father of modern structural geology. Ramsay chaired the session on fracture research. 06/20/07

Bureau Scientist Steve Laubach is serving on a Geological Society of America (GSA) panel that is drafting the GSA’s position statement on the government’s role in energy and mineral resources. Energy and mineral resources are at the center of many environmental and diplomatic issues, and the science of geology is critical for a thorough understanding of the resources to be found in the Earth and of how the environment will be impacted when those resources are used. Contact Steve if you want to discuss these issues (steve.laubach@beg.utexas.edu;
512-471-6303). 06/20/07

A big round of applause for the Bureau’s own Ned Frost, graduate student working in the RCRL group, who netted two AAPG student awards—Best Poster Presentation at the 2006 Perth ICE meeting (for “Platform-Margin Trajectory as a Control on Neptunian Dike Distributions, Devonian Reef Complexes, Canning Basin, Western Australia”) and Shell Best Oral Presentation at the 2007 Long Beach Annual Convention (for “Geologic Modeling of Frasnian and Famennian Carbonate Platforms, Canning Basin, Western Australia”). A recent former Bureau grad student, Ted Playton, took second place in the Shell Presentation category for “Contrasting Upper Devonian Foreslopes of the Canning Basin: Examples from Retrograding Frasnian and Prograding Famennian Platform Flanks.” Congratulations to both! 06/13/07

On June 3rd, a core workshop/seminar was held by BEG for the Society of Petrophysicists and Well Log Analysts’ Annual Meeting titled “Barnett Shale-Gas Play of the Fort Worth Basin.” Forty participants attended the seminar, which included lectures by Bob Loucks, Eric Potter, Wayne Wright, Angela McDonnell, Julia Gale, Dan Jarvie, and Jeff Kane. A large core display was available as well. The seminar was based on research by the BEG STARR Program on unconventional energy, which is directed by Steve Ruppel and Bob Loucks. 06/13/07

On June 2nd the Bureau conducted a field trip to the Llano area
for the Society of Petrophysicists and Well Log Analysts
Annual Meeting titled "Paleozoic Reservoir Systems: Texas Hill County—Stratigraphy to Petrophysics." Fifty-five participants joined the field trip, which was led by Wayne Wright, Bob Loucks,
Julia Gale, Jeff Kane, and Angela McDonnell. 06/07/07

In May scientists from the Bureau participated in a field symposium designed to bring together scientists involved in fracture and diagenesis studies to discuss future directions in cross-disciplinary research and graduate education. The 4-day field meeting was held far from the nearest roads, amidst lochs, rivers, mountains, and bog in the western Highlands of Scotland. The photograph shows part of the group: from left to right, Julia Gale, BEG, Peter Hargrove and Magdalena Ellis, Ohio Wesleyan University (students soon to join the Unconventional Resources program at BEG), Linda Bonnell, Geocosm, Steve Laubach, BEG, Rob Lander, Geocosm, Peter Eichhubl, BEG, Jon Olson, Petroleum & Geosystems Engineering, and Wayne Narr, Chevron. John Hooker, BEG, and Randy Marrett, Geological Sciences, also participated, and Ann Laubach was in charge of logistics. 06/06/07

On Friday, June 1, teachers from Aldine ISD in North Houston visited the Bureau for a teacher workshop. Kathy Ellins from the Institute for Geophysics and Jessica Gordon from the Jackson School, along with Sue Hovorka, Tiffany Hepner, Eric Potter, Scott Rodgers, and Sigrid Clift from the Bureau gave presentations and supervised classroom activities throughout the day. Scott Tinker gave the welcoming address. Thanks to the presenters and all of those who worked so hard behind the scenes to make this event a great success. 06/06/07

A warm welcome to two new Bureau babies! On Friday, June 1, Wanda LaPlante, Administrative Assistant to the Director, became the grandmother of her first grandchild, Madison Grace LaPlante, weighing 6 lbs. 11 oz. And Abhijit Mukherjee, Bureau Postdoc, is the proud father of Priyadarshini Mukherjee, born May 28, and weighing 7 pounds. We hope we don't have to wait until the annual Christmas party to meet these young ladies! 06/04/07

Bureau researchers were the recipients of three awards from the Energy Minerals Division of AAPG at the 2007 Annual AAPG Convention recently held in Long Beach in April: Robert M. Reed and Bob Loucks received the EMD Best Poster Award for their presentation “Imaging Nanoscale Pores in the Mississippian Barnett Shale of the Northern Fort Worth Basin”. Julia Gale and co-author Robert M. Reed were the recipients of the EMD President’s Certificate for Excellence in Presentation for their poster presentation entitled, “Natural Fractures in the Barnett Shale: Why They Are Important”. Bill Ambrose received an award for second-best EMD oral presentation entitled “Near- to Mid-Term Energy Mineral Sources: Bridging the Future to Alternative Energy”. 06/01/07