General Chair Welcome

Welcome to the official IOR 2008 website. In April, 2008, we will host the Sixteenth Symposium on Improved Oil Recovery in Tulsa, Oklahoma. This long running series is sponsored by the Society of Petroleum Engineers and brought to you by the Mid Continent Section of SPE. In 2008 we will celebrate the 90^th Anniversary of the Mid Continent Section, the first professional organization of petroleum engineers.

This Symposium’s theme, “IOR, now more than ever…” reflects the shrinking base of new field discoveries as well as the mounting number of maturing fields worldwide – and the opportunities and importance attached to those fields. National policy changes in some oil producing countries in managing and producing their own resources and in the consequential migration of multinational oil companies to greater participation in more mature fields have again increased the focus on secondary and tertiary recovery technologies and practices worldwide. Sustained high oil prices drive more production in oil importing and exporting countries alike. And demand for oil continues to grow.

Ultimate recovery has taken a new priority in many areas as policy makers and companies contemplate stretching the life of known reservoirs. We have entered a new era of more technologically challenging resource production and issues: heavy oils, low energy reservoirs, complex permeability fields, greater compartmentalization, difficult reservoir rock and wettability issues, increased water infiltration and production and many others. Understanding the lessons learned from past IOR applications as well as developing new technologies and methodologies are now more important than ever the world over. And there are indeed new tools in various stages of development of import to IOR. From the Middle East to the Far East, from Europe to the Americas, from Africa to Australia, from the arctic to the tropics, from offshore to onshore industry looks to “IOR, now more than ever.”

I invite you to actively participate in the conference, either by submitting a paper proposal, sponsoring an event, exhibiting your services or products, or attending the conference. If you are interested in improved oil recovery as a producer, vendor, faculty member, student, policy maker, regulator, investment analyst, or other interested party, I am sure you will find utility in the Symposium. In addition to the technical sessions, the conference will also have a poster session, exhibit booths and a plenary session. I am certain that you will learn a lot about the IOR technologies available for extracting crude oil in the current price environment.

Join us in Tulsa for the Sixteenth Symposium on Improved Oil Recovery. I look forward to seeing you there.

W. F. Lawson
General Chair, IOR 2008