Striking News from the AACC 5th Annual Energy Conference

“What is striking is to listen to energy players that are doing business in both the United States and Australia basically say the same thing that energy independence from the Middle East is 10 years away, ” said Wayne O’Neill, CEO of Wayne O’Neill & Associates, in an interview after attending the Australian American Chamber of Commerce 5th Annual Energy Conference in Houston.   He went on to say, “In 2000, we were talking about “peak oil” and basically we were not able to support ourselves at all.”

Two major changes have taken place to make such a difference:

1.  The ability to horizontally drill

2.  The leveraging of hydraulic fracturing

Companies such as:  Apache, Aurora Oil & Gas, Antares Energy, all the way up to the majors like ConocoPhillips all looking to going back to existing oil fields that that they had long abandoned interest in basins as the Permian Basin in Odessa, Texas.

“A second striking change is that all the energy companies need technology to leverage “Big Data” to go faster and be more effective in these new extraction processes.  These companies are now awash with cash in ways they haven’t been over the last 30 years, but now they can extract even more and deliver more energy independence to the U.S. in the next 10 years, ” Wayne stated.

Greg Foley, Business Development Manager of Stonebridge Technologies and Past President of AACC, and Colin McHattie, Director of Technical Assessment, Consulting & Project Management of Halliburton Energy Services, reinforced this in their welcome.  They stated, “The United States has recently experienced an unforeseen expansion in domestic production due to the application of unconventional technologies in both unconventional and conventional reservoirs.  New world class reserves have been discovered in several basins in Texas alone.  Indeed, there is now a surplus of natural gas and NGLs providing cheaper energy to consumers and fostering a resurgence of the petrochemical and manufacturing industries.  Many other countries look to the United States for its wealth of experience in this area, and as the Australian industry embarks on a multitude of fledgling unconventional programs in numerous basins spanning the continent, there will be many lessons to be shared.”