American Oil and Gas Reporter - April 2016 - 106

ConventionCoverage: Illinois Oil & Gas Association
It is one thing to promulgate really
tough environmental regulations to ensure
oil and gas are developed safely and responsibly, Richards allowed. "But when
they say, 'We really think we ought to
just leave it in the ground,' are things
such as the New Source Performance
Standards for methane really trying to
make sure you don't have excessive
methane emissions, or are they trying to
make it so hard that you can't produce
oil and gas?" he asked.
For example, Dicus offered, "You all
have a flare burning somewhere. What if
you couldn't? Can you put a $60,000 incinerator on that one-barrel-a-day well?
It will never pay out."
Nor should operators in the Midwest
take comfort in the idea that the most
stringent emission requirements are directed at federal lands in the West, Richards

warned. "Once you have done that on
federal lands, it isn't much of a jump to
say that what is good for our planet on
federal lands is good for private property
in southern Illinois," he said.
Award Presentations
During the Wildcatter Luncheon that
concluded IOGA's annual meeting, the
association presented its 2016 Lifetime
Achievement Award to former President
Craig Howard.
Howard, who is president of Howard
Energy Corp. in Mt. Carmel, Il., served
as IOGA president in 2003-05. He also
has been active in the Independent Petroleum Association of America, serving
as a regional director from Illinois in
2001-09, on the Executive Committee in
2003-00, and on the Regional Advisory
Board in 1995-97.

LEFT: IOGA Awards Committee member Michael Payne (left) presents the association's
Petroleum Service Person of the Year Award to Jerry Robinson. RIGHT: IOGA Executive
Vice President Brad Richards (left) presents the Petroleum Professional of the Year
Award to Tom Partin.

Howard has chaired IPAA's Crude Oil
Policy Committee since 2011 and been a
member since 1992, and also serves on
the association's Environment & Safety
Committee.
A 1972 graduate of Villanova University, Howard began his career with Dow
Industrial Services in Jacksonville, Fl.
He moved to Mt Carmel in 1981 and
founded Howard Energy in 1983.
In three other presentations, IOGA's
Petroleum Professional of the Year Award
went to Tom Partin. Jerry Robinson of
Lawrenceville, Il., was named Service
Person of the Year, and IOGA's Petroleum
Professional Woman of the Year Award
was presented to Marsha Bundy.
Partin is a consulting geologist credited
with discoveries in 14 Illinois, 10 Indiana
and four Kentucky counties. During his
46-year Illinois Basin career, he has
worked as a geologist and manager for
Mitchell & Associates, Buttes Resources
and Beeson Oil.
A third generation Illinois oilman,
Robinson is engineer and special projects
manager for Franklin Well Services in
Vincennes, In. He began his career in
1976 with Dowell and later Dowell
Schlumberger. He went to work for Citizens Resources Development Corp. after
Schlumberger left the Illinois Basin in
1999, and joined Franklin Well Services
in 2002.
Bundy worked 35 years at the Marathon
Patoka Tank Farm, beginning her career
as a "pipeliner" and later becoming
Marathon's first female station operator.
Bundy ended her career as an operations
technician No. 1.
❒

Speakers Examine Low-Cost IOR Ideas
EVANSVILLE, IN.-Surviving in a
low-price environment often means doing
more with less. In two Engineering Committee sessions presented at the Illinois
Oil & Gas Association's annual convention, March 3-4 in Evansville, Talib Syed,
a consulting petroleum engineer, and
Glenn McColpin, chief executive officer
of SurgiTech Inc., discussed various methods for enhancing production from marginal wells and mature fields.
In two Geological Committee presentations:
* Chuck Knox, owner of Knox Geological in Fort Wayne, In., went over
several studies on employing LiDAR
(light detection and ranging) as a remote

subsurface sensing tool.
* Rich Snyder, vice president of exploration for Chesapeake Energy Corp.
in Oklahoma City, examined the formation
characteristics of the shale revolution.
Additionally, Rick Ingram, co-founder
and chairman of the national STEPS (service, transmission, exploration & production
safety) Network reviewed initiatives from
the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health
Administration impacting the upstream,
and luncheon keynoter William D. O'Grady
described a Saudi Arabia facing an inflection
point between evolution and revolution.
IOR Technologies
McColpin discussed three technologies

106 THE AMERICAN OIL & GAS REPORTER

for increasing recovery from old fields:
* The Nitro-Dyne process is a mobile
huff-and-puff unit that injects a hot carbon
dioxide and nitrogen vapor containing a
plant-based solvent into the formation to
inhibit paraffin and reduce oil viscosity
(see "Better Technology Increases Efficiency," AOGR, February 2016).
* Microbore jet drilling (MBJD) utilizes a high-pressure water hose to erode
rock and create horizontal laterals that extend the drainage radius of vertical wells.
* A combination of pump timers and
tank battery fluid level monitoring create
a sort of "poor man's field automation."
McColpin said the Nitro-Dyne process
had proven much more effective at inhibiting

American Oil and Gas Reporter - April 2016

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