The Production Engineering Association
You’ve found where you think the sweet spots are in your field, started your drilling and completions campaign and now the 25 – 50 year job of producing your field as efficiently, economically and safely as possible starts. The typical recovery rates achieved range from 30-45%, leaving significant amounts of oil in the ground! However, over the years, various techniques have been developed to increase these recovery factors to over 70% in some (rare) cases and provide assurance of supply. These techniques include:
- Artificial lift
- Flow assurance
- Digital oilfield
- Enhanced oil recovery (EOR)
- Sand management
- Geomechanics
- Water and gas shut off (WGSO)
- Tight gas / tight oil
The operator-only PEA organisation focuses on the areas listed above.
The PEA has been in existence since 1998 and the association database holds over 1,200 deliverables from meetings over the years that are accessible to PEA member companies.
The PEA holds four meetings a year on topics chosen by its members. The 2020 schedule is shown below:
The PEA meetings are unique knowledge sharing opportunities with membership limited to operators only. At the last EOR meeting for example, 32 attendees joined to hear presentations including:
- Low Crude Oil Price Environment Vs. EOR Projects; Required Alternative-Hybrid EOR Processes
- Learnings from an operators EOR Journey
- MEOR: From Concept to Implementation
- Foam for EOR matrix acid well stimulation and CO2 sequestration

The meetings also have a roundtable session where operators can share their current status, challenges, best practice and future activities of interest. This level of honest open discussion is unique in the industry and where much of the value of the PEA derives.
The meetings also are a chance for the operators to feed back their technology needs to the industry such as:
- Surfactants that can function in hard water
- Expanding the operating envelope of EOR chemicals
- Economic surfactants for tight reservoirs
The next PEA meeting is on 22nd September on “artificial lift”
Please contact Sally Marriage for more details.