In September 2025, 2025 SPE President Olivier Houzé, 2024 SPE President Terry Palisch, SPE CEO Simon Seaton, and I provided SPE membership with a message regarding SPE’s Path to Financial Sustainability and the challenges that the Society was facing on various fronts, along with some proposed solutions. In my column this month, I wanted to provide an update on where SPE is with some of these initiatives, as well as future opportunities that we are investigating.
First, I am pleased to let you know that SPE is in a much better financial position than it was when that article was published in September. After a strong finish in the 2025 calendar year, along with a better-than-expected first quarter in 2026 due to some events outperforming expectations, revenue streams are stronger than they have been since before the pandemic. As a reminder, approximately 70% of SPE’s revenue comes from events with those proceeds being funneled back into member programs and publications. Additionally, the impacts of many of the cost-cutting measures discussed in the September article are starting to take effect. While we are not out of the woods yet, overall, the projection is much more positive than it was 9 months ago or has been since the pandemic in 2020.
All that being said, the conflict in the Middle East is and will continue to have impacts on the Society. As an example, the GOTECH conference was postponed from April 2026 to 29 September–1 October 2026. Other events are continuing forward; however, it is reasonable to expect that attendance and sponsorships will be impacted. SPE continues to monitor these situations and will make decisions as needed and as timely as possible. Additionally, our thoughts continue to be with our members who are impacted by ongoing regional conflicts around the world.
SPE underwent an internal reorganization with around a 10% reduction in staffing costs. Additionally, several internal structures were realigned to better serve members and take advantage of ongoing changes and behaviors in the events market space. Many of the other plans outlined in the September article have also been implemented. We will continue to make course corrections as necessary, and SPE’s strategic plan update that is now underway will weigh heavily into those decisions.
With all of this as background, I wanted to discuss some more specific items that play into the big picture of SPE’s finances, both currently and likely into the future.
Geothermal Energy From Oil + Gas Demonstrated Engineering (GEODE)
In 2022, SPE partnered with Project InnerSpace, a sister nonprofit organization, to form the GEODE Consortium. The GEODE Consortium is a collaborative effort to leverage synergies between the oil and natural gas industry and the geothermal industry with a focus on extrapolating oil and gas technologies into the advancement of geothermal energy. The GEODE project is funded by the US Department of Energy’s Office of Geothermal.
SPE’s role in GEODE has been to facilitate the development of roadmaps to help with the transfer of these technologies. This was done by forming and assisting 17 different working groups and councils to identify key challenges and opportunities. Over 100 organizations and more than 200 SMEs were involved, from both the oil and gas and geothermal industries.
A variety of reports were developed, as well as events convened that have addressed the deliverables associated with the project. Not only will this work be beneficial to the future of geothermal development in numerous technical areas, but it has also been financially beneficial to SPE. Projects associated with GEODE are ongoing.
A supplementary agreement signed in May 2026 for Project InnerSpace provides SPE additional funding to establish a set of geothermal-focused technical activities and an annual print publication synthesizing geothermal-relevant technical contributions from SPE disciplines and sections.
At its inception, the SPE Board of Directors considered the GEODE project as an experiment to evaluate a new potential revenue stream. This experiment has been successful, bringing not only financial benefits to SPE but also additional content and opportunities for our members.
We are now open to other partnerships that may exist in all parts of the world. Such projects must be constructed to remain within our boundaries as a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization, as well as bring benefits to our members. If you have or know of an opportunity and want to discuss collaboration opportunities, please contact SPE CEO Simon Seaton at sseaton@spe.org.
Section Support Fund
In September 2025, the Regional Section rebate program was put on hold; however, the SPE Board of Directors also asked SPE staff to look at developing a more sustainable funding model for sections. Out of those efforts, the Section Support Fund was established with funds being distributed in May 2026.
Rather than rebates based on the number of members, the Section Support Fund distributes a flat rate per section and is available to all eligible sections with 1,000 or fewer members. From the budgeted funds, the amount will simply be divided by the number of eligible sections and the flat rate delivered to those sections (eligibility means that the section meets SPE’s standard governance and reporting requirements).
It is estimated that for the May 2026 funding, approximately 60% of eligible sections will receive more than their 2024 funding under the previous rebate program. The overall goal of the program is to help ensure that sections with fewer financial resources can continue to operate; in essence, it targets small- to mid-sized sections with limited access to sponsorship or local funding. It is a “rising tide lifts all boats” approach that will benefit all SPE members.
Student Dues
While dues for SPE students have always been in place, for the past 24 years students could receive complimentary membership through a corporate sponsorship. This sponsorship has come to end in 2026, and student dues will return to a self-paid structure starting in 2027. As with professional memberships, these dues will be based on World Bank classifications as shown in Table 1.
The SPE Board of Directors realizes that this implementation will lead to reduced student membership numbers, but the hope is that it will also result in a student membership base more focused on pursuing careers in the energy industry. Additionally, since the corporate sponsorship has not fully covered student programs for quite some time, a more consistent and reliable source of income will ensure that SPE can consistently deliver the quality programs and networking opportunities that students expect.
For Category 4 members, it is important to assign a monetary value to that group’s membership for consistency. However, we also understand that any payment may be difficult for this group. So, SPE will cover the Category 4 fee for the next 3 years (2027–2029) and then reassess after this period.
Once students graduate, they will be able to join SPE as a professional member for their first year post-graduation at the rate of their student membership. Year 2 of their professional membership will then be at 50% of their professional membership rate. A dues waiver program is also an option for graduates that are not yet employed. However, just a reminder for all graduates: to qualify for this option, you must secure your professional membership immediately after you graduate from your program!
Generative AI and LLM Licenses
As I mentioned in my May 2026 column, SPE has been working to monetize its more than 75 years of technical content with the development of large language models (LLMs) and other AI tools that are suitable for integration with companies’ internal systems. These systems are available for annual licensing via a corporate subscription model. SPE executed its first such agreement with ADNOC last year, and I am pleased to report that we signed a second memorandum of understanding with a major services provider in April 2026.
SPE is reinvesting funds from these license sales to develop a retrieval-grounded AI assistant for SPE members that will allow members to not only search SPE content more efficiently, but will also provide linked citations back to source material (not a feature that you’ll find with ChatGPT and other such AI tools).
This type of revenue stream is a new route for SPE with significant upside in providing a new type of membership value and supporting the Society’s bottom line. 2025 President Olivier Houzé and SPE CEO Simon Seaton deserve significant credit for thinking outside the box on these licensing opportunities and developing a path forward to monetize SPE’s OnePetro brain trust that benefits all members.
Final Thoughts
As I mentioned above, SPE is not completely past the financial troubles wrought by the global pandemic. There is still much work to do, including the sale of the Richardson, Texas, building which continues to be a considerable cost to SPE. We must make sure that we don’t take anything for granted as we continue to balance the books and set SPE up for long-term financial stability. None of the decisions made in the past few years have been easy. However, as you can see above, between pursuing new opportunities and continuing to focus on the core of our membership, the steps being taken are intentional, focused, and moving SPE in the right direction for financial stability.
The SPE Board of Directors and I will continue to “keep an eye on the prize” as we develop the new strategic plan this year focused on membership value and the solvent future of SPE. And as always, if you have any thoughts on these topics, please feel free to reach out to me at President@spe.org.
