SPE News
Each year during its Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition (ATCE), SPE honors members whose outstanding contributions to the Society and the petroleum industry merit special distinction. Recipients will be recognized at the Annual Awards Banquet on 22 October.
This section lists with regret SPE members who recently passed away.
After years of market shocks, technological breakthroughs, and rising uncertainty, ATCE 2026 will provide new insights on how industry leaders and technical experts are preparing for the next era of the upstream business.
-
William D. (Bill) McCain, Jr., a 50-year veteran of the oil and gas industry and academia, and 2019 SPE Reservoir Description and Dynamics Award winner, died 20 September. He was 86. -
SPE welcomes 86 members into the Legion of Honor, which observes 50 years of consecutive membership in the Society. Each honoree becomes dues-exempt and receives a commemorative plaque marking the milestone. The honorees are listed below under their respective sections.
-
Several SPE sections have received recognition for outstanding contributions to the association. Nine SPE sections have been awarded the 2019 SPE Presidential Award for Outstanding Section, the highest honor a section can receive. These sections form the highest-ranked 5% of SPE’s 203 sections around the world. Formerly known as the President’s Award for Section Excel…
-
The latest edition of Journal Citation Reports® 2019 was recently released, and according to the report, SPE’s peer-reviewed journals have significantly improved their impact factors. This is the first time that all of SPE's journals had an impact factor greater than 1.
-
DeAnn Craig, the first woman to hold the position of SPE President and who also held the top role at Phillips Petroleum Resources Canada, died 13 August. She was 68.
-
Steve Holditch, who served as SPE President in 2002 and was a fixture of the Texas A&M University Department of Petroleum Engineering, died 9 August. He was 72.
-
Juan V. Roger, SPE Distinguished Member and the first SPE South America and Caribbean Regional Director, died 5 August in Caracas, Venezuela. He was 88.
-
Curtis G. Blount, SPE, senior fellow engineer-advisor for global wells technology at ConocoPhillips and former SPE Distinguished Lecturer, died 12 May in Katy, Texas. He made significant technical contributions to coiled tubing and well intervention research and applied technology development for more than 25 years. Blount began his career at Dresser Atlas in 1977. He…
-
Tom Blasingame is the nominee for 2021 SPE President. He and four others make up the slate of nominees recommended for positions open on the SPE Board of Directors.
-
Dennis Hahn, SPE, former chair of the SPE Canada Board, the SPE Calgary Section, and director of the SPE Canadian Educational Foundation, who was active with SPE at both the section and international levels, died 2 March in Bolivia, where he was teaching a completions course. Hahn, a completions manager at Repsol based in Calgary, was an expert in high-pressure/high-t…
