Millennium Atlas

This month ‘s newsletter you will be receiving a digital version of the North Sea Millennium Atlas. Full details of the version you have received and of the opportunity to purchase the book version at a special reduced price are also detailed in side this newsletter.
The PESGB is delighted to be able to make this available to our members and we are confident you will make good use of it in helping to generate new plays and prospects, which in turn will lead to enhanced exploration activity on the UKCS. Like many good stories, rumours of this forthcoming distribution have been circulating for some time and we have had a number of questions along the lines of ‘I’ve bought it already, do I get my money back?’
The short simple answer is: No. We recognise however, that a little more by way of explanation might be in order, so here goes.
The PESGB is a charitable organisation and therefore has an obligation to have plans in hand for any surplus funds , over and above a reasonable reserve for ongoing operations. Last year the Sub Committee for In vestments and Disbursements (SCID) was set up to address this issue and comprises the President, Past President, President Elect and Finance Director. Last year’s President Alan Booth outlined that the PESGB had identified surplus funds and the programme for disbursements was communicated through the Presidents Page Editorial.
I know you are all avid readers of this page and will have total recall of this, but for new members and any old members that weren’ t paying attention , it was agreed that Disbursement would target four themes, of benefit to the membership and in line with the Society ‘s objectives:

• Assisting release of data and information to encourage exploration
• Assisting education in Petroleum Geoscience
• Assisting the acti vities of the Special Interest Groups
• Supporting PETEX by holding down registration costs

It was again st this background that the discussion commenced regarding providing the Millennium Atlas to PESGB Members, which I’m happy to say has concluded with this month’s distribution of the atlas. The cost to the PESGB is £ 100,000 , for which we have made available the Millennium Atlas to our 5,200 members and have 300 copies of the book available at a subsidised price, on a first come first served basis. I think this is great news for our members, as the Millennium Atlas was a tremendous undertaking that many of our members contributed to.
Whilst I get to announce this good news, as is often the case, the credit lies elsewhere and I would like to thank Alan Booth and Andrew Armour for their sterling efforts in making this happen. For those members that had already purchased the Atlas, I would comment that they have already had value from using it , but more importantly would ask that they recognise that the benefit of the
many outweighs the (perceived) loss of the few.
Nevertheless, like Sir Clive Woodward , I take full responsibility for this action and so if there are any issues remaining please contact me and don’t bombard the office , Alan or Andrew ! I wasn’t sure how I was going to work the rugby into this editorial, but as it’s just slipped in , congratulations to the Irish for a fine win. I’m definitely not going to mention the Scotland/Italy game as I think that can be covered much better by the Aberdeen Director. …….. Giancarlo Rizzi. Mind you he might need the whole of next month ‘s newsletter to do it justice.