By Dave Bodecott

Lake District branch met at the Herdwick Inn just five minutes from the M6, Sept 18th. Five attendees – consultants, directors, academics, plus an entrepreneur guest, others travelling away, we shared an excellent meal and drinks. We discussed the recent Africa conference, current state of seismic companies (keeping going!), processing workloads, also discussed the US shale oil and gas plays in the current market situation. Market news discussed was centred on the stable oil price and activities by Providence in the Porcupine, and Premier in getting their conveyor belt of field developments up and running and recent discoveries. Discussion of the climate debate and national energy policy was in abeyance due to the unseasonably cold weather this year.

Our guest brought a cylindrical slide rule over a hundred years old:

It was convention on Schlumberger courses in the 70s to be given a slick little Schlum rule and a Schlum penknife. Fortunately soon after we were able to move onto HP hand-helds for log analysis. The rest is history, now it’s garbage in-garbage out, fortunately the best log analysts can spot the pitfalls! Next meeting likely to be November some time.