Quick Search:    advanced search

GSW Home   GeoRef Home   My GSW Alerts   Contact GSW   About GSW   Journals List   Help

This Article Full Text Full Text (PDF) Submit a response Alert me when this article is cited Alert me when eLetters are posted Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Johnston, D. H. Search for Related Content GeoRef GeoRef Citation

Interpretation in the year 2000 ... as seen from 1993

or ... There's enough oil in the world without the benefit of what geophysicists do

ExxonMobil Upstream Research Company, Houston, Texas, U.S.

Corresponding author: D. Johnston, dhjohns@upstream.xomcorp.com

The first 20% of the full text of this article appears below.

Nearly seven years ago the SEG Interpretation Committee sponsored a workshop on the role of the seismic interpreter—and by extension, all geophysicists—in the year 2000. Well, here we are in the new millennium, and the obvious question is: How well did we predict the changes that would occur in our profession?

In 1993, in the wake of significant corporate downsizing, we knew that to survive in the oil industry we could not retreat behind our expertise. We realized that it was time to learn to collaborate with other professionals and nonprofessionals and to thoroughly understand the over-all business. We were in the midst of a dramatic restructuring of professional work. Integration, teamwork, flexibility, and strategic alliances were already industry buzzwords. Yet I doubt that many of us could have predicted the oil and service company megamergers, the oil price swings of the late 1990s, or the explosive growth of the Internet.

A summary of the workshop was published in the September and October 1994 issues of TLE. These articles focused on driving forces for change . . . [Full Text of this Article]