If you are involved in any aspect of the offshore industry, then you needed to be at last week's Offshore Technology Conference hosted at Reliant Park (formerly Astrodomain), here in Houston. It is the oil and gas industry's premier event, showcasing the latest technology in offshore operations.
OTC's theme this year was "One world, one event." Despite our cultural and political differences, OTC hosts exhibits from around the world so that companies and individuals can share and promote their ideas, introduce new products and services, and make important business decisions and deals-all under one roof (OK, two buildings and some outdoor exhibits).
This was the first year for me to attend OTC. It was a valuable experience to be among the industry's best and the brightest professionals and entrepreneurs. This is truly an international event, bringing in attendees and exhibitors from all over the world. Nigeria, Canada, Venezuela, Germany, and Norway were just a few countries outside the US that were present to offer insight into the technological innovations as well as investment opportunities within their countries.
OTC history
Thirty years ago, OTC debuted in Houston at the Albert Thomas Convention Center with 125 exhibitors, pulling in around 4,200 offshore professionals. As the oil and gas industry follows a cyclical growth pattern, so has OTC. It endured the volatility of the mid-1970s, when crude oil became a hot commodity, bringing in new exposure to the offshore industry. The conference soon gained strength in the early 1980s, attracting more than 100,000 attendees and 2,500 exhibitors. It experienced such epic growth that the event had to be moved to its current home at Reliant Park. As crude prices dropped to below $10/bbl, it devastated the attendance.
With a better economic environment, the early 1990s showed evidence of new technologies and innovations that led industry to explore offshore areas that had not been considered before, such as the deepwater Gulf of Mexico.
OTC is one of the largest conferences in terms of attendance and ranks amongst the largest trade shows in the US. Last year, attendance totaled about 44,000. At press time, attendance this year was estimated at 45,825.
Exhibits
The range and scope of the exhibits are what make OTC unique. One would find down any of the many aisles of the exhibit floor a range of services and supplies, from the latest technological advances in drilling to companies offering corrosion control, blowout preventers, communication-modem links, completion systems, surveying, diving equipment and services, drilling vessels, pipelining, and well-control systems. There is something for everyone involved in offshore oil and gas.
Each booth may have its own "gimmick" to attract delegates' attention. Some had models of offshore platforms, huge gas turbines, and a lot of large, flat-screen monitors to display computer graphics to animate their products. Among the unconventional show gimmicks were a large coffee bar-to sit and relax a bit (a necessity to get through the whole show)-cafes atop booths, and a professional magician.
That last gimmick was offered by our parent company, PennWell Corp., and its online affiliate PennEnergy, as a way of drawing in a crowd to view brief presentations on all of the products and services that PennWell and PennEnergy have to offer. PennWell's large booth featured PennWell books, maps, and databases-and promoted Oil & Gas Journal and its sister publications Oil & Gas Journal Latinoamerica, Offshore, and Oil, Gas & Petrochem Equipment. PennEnergy units OGJ Online and OGJ Exchange and PennWell unit PennPoint had computers to show their products and data directly online.
Technical sessions
If walking around all of the exhibits sounds too overwhelming, there were numerous daily technical sessions that focused with varying degrees of involvement, on the offshore industry. Most of these topics were developed by OTC's sponsoring organizations, such as Society of Petroleum Engineers, American Society of Mechanical Engineers-Petroleum Division, and Society of Exploration Geophysicists, to name a few.
Our staff, online and print, attended many of these sessions and press conferences in order to keep our readers better informed, especially for the tens of thousands who did not attend. And even for those in attendance, there was a lot of information to absorb. So OGJ Online had in the past week posted new OTC stories almost by the hour, and OGJ (the magazine) features OTC coverage that begins this week on p. 18 and continues next week. And that doesn't include the special report on Offshore Petroleum Operations (OGJ, Apr. 30, 2001, p. 72) that received special bonus distribution at OTC last week.
But nonattendees will never be able to experience the excitement that is generated at this show-especially this year. All the exhibitors were filled with enthusiasm about their companies, their products, and their services. And that enthusiasm can be infectious.
