Kamel Ben Naceur, Chairman of DAMORPHE took office as 2022 Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) President during the 2021 SPE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition (ATCE) on September 23, 2021 in Dubai.

2021 SPE President Tom Blasingame passed the gavel to Ben Naceur during the President’s Luncheon and Annual Meeting of Members at the close of the ATCE 2021.

“Petroleum engineering has always been an unusual mix of topics and that mix will continue to change to meet current and future energy needs,” Ben Naceur noted. “This is what SPE is about—adapting to the way the energy world is going, while playing to its strengths in the petroleum industry we are serving today.”

“As energy demand rises over the next 20 to 30 years, oil and gas will still account for some 50% of the energy mix, only a slight drop from its 56% contribution today, even in the case of extreme decarbonization — if we talk about net-zero emissions and so on—we will still need technologies that are very close to what we do today.” Ben Naceur told the audience about his opinion on energy transition.

“Technologies associated with the energy transition such as carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) and hydrogen power are nothing new to petroleum engineers,” he said. “And subsurface skills and knowledge used to produce oil and gas will be in demand; geothermal energy is just one example,” he further explained.

“We have been championing these and other technologies that are critical for the future,” Ben Naceur said. “The challenge will be in adapting our understanding of these traditional disciplines to new realities as they interact with new technologies.”

“Energy in the future will be different: CSS (carbon storage and sequestration), renewables, energy efficiency is key, hydrogen whether it is green or blue, power cogeneration, electricity and grid management, CSR (corporate social responsibility) and ESG (environmental, social, governance), artificial intelligence — all of these skills have to be mastered, and in SPE we have a strong position in this,” Ben Naceur added.

During SPE ATCE Live 2021, Ben Naceur also shared what his priorities and goals will be during his presidency.

“My first priority, my second priority and my third priority is taking care of our members,” Ben Naceur said. “Our members have had got to go through a very difficult period over the last two years due to pandemic. Unfortunately some of them lost their jobs, unfortunately some of them lost their family members, and really here at SPE we are to support them in this period.”

“We are seeing signs of recovery so I’m putting my presidency with a theme of sustainable recovery.” Ben Naceur emphasized the key issue and explained. “Why? First is that recovery should be here bearing unexpected developments in the COVID situation. We are hoping that the world both in developed and developing economics will be getting vaccination at the larger scale, and that then the economy will recover to full mode, then people will go back to travelling and, go back to using products that will be coming from the oil and gas industry.

“So from that standpoint recovery is going to be extremely important, and also put sustainable because we have to be in line with the expectation of our society in terms of sustainability, in terms of making sure that everybody has access to energy, and that we use energy in the cleanest way possible.” Ben Naceur said.

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