Pat Spicer

Biography

 After graduation he studied for an MSc in Engineering Geology at the University of Leeds before joining the oil industry as a staff geologist with BP.  He began, as was the norm in that era, learning his craft as a wellsite geologist. He gained brief insites into the role of mudlogger, as part of an all BP staff team operating a tight hole on Alaska's North Slope, before commencing a career in interpretive and team leader roles over the next 14 years. Almost all of this experience was gained working on overseas basins  from the North Slope to New Zealand, and many places between.  In the last years of his time at BP he moved in to a managerial role, responsible for geological operations, among other things, for BP's Frontiers and International division. Leaving BP in 1994, Pat, through a chance opportunity, reinvented himself as a Consultant Operations geologist, being invited to come up with a way of geo-steering a horizontal well in the barren red-beds of the Clair reservoir. Over the next 20 years, Pat worked as a consultant Operations Geologist on projects in the UK, Brazil, Liberia, Mauritania, Angola and Cameroon.    In his last consulting role for BP Angola, he was their advisor on geological drilling hazards, spanning the range of activity from planning through execution and post well review.  In the role he developed training in formation integrity test interpretation and also mentored on the BP Accelerated Development Programme for Operations Geologists.  Moving on to consult for Dana Petroleum, he also fulfilled a training and mentoring role for young geologists in the ins and out of operational geology. Latterly Pat was a member of the convening committee for the Operations Geology conference in 2014, remaining on the committee for 2016.  He is currently leading the team developing a Special Publication on Operations Geology for the Geological Society SP Series. 

Research Interest

 geo-steering a horizontal well .