Kansas State University

Lee Ramsey, K-State Geology ’74, shares the story of his career in geology

In June of 2020, I received from the Society of Petroleum Engineers Gulf Coast Section, their Regional Completions Optimization and Technology award. This technical award recognizes significant achievements and contributions to the advancement of petroleum engineering in completions. The contributions to the technology need to stand out sharply and to help advance the discipline. I shared this announcement with Dr. Pamela Kempton, the current head of the Geology Department, as I felt that my education at Kansas State University in the Geology department provided me the tools over my 45 years plus career to contribute to the oil and gas industry that led to this recognition.

My career path perhaps was not one you would expect as a graduate with a geology degree from Kansas State University, so she asked me to, in a few paragraphs, share with the students a brief synopsis of my career.

I will start by sharing that in 1974 the job market was a tough one for graduates, as is what I think the current graduates have been facing. I was lucky to get an offer from Texaco as a Geologist’s assistant for $800/ month in White Plains, New York. If you can believe it, I turned it down because I felt it was more of a technician type job and thought it was not enough money. I decided that since I would likely be in a long career, I would take the summer off and work in Estes Park, Colorado and enjoy the geology while hiking and climbing in Rocky Mountain National Park. It was a significant decision. I interviewed in the fall and went to work for Dowell, a division of Dow Chemical as a field engineer trainee at a better salary and located in the Rocky Mountains.

I worked in the field in the first three years, starting in Williston, North Dakota, and transferring to Rock Springs, Wyoming. It was excellent hands-on training, and it was hard work and long hours. I took a lot of pride in the responsibilities I was given and participated in many record-breaking frac jobs (the early massive fracs pumping over 1 million. pounds of sand). I supervised many of these jobs and was responsible for the crews and equipment that executed these treatments. I did not use a lot of my geology in these years, and I questioned when I was going to put my geological knowledge to work. The good news is once I paid my dues, I moved into a District Engineers role. I was able to apply my geological expertise in the design of cement jobs, acid jobs, and hydraulic fracture treatments. The understanding of the reservoirs and the rock became a considerable advantage in picking the correct fluids and the best strategies to make good wells. I had many successes and, in the first fifteen years, moved from being a local expert in Williston, North Dakota, to area expert in the Northern Rockies, to a regional expert in the Western US to finally a North American expert, including working out of Calgary, Canada. I became active in both the Society of Petroleum Engineers as well as the American Association of Petroleum Geologists. I took leadership roles in the SPE. Some of my volunteer roles included treasurer, a membership chairman, a program chairman, a golf committee chairman, and the Chairman of the local chapter. In locations like Roswell, New Mexico, I participated in the Roswell Geologic Society geological field trips looking at the outcrops of the formations we were drilling to get oil or gas. They were very helpful to me in understanding the challenges they presented in making better wells. These industry organizations allowed me to build a network of peers and learn from many papers, new things people were trying in other places.

After my first fifteen years, I moved to Houston to take more of a role at the headquarters level. Houston was my opportunity to go to another level of innovation that took place. I moved from looking at making good wells to developing workflows that used geological information from cores, petrophysics, drilling info that provided better strategies or solutions for Production Optimization. These workflows focused on always looking for continuous improvement as you moved from well to well. We introduced in Schlumberger as PowerSTIM (Production Optimization with Enhanced Reservoir Characterization). It was very successful in North America and led me to start projects or mentor teams all over the world. I traveled to over 30 countries and had many projects recognized as Performed by Schlumberger awards. I finished a 40-year career with Schlumberger working on next-generation technology projects on wells provided by Southwestern Energy. We ran every type of log, had every kind of core test, etc. to help us plan and understand the results of field experiments we ran there. I had multiple roles as a project manager, lead engineer. Many of these technologies are commercial now.

I am now working for a startup company where we take drilling data on horizontal wells and create a log based on RockMSE to understand the heterogeneity of the rock along the lateral. Since 2017 we have improved the quality of this log, creating a new commercial service that uses this information each year. We use this log as a basis for engineered completions, improving diversion during well stimulations with our Engineered Diversion service, and to better understand treating pressure response to rock. The Engineered Diversion service won a World Oil Award in 2018 for the best new Completion technology. In 2019 we focused on the interaction of Parent wells to Child wells and brought a service that predicts based on drilling data where the hydraulic fractures have connected with the new child wells. Knowing this, you can eliminate loss of production to the parent wells, reduce cleanout costs to those parent wells, and make better child wells. The impact of a small price can be a million dollars to the client per well.

I am still using my geological knowledge for innovations and share the SPE recognition with my peers at the Kansas State University Geological department.

Lee Ramsey

Senior Vice President Drill2Frac-Katy, Texas

lee.ramsey@drill2frac.com

281-787-8032

Website-drill2frac.com