Potential terrorist attacks against oil refineries, vendors showing off the latest exploration technology or offering interests in leases, and amazing 50 million-year-old fossils — all are part of the convention of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists.
Approximately 4,500 participants are attending the four-day meeting, which ends today, in the Salt Palace Convention Center. Geologists and company executives from around the globe are attending, and a sharp-eared listener can overhear that conversationsare in English, French and Arabic.
On Tuesday, thousands of conferencegoers were milling around rows of exhibits, talking with vendors, catching specialized talks or watching movies in the theater — films with titles like "Volcano: Nature's Inferno" and "Oceans in Motion." Others checked out the latest scientific discoveries, as detailed in a series of large mounted posters.
Bobby Gillham, head of global security for ConocoPhillips, said one of the company's employees and his wife were in "one of the compounds that was most damaged" in this week's terrorist attacks on American housing in Saudi Arabia.
"Fortunately, the wife was not injured," while the employee suffered a leg injury that was not life-threatening, he said.
Gillham, a former FBI agent who lives in the Houston area, now directs global security for ConocoPhillips. The company was created last year with the merger of oil giants Conoco and Phillips Petroleum.
The murderous shootings and car bombings in Saudi Arabia, linked to al-Qaida, are among the kinds of attacks that civilization has to face nowadays, he said during a luncheon talk.
"It's not like yesterday," Gillham added. He quoted an ancient Roman general, Varius, who lost three legions when attacking Germans managed to overcome the more technologically advanced armies. -->
Safety measures that petroleum companies must have include dikes around petroleum tanks and emergency evacuation plans. But security needs go far beyond that, according to Gillham.
"To counter terrorists , we need to view these potential targets the same way they do," he said.
Natural gas pipelines generally are underground and sea-based drilling platforms are in remote areas.
"Blow up a refinery or two, however, the impact . . . will be felt immediately." Companies should consider screening not only their employees but contractors, he said.
Another area in which America may face threats is in industry's reliance on computer networking. He cited the ease with which a company employee can access an industrial plant's sensitive areas from home, connecting by computer.
Gillham noted that a bill may be introduced soon in Congress to mandate industry to carry out vulnerability assessments.
Jerry Hansen, a consultant from Lakewood, Colo., was among hundreds of vendors who set up booths to interest conferencegoers. He was representing a client, Woods Cross-based Foreland Corp., which owns oil leases in Nevada.
The booth was wallpapered with detailed scientific maps of the geology, past and present, of the region. Some showed shorelines that existed millions of years ago.
"That's the shales, essentially, the shales that are organic-rich," he said, indicating a map showing part of Nevada.
"We've put together a series of oil and gas properties," Hansen added.
The company uses data from seismic lines, gravity measurements and other sophisticated technology to plot the underground structure and figure out where oil reserves may be lurking.
Foreland acquired leases in likely regions. Now it wants to interest investors in drilling or buying rights.
"Prospect fairs" are held in various parts of the country, including a big one in Houston, where potential vendors and lease-holders gather in force. This convention is more general, Hansen said, "but we've had several people come by and express an interest in taking a part" of a project.
Carl and Shirley Ulrich were working the counter at one of the most gawked-at displays, that of Ulrich's Fossil Fish Gallery. As they offered finds to potential buyers, their backdrops were large piranha-like fish frozen in stone, palmetto fronds from Wyoming's warmer era and many little fish fossils.
The Kemmerer, Wyo., couple have been digging ancient fish, birds and vegetation from rock beds near Fossil Butte National Monument for 55 years. The fossils date back 50 million to 60 million years.
Much of Fossil Butte is a national monument and off limits to digging. But the Ulrich family mine leases on land that belongs to the state of Wyoming. One of the stipulations is that anything really unusual — like a bird fossil — is turned over to state paleontologists.
"And we agree with that," said Shirley Ulrich.
The family helped craft Wyoming's fossil protection act and strongly opposes raiders who can harm the resource.
"We feel kind of like stewards," she said.
Carl Ulrich used a rattail file to scratch away the softer stone matrix from a small fish fossil.
"I've done 15,000 of them in 55 years," he said.
Today, he's so deft that he can uncover the hardened fossil of an ordinary-size fish in six to eight hours. Cleaning a fish of the same size, a beginner will take "30 to 40 hours at least. . . . A big palm like these, well, it would take several months."
E-mail: bau@desnews.com