SPE made additional strides in internationalization and membership growth during the 1980s. Despite the free fall in oil prices that would mark a low point for the oil and gas industry during the decade—and lead to massive layoffs and restructurings—SPE not only survived, but in some ways thrived.
In 1980, membership rose 14% from the year before to 38,799. By now, a fifth of the society's membership resided outside the US and several regional meetings around the globe had developed. As membership and the diversity of members' technical interests grew, SPE was challenged to ensure that its meetings and publications were relevant to the specialist while appealing to a broad spectrum of disciplines. The scope of SPE's defined technical focus began to expand and include such interests as unconventional resources, geothermal energy, shale oil recovery, and facilities.
Ken Arnold, Senior Executive Vice President of AMEC Paragon and SPE's first Technical Director for Projects, Facilities, and Construction, was instrumental in getting SPE to offer more programs and services for facilities engineers. He chaired an ad hoc committee in the early 1980s in investigating SPE's relation to facilities engineering. "We presented to the SPE Board a plan outlining how we could provide more service to this group, with hopes of increasing its membership," Arnold said. "In those days, facilities engineering was not even considered a specialty; it was part of production operations. … One of the key recommendations that was implemented was the creation of a committee within SPE for facilities. It started to create programming for at least three or four sessions at each SPE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition (ATCE), and that began to generate papers. Another thing we did was, when the SPE Production Engineering technical journal was first put together, we added a review chairperson and a technical editor committee for facilities topics to make sure that journal had facilities content."
Early in the decade, an ad hoc committee began to review the society's first Long-Range Plan, which had been adopted in 1976. It advised several changes that reflected the society's increased international presence and the importance and strength of local sections. The committee recommended adding director positions representing the Middle East, Asia Pacific, and South America, in addition to the one non-US director on the board from Europe. It proposed several other additions, including recommendations that
Section financial procedures include annual budgets and audits
The society offer more continuing education support to sections
Sections establish their own newsletters
Sections create annual section awards and plans for officer rotation
SPE become more involved in intersociety activities
Changes should be made to SPE election procedures, including allowing members, for the first time, to select SPE regional director nominees through regional nominating committees.
