I hope this finds you all enjoying this season of celebration.  As this difficult year for the oil industry draws to a close, there are some reasons to celebrate.  Natural gas exports from Texas to Mexico have expanded rapidly.  Currently pipeline capacity from the US to Mexico stands at 7.3 BCF/D. In the next three years this capacity is projected to double (source eia.gov, Dec 1, 2016). LNG exports from Louisiana began this year, with four more terminals planned in the next five years.  OPEC just reached a provisional agreement to cut output; who knows if it will stick with all the drama and confusion, but there is cautious optimism.  With oil starting at below $30/B at the beginning of the year, now topping $50/B and with natural gas prices at a two-year high, things are headed in the right direction.

As our industry slowly picks up, this is a good time to hone our skills and spark new ideas. Many of us must take financial responsibility for our own continuing education to stay up on the latest technology and innovations.  What better, low-cost place to do that than ETGS. I hope you will join us for our luncheon this month, 11:30, December 14th, at the Cascades Country Club, to hear Bill Chandler’s presentation, “Rethinking Drill Cuttings: A new productive identification tool that finds the 'sweet spots'".  He will show us a low-tech methodology using drill cuttings that creates a reliable resistivity curve and tracks density porosity while drilling.  In wells without wireline logs, this could be a very useful tool in analyzing zones of interest.  Don’t forget to RSVP on our website.

I start this newsletter on a sad note.  We will be losing some of our members as EOG closes its office here in Tyler and consolidates to Fort Worth.  We wish our friends, whether moving or staying, all the best, and hope those who are moving will come back to visit us.

Many thanks to Nick Pollard for organizing another successful golf tournament, with help from Jacob Gray, Curt Bateman and Thomas Knight.   There was beautiful weather for the 108 golfers that participated.  Congratulations to Team Hene for taking top honors.  Stephen F. Austin University students had a raffle at the tournament and made $500 to help with their AAPG events.  The students will have another raffle at our November luncheon, so break open those piggy banks.

Ahh - finally some cool fall mornings. Even though it was still steamy in Corpus Christi last month, GCAGS put on a great convention. There were a lot of interesting talks and posters. It was also good to hear what the other gulf coast societies are doing. I was proud to report all the activities and service projects our East Texas Society provides. One note for students is that the GCAGS Journal is a good place to get your Master’s thesis published in a reasonable amount of time. As a member of ETGS you are automatically a member of GCAGS; check out the website at GCAGS.org.

Last month we had about 64 people attend our luncheon. It was a pleasure to see a strong showing of students from SFA and UT Tyler. Our speaker, Blaine Hall, kicked off the TJC Public Science Lecture Series the evening of our luncheon at the TJC planetarium. This event was also well attended, and TJC appreciated our society funding Blaine’s trip to Tyler. Thanks to Nathan Spencer for putting together a survey on continuing education courses we could offer. There was a lot of interest and we will be getting back to you with the details.