Offshore Services

In November 1947, at the beginning of the oil and gas offshore industry, published information relating to any aspect of offshore operations was primarily limited to a few presentations made at technical society meetings.  To illustrate the scanty technical information available, in October 1947, a prominent Civil Engineer from New York presented a paper at the Tulsa American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers (AIME) meeting: “Important Considerations in Marine Construction.” The uninformed author opined that maximum wave heights in the Gulf of Mexico would be only 25 feet.  For the next 19 years the offshore industry proceeded to present offshore technology on a piecemeal basis. There were no statutory building codes or prescribed design practices for the offshore industry.  During this time, API committees developed and provided various “Recommended Practices”.  Emerging offshore technology was promulgated through the distribution of papers presented at individual local technical society meetings and conferences.  From time to time technical articles appeared in periodicals such as: “World Oil”, “The Oil & Gas Journal”, “Petroleum Engineer”, “Engineering News Record” and “Offshore”. In 1963, Shell Oil conducted their school on Floating Drilling and Underwater Well Completions, which was the beginning of the assembly of the body of knowledge called offshore technology.

It wasn’t until 1966, however, when the first Offshore Exploration Conference (OECON) was held, where offshore technology papers were disseminated in an organized fashion at one conference.



Then, in 1969, The Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE), recognized the need to bring a greater participation into the accumulation of offshore technology and took the initiative to cooperate with 8 other professional societies to organize the Annual Offshore Technology Conference (OTC).

The OTC has developed into a worldwide exchange of knowledge.  The OTC has become the première conference for the presentation of and the exchange of offshore technology and one of the largest technical conferences in the world.

Recognizing the following individuals and organizations that contributed to the formation of the first offshore technology conferences:

Joe B. Alford, Mort J. Richardson, Offshore Exploration Conference (OECON) and Offshore Technology Conference (OTC).