Steve Holditch hails from Corsicana, Texas. He’s been an Aggie all his life, from the bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees he earned from Texas A&M University to his current position as head of the petroleum engineering department.
The department has more than 30 faculty and research positions, and more than 1,000 undergraduate and graduate students. Holditch has taught nearly 100 courses over his 33-year tenure at the school. He has also been a prodigious fundraiser, generating more than $9 million in research funding for Texas A&M.
In 1997, Schlumberger acquired a company he had formed in 1977, S.A. Holditch & Associates Inc. The petroleum-engineering consulting firm was well known in the industry for its groundbreaking work in the analyses of low-permeability gas reservoirs and designs of hydraulic- fracture treatments. As president and chief executive, Holditch nurtured the growth of the company from three employees to more than 80 at the time of the sale.
In 1999, Holditch was named a Schlumberger Fellow, joining an elite group of technical experts.
A fascination with unconventional resources has marked Holditch’s long career. He has researched many aspects of such reservoirs, with particular focus on fracture stimulation and the interactions of fracture fluids with reservoirs.
Holditch maintains a busy lecture schedule, and in 2009 he spoke to industry groups on topics ranging from stimulation of tight-gas reservoirs worldwide to fracture-propping agents to hydraulic-fracturing challenges.
His present research interest centers on quantifying the world’s natural gas resources. “If we look at unconventional resources in coals, tight sands and shales, we have enormous global resources,” he says. Texas A&M is working on the logic, technologies and databases to accurately measure and grade global unconventional gas.
“We want to determine how much is technically recoverable, and what technologies we need for recovery.”
The tremendous explosion in development of shale gas in North America that’s occurring now will be duplicated around the world in the coming decades. “The future of unconventional gas faces just two constraints: price and market access,” according to Holditch.
“We need higher commodity prices and better drilling and completion technologies to get gas out of low-quality reservoirs.”
Furthermore, breakthroughs in gas-to-liquids technology could make a meaningful difference in expanding the use of natural gas without the need for long pipeline systems, he says.
Holditch’s lifelong interest in unconventional reservoirs began in graduate school during a course with Richard Morse. The professor offered students the opportunity to write a report instead of taking a scheduled exam. Holditch opted for a report on alternatives to the nuclear stimulation of natural gas wells that the U.S. government had carried out at the Rulison and Gas Buggy projects, neither of which had been successful.
Instead, he looked at the idea of using long hydraulic fractures to increase the “effective wellbore radius” in the low-permeability gas reservoirs.
The project turned into his thesis, which then became his career. Morse supervised both of Holditch’s graduate degrees, and became a close friend and mentor.
For young students now entering the business, Holditch sees a bright future. “The students today are excellent, and I tell them that we are a growing, high-tech industry that’s very global.
“There’s a lot of room for young people to excel in the oil and gas industry during the coming decades, and I believe they can have very exciting and fulfilling careers.”
If they are so fortunate, one hopes they will follow Holditch’s lead in giving back to their profession and industry. Holditch has served as president, vice president and board member of the Society of Petroleum Engineers. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, has authored many publications and has received multiple awards and honors from professional energy organizations.
Holditch also serves on the board of a number of oil and gas companies and research advisory committees, and he is chairman of the Research Partnership to Secure Energy for America.
Like many of his colleagues in the oil and gas industry, Holditch enjoys the outdoors. Hunting, fishing and chasing the occasional golf ball are some of his hobbies.
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