standard units of measure in EOR

[Michele Berkes 615-576-2352 <BERKESM -at- A1 -dot- OSTI -dot- GOV>]

Hi all,
In a belated way, I guess you could consider this a response to the
"does anyone out there not work with computers" thread. We do not. As a
matter of fact, most of our work is done with the proverbial pencil and
paper on topics such as the following.

We do a quarterly compilation of enhanced oil recovery (EOR) research
reports submitted by researchers who are funded by a particular DOE
project office. These researchers work all over the country and often
use widely varying notation styles for units of measure. One of our
tasks is to edit for consistency, including imposing some order on the
variety. (We do not do substantive editing on these reports.) So far we
have been unable to find a reference that lists standard units of
measure and notation styles for this field. For example, the researchers
will often use "cfd" to mean "cubic feet per day." Our house style
dictates that this be changed to "ft3/d" (sorry, no superscript
available). However, if "cfd" is commonly used and understood in this
field, we don't want to arbitrarily change every citation just to match
our style. Another poser is the semi-consistent use of "MM" to stand for
millions and "M" to stand for thousands (with some variety of upper and
lowercase). "mcfd", "MCFD", and "Mcfd" thus all mean "thousand cubic
feet per day."

If you haven't guessed by now, none of us has a background on geology,
geophysics, or the other specialized fields these researchers seem to
hail from. We also don't have the luxury of contacting them directly
because of the rules regulating contact between contractors, Federal
employees, and others (like the researchers). We do get to send specific
written queries, so I have just sent a query asking this question (what
is standard practice? how can I verify?), but it will be a while (a
month or so) before I get an answer. So, since this issue is on my mind,
I thought I'd send a plea out to you all and maybe get lucky. (If you've
made it this far and are still interested, bless you!)

My questions:
o  Are there any geologists/geophysicists/folks in the petroleum
industry out there who'd be willing to answer some specific questions?
If so, please contact me directly.

o  Does anyone out there know of a reference work that we might find
helpful?

o  Can anyone point me to a list that deals with this subject where I
could post my questions?

Thank you!
Michele Berkes
Labat-Anderson Incorporated
OSTI Support Services
berkesm -at- a1 -dot- osti -dot- gov

P.S. Thanks for the DC employment tips for my colleague -- she is now
busily putting them to use.

P.P.S. I'm really jealous of all of you going to the STC Annual
Conference. <sigh> Maybe next year!