The Society of Petroleum Engineers is the largest individual-member organisation serving engineers, scientists, managers and other professionals in the upstream segment of the oil and gas industry. Its international headquarters is at 222 Palisades Creek Drive, Richardson, Texas 75080, with a mailing address of PO Box 833836, Richardson, Texas 75083-3836. SPE states that it has 129,900 members in 148 countries, runs more than 100 conferences, workshops and other events each year, and manages the OnePetro technical library.

From an AIME committee to a global society

The society's history reaches back into the American Institute of Mining Engineers, founded in 1871 in Pennsylvania to advance metals, minerals and energy production through engineering. A standing committee on oil and gas was created within AIME in 1913 and evolved into its Petroleum Division. SPE was formally founded as a constituent society of AIME in 1957 and became a separately incorporated organisation in 1985. Its own timeline records rapid membership growth and a first long-range plan in the 1970s, stable membership through the industry downturn of the 1980s, a rise in international sections, forums and the launch of SPE.org in the 1990s, and record membership in the 2000s driven partly by student growth.

Membership and community

SPE offers professional and student membership, organised by region and by technical discipline. Members take part through technical sections and through geographic sections and chapters, an online community called SPE Connect, volunteer roles, awards programmes, a Distinguished Lecturer series and the Energy4Me outreach initiative, with the SPE Foundation supporting education and charitable work. The society also publishes member demographics and annual reports, and it made two membership-related announcements during 2026: it reintroduced student membership fees for 2027 to fund student programmes, and it renamed its Human Factors Technical Section as the Safety Technical Section in May 2026.

Technical knowledge and standards work

Publishing and knowledge resources sit at the centre of the society's offer:

  • OnePetro, the multi-society online library of upstream technical papers, which SPE manages.
  • JPT magazine, the peer-reviewed SPE Journal and the Energy Stream platform.
  • The Petroleum Resources Management System (PRMS) and the SRMS for reserves and resources classification, widely used reference frameworks.
  • Books, technical papers and the Research Engine, plus an author programme for members publishing through SPE.

Events and professional development

The society's flagship event, the Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition (ATCE), sits alongside a global events calendar, calls for proposals, proceedings and sponsor and exhibitor programmes. During 2026 SPE announced a cooperation agreement with ASCOPE, confirmed that OTC and URTeC would co-locate to accelerate energy innovation, and launched an initiative with Project InnerSpace to grow geothermal expertise across core engineering disciplines. For individual careers, SPE provides webinars, online training courses, a job search service, competency matrices and the Petroleum Engineering Certification programme.

Offices and contact

Customer service handles technical support, membership and dues, orders and general enquiries on [email protected], with press and media enquiries at [email protected], advertising at [email protected] and the society's president reachable at [email protected]. The Americas office is open 0730 to 1700 US Central Time, telephone +1.972.952.9393 or toll-free +1.800.456.6863 in North America, with after-hours support and an Asia Pacific line on +60.3.2182.3152. Regional offices include the Asia Pacific office in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, reached at [email protected], and a Canadian office, alongside the Dallas-area headquarters address at [email protected].