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Twenty-first century technology
| Technology is driving the industry into the twenty-first century and beyond. | |
| We are running out of oil and gas - true or false? To cut a very long story short, the amount of oil available to us is actually going up - which means that oil and gas are going to be around for a long time to come. This is because new technology has made it possible to extract oil from previously uneconomic sources. It is the sheer pace of technological development that makes the oil and gas industry such an exciting place to work. | The level of innovation and technology involved in the development of the oil and gas industry has been compared to that used to put a man on the moon. Prospectors once searched for oil by drilling where their hat landed when they threw it. Now improved technology means that oil fields can not only be found but worked more efficiently and safely than ever before. These are just a few areas where technology has transformed the industry and the jobs of those who work in it...
Seismic surveying Oil and gas is literally a space-age industry. Satellites are used to map the surface shape of the land from orbit. Then seismic surveying uses sound waves to map the geological structure beneath the surface and find rock formation where hydrocarbon deposits are likely to be found. The data received are used by computers to create 3D models. Now there are permanent 4D seismic monitoring systems which allow fluid movement to be assessed periodically and reservoir management to be improved. Internet technology means that it is possible to access the latest data from a PC anywhere in the world. |
| Tim Jervis (30) is a project manager with Schlumberger. He studied electronic and information engineering at university.
I moved from university research to industry because I was interested in tackling industry's problems. It's applying tomorrow's technology to today's problems that excites me and industrial research is the perfect place to do that. The industrial world also has special challenges of its own. In a university research lab, you might be trying to push for extreme performance under ideal conditions. In industry, sometimes you're simply trying to keep a system going, but under harsh, real-world conditions. Technology is the lifeblood of the industry. Trying to find deposits of oil and gas thousands of metres below the Earth's surface is just like what NASA are doing in space exploration, but turned upside down. It's just as complicated as well - imaging technology on the Hubble space telescope has been adapted to decode information from the drill bit about the kind of rock it's travelling through and the direction it's going. This has enabled us to drill horizontally, which has increased reservoir yields. Also, by using satellite communications a well can be monitored and operated from the other side of the world! Technology also has to keep improving, but it's not just about clever gadgets. It's also about information. The oil and gas industry needs intelligent systems to provide fast accurate information which it can act on quickly. The technological developments that have had the greatest effect on the industry have reflected this - and it's the key to future development too. |
