New technology critical for oil exploration and revisiting wells (page 2 of 2)

The petroleum engineers are all getting older but not replaced, so as they retire their knowledge is lost. Technology has a role to play in harnessing that information, keeping it and reapplying it through the automation of processes, databases and so on."

New technologies automise processes, so while the user may require a less in-depth understanding of the engineering, they do require an up-to-date working knowledge of the frequently updated apparatus.

"The fact of the matter is the industry has too few people. That's in the petroleum side, as well as the IT side. Good IT people are hard to find generally and are difficult to retain, but the training can become obsolete very quickly. It's an endemic problem," explains Walker.

The call for standardisation of existing technologies, ensuring that expensive training is more sticky, is delicately balance with the need to innovate and push for efficiency.

Digital Oilfield a viable solution, but offers inherent challenges

Digital oilfield services are expected to exceed $200bn by 2015 - over 40% growth from the current market size, according to information from The Digital Oilfields World Summit. This shift over to this model is expected to lead to an additional 125 billion bbl, which equals Iraq's current estimated reserves, based on studies by Cambridge Energy Research Associates (Cera).

Such growth over just a few years would mean huge investment, but the rewards are worthwhile and the need for mapping and re-tapping is only mounting. With the loss of valuable engineering experience, technology adoption is critical to automate processes - and the issues involving education and re-training are a relative non-issue with relentless, growing energy demand.