Petroleum Engineering: What's New

New technologies have also helped reduce the environmental impact of energy production by allowing more oil and gas to be produced with fewer wells.
Advances in technologies will play a critical role in meeting global energy demand because they enable the discovery of new resources, access to harsh or remote locations and the development of challenged reservoirs that previously were not economic to produce.
Well completion is the final step of the drilling process, where the connection to hydrocarbon-bearing rock is established.
Again, advances in technology have enabled more oil and natural gas to be recovered from the length of each well, improving production and reducing the environmental footprint of energy production.
For example, by combining extended reach drilling capability with advanced stimulation technology, oil companies can optimize how and where stimulation fluid interacts with rock, allowing sustained production rates along the length of the wellbore.
Companies are pushing completions in excess of 3,000 meters (9,842 feet) in length, compared to a typical completion of 30 meters a couple of decades ago.
These types of drilling and completion technologies have also enabled the recent growth in production from shale and other unconventional oil and gas reservoirs in many parts of the world, using a combination of hydraulic fracturing and horizontal, extended reach drilling.

Once considered to be merely on the horizon of the oil and gas industry, automation has taken center stage in recent years. With technological advancements catching up to the human imagination, there has been a gradual shift to automated technologies in virtually every industry. By reducing the time, error, and risk involved in human labor, today’s sophisticated automation tools can be hugely beneficial to companies of all kinds.
For the oil and gas industry, in particular, the shift to automation was as a matter of necessity. When prices for oil fell by 75% over 20 months beginning in 2014, the industry was forced to modernize. Four years later, prices have recovered, hitting record levels in the United States. With this new technology — and the major advancements sure to come — the oil and gas sector is poised for unprecedented success. But it is also important to consider whether these machines may replace workers, and how employees’ duties may shift.