While most would agree that the future of the oil and gas sector depends upon the development and adoption of new technology, there are wide-ranging views on the current state and future outlook for innovation.
Lloyd’s Register Energy recently hosted a filmed discussion on this topic, with a panel of senior industry executives; John Wishart, President of Lloyd’s Register Energy, Neil Kavanagh, Chief Technology Officer at Woodside Energy and Denis McAuley, Director of Longitude Research and formerly of the Economist Intelligence Unit.
Speaking of the challenges around adoption of new technology, Denis McAuley shared his view that the sector needs to become less conservative, observing, “There is a race to be number two, not to be a first mover.”
This is part of an ongoing program of research and dialogue which began with an impartial survey of over 250 professionals and experts across the sector, the Lloyd’s Register Energy Oil and Gas Technology Radar.
The research found that 56% of respondents would describe their company as a “fast follower”, with a further 17% identifying as part of the “late majority”. Other findings related to the types of innovative technologies that are likely to see investment in the short/medium term future and the richest sources of innovative technology – now and in the future.
“We have seen how the debate is gathering pace on how the industry needs to continue to address the challenge of driving enhanced oil recovery with aspirations of moving from 40-70% on recoverable reserves,” said John Wishart, President of Lloyd’s Register Energy.
“What we are seeing from the briefings we have conducted in Abu Dhabi, Singapore, London, Aberdeen and now Houston, is that there is also a real appetite for executives to learn from adjacent industries – and taking these learnings to help to advance the efficiency of the oil and gas industry.”
The Lloyd’s Register Energy ‘Global Executive Briefing Network’ aims to provide an exclusive opportunity to build relationships with peers across the industry through structured strategic discussions around the sector’s understanding of its challenges and solutions.
Peter Richards, Vice President of Marketing & Communications said: “Our briefings bring together business leaders from across the world to debate and challenge some of the major demand, supply and technology challenges which the energy sector is facing. Due to the global nature of the sector our aim this year is to further facilitate the debate during 2015-16 in key energy centers around the world.
“We have seen from our past briefings a real desire for executives to learn from each other in a non-competitive environment, and our Executive Briefing Network will start to join up the global debate with focused briefings planned throughout the year.”
Based on the importance that the energy sector has to society at large, Lloyd’s Register Energy is helping to increase dialogue and raise awareness on where industry’s resources should focus.
The company works closely with the industry’s institutions to help them respond to regulatory demands and improve their processes and performance controls in this area. Its experts also engage with broader industry forums, in developing guidance to support the assurance opinions provided to its clients and the regulators over safety, integrity and managing operational risk in the oil and gas industry.
Also during the show, Lloyd’s Register Energy is discussing work in sensor applications on marine tension risers to highlight the importance of innovative developments in safer offshore drilling.
Transocean, a major world-wide drilling contractor, worked together with Lloyd’s Register Energy and Micron Optics to pioneer work in the application of optical sensors to marine riser tension (MRT) monitoring which added a new dimension to the information at Transocean’s disposal, which was previously unavailable with traditional systems based on pressure transducers. The solution contributed to a better understanding of current operations, improved foresight, and a higher level of confidence in their operations.
Lloyd’s Register Energy’s Senior Vice President of Business Development, Simon Reeve says: "This is a significant achievement. These types of developments identify excellence in our technical expertise and innovation from our teams across the world. We are proud to have contributed to a leading initiative on tension risers where the future of the international oil and gas industry depends increasingly on its ability to develop new technologies.”
The function of a MRT is to maintain an upward tension on the riser while making adjustments for the movements of the drilling platform. As the drilling platform moves up and down with the waves, the riser tensioner system compensates for this movement so that the riser pipe does not buckle with downward movement or pull apart with upward movement.
“Failures in MRTs can result in costly downtime and lost production,” highlights Reeve. “Traditional monitoring systems are often unable to detect wide variations in total system load that can be indicative of trouble ahead.”
Unlike electrical gages, they use light waves as the sensing element and as such do not pose a threat in the presence of gas and other volatile substances. The fibre optic equipment the Lloyd’s Register Energy team selected can operate for up to twenty years without requiring maintenance or calibration and automatically compensate for the effects of temperature change.
Transocean is using the system to establish accurate, empirical baselines for normal tension variation, and this gives them the means for detecting problems in the making or simply knowing when service or exchange is called for. The data is logged into a safe local system and can be transmitted for offshore analysis. Historical data can serve as a basis for comparative and long-term analysis.
“This solution contributes to a better understanding of current operations, improved foresight, and a higher level of confidence in offshore operations,” said Reeve.
Visit Lloyd’s Register Energy at OTC Exhibition and Conference (Houston), on Booth #5171.
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