Offshore staff
HOUSTON – Future oil and gas industry opportunities are plentiful, but they are complex and difficult, Bob Dudley, group chief executive of BP told an audience at IHS CERA Week. And those opportunities will be addressed safely, responsibly, and reliably by BP and many other companies in the industry.
New frontiers, including deepwater and shale, are producing “enormous amounts of previously unreachable oil and gas,” and at current rates of consumption, the world has 54 years of proved oil reserves and 64 years of proved gas reserves in place.
The physical and technological risks in reaching hard-to-get oil and gas such as in deepwater and the Arctic as well as tight reserves and heavy oil are not the only risks to be weighed, he said. Fiscal regimes, policy issues, geo-political tensions, and even the risk of terrorism are other factors.
“Resources below ground are a prerequisite, but favorable conditions above ground are also essential,” Dudley said.
Two of the world’s energy giants – the United States and Russia – have several things in common surrounding oil and gas development, he said. Each will require “investment on an epic scale, undertaken by energy partners who are not daunted by the obstacles and have the resources, experience, capability, and appetite for the task.”
Looking at applied technology offshore, Dudley said BP is working on several fronts. Deepwater operations, new exploratory techniques including a new supercomputing center in Houston, better recovery factors, and BP’s “20K” high-pressure/high-temperature equipment development program are under way now. A big part of this technology advancement is coming in the Gulf of Mexico, he added, saying BP plans to invest $4 billion/year for the next 10 years in the GoM.
3/07/2013
