Oil and gas companies have opened their doors to technologies developed by outside industries in the past few years, such as robots designed by robots and satellites that notice subtle gravitational changes in the planet. But one oil executive says the industry has been slow to adapt to outside technologies.
“In oil and gas, it has traditionally been an insular community. More and more, we bring in other technologies, but I think we can do an awful lot more,” Shell’s Chief Technology Officer Yuri Sebregts says in an interview with FuelFix.com.
In Houston to speak at a space industry event, Sebregts says oil and gas companies that embrace outside technologies, rather than spend precious time and money during an economy that has not been kind to the oil industry, can reap rewards quicker.
“Companies in the oil industry have historically wanted to invent everything themselves,” Sebregts says. “There’s other industries than energy that have really cool technology that’s already available. So looking outside and seeing what technology exists that might solve your particular challenge in unlocking an energy source is often just a much quicker way.”
Leaps in technology over the last decade have been beneficial to the oil and gas industry. Shell uses MRI scanners to create images of buried oil rock in its wells and deploys drones to inspect burner tips at the top of gas flares at its refineries.
Some companies are also using 3D technology from the gaming industry and supercomputers in new ways.
FuelFix.com has the full story.
