| Popis: |
Historically, research and development (R&D) expenditure has always been dominated by technology's ability to expand the capabilities of service applications, tools or systems. The benefit for the end user was their ability to expand applications or use them more effectively. The increasing emphasis from the operators on cost savings, Health Safety and Environment (HSE) issues, and the optimization of process efficiencies has resulted in a different R&D portfolio makeup for most service companies. Many products and technologies are currently being developed that directly target improved safety, reduce environmental impact, lower operational costs and improve efficiency. Since most Quality and HSE (QHSE) issues are process related, technology development has partly shifted to process engineering. Process engineering in the oil industry can be considered an "opportunity-rich" environment. Many conventional operations in the oil industry have been optimized over many years without keeping pace with technological advancements in other industries. Rethinking complex processes and optimizing them using ergonomic specialists and process control technologies have resulted in some amazing success stories. This paper discusses this shift in technology development and gives some detailed examples in diverse areas such as coiled tubing wellsite delivery and cementing. Comparisons are made to typical R&D portfolios in the early 1980s, 1990s and 2000s. |
