Energy Issues
A good friend (who shall remain nameless) and I were talking the other day. Together, we have nearly 90 years of experience in the upstream industry. Our conversation soon turned to interesting technological advancements that we had seen and been involved in. After a couple of hours, and a couple of beers, we came to a sort of consensus on what we considered to be the three most important technical advancements and, perhaps, the three most important advancements period, in the upstream industry. These were—wait for it—advanced reservoir imaging, directional/horizontal drilling and advanced fracturing.
Upstream advancements. I first got close to reservoir imaging in the late 1990s as an employee of Petroleum GeoServices (PGS). True, I was in their floating production sector, but I rubbed elbows with the seismic crowd to not only become somewhat schooled in the sector, but to also come up (together with an imaging guru) with a passive seismic idea of my own.
It was that way with directional drilling, also. I am, top-to-bottom, a drilling guy. Sure, I have worked with some seismic guys and, yeah, I started out as a production hand in West Texas, but my heart has always been in turning to the right. I got my start in drilling in the late 1970s. It was a fascinating time. A lot of new technology was hitting the rig floor, from early automated drilling to high-degree deviations and enhanced mud motors. It was like living it two worlds, really, standing often on an offshore rig floor of a unit built in the 1960s that, initially, and often still, included no automation (unless you called the driller a piece of automation—often they were).
It was an environment that had changed little in 40 years, with the exception of being able to drill increasingly sophisticated deviated holes, often using the newly introduced mud motors. On the surface was the old generation. Downhole was the future. And, what a future it has become. Five-mile long laterals are not unusual today. LWD/MWD advances allow us to keep a bit centered in an 8-ft thick reservoir for thousands of feet.
Back then, come completion time, we paired the downhole drilling technology with ever-improving fracturing technology, including, on a number of my wells, frac-pac technology. The technology then was just over 30 years old and had a long way to go. Few had even thought of sequentially fracing multiple zones. Fracture length, width and height were mostly guesswork.
All that, and more, my buddy and I talked about over the suds. It was a great conversation, but totally wrong.
A clear conclusion. I thought about that conversation for a couple of days. The more I thought, the more I realized I was living in the past. I was thinking not about the development of technology, but about what was really important.
So, what did I conclude are the three most important developments in the upstream industry; the ones that impact us most today?
The first is safety. In the period I described above, the development of technology was on the brink of taking off. The development of a safety culture was dead in the water. Sure we had safety meetings on rigs and in the production patches on a weekly basis. As an operator employee and drilling company man, I often chaired them. Sure, we had an agenda each week, and sure we stuck to it. And that was it—when the door opened and the hands went back to work, safety, for the most part, left the building.
As a result of that, and of a slew of inexperienced hands hired when the industry exploded in the late 1970s and early 1980s, we had one of the worst safety records, if not the worst, of any industry. While safety is still a big issue, I would argue that it has improved significantly—a major accomplishment. The emergency “stop work” ability, alone, is light years ahead of my early experience. Let’s call safety the real accomplishment at number one.
And, what is number two? There is no technology here, either. Number two, in my estimation, is the industry’s growing dedication to gender and racial diversity. Some of you may vehemently disagree with me believing (rightly, in some instances) that the progress we have made is minimal. But, given the industry I started in, I think the strides toward gender and racial diversity have been truly impressive, and important. I remember the first woman I worked with in the field. She was the first woman our company had sent to the field in a drilling position. She was, to say the least, disrespected. I worried about her. But, she persevered, as did so many others, and paved the way for the future.
And number three? I would say it is our vastly improved ability to communicate with each other through globalization. In my early industry experience, the opportunity to work outside your region, or your country, was limited. Now we are truly a community of global citizens with the ability to bring any number of global philosophies, skill sets, technologies and personnel to bear on a problem.
Breaking the news. Most of my columns arise from technology that I have seen or heard about. I love that. I love new technology. As a consulting principal scientist in the Department of Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory, the creation and testing of new technology is what I aim for. But a couple of days’ thought have displaced my notion that it is the most important thing going forward for our industry. No, the most important things are safety, diversity and globalization, all of which are people issues, really. I just don’t know how I am going to tell my drinking buddy that we were wrong. 
