Thirty years or so ago my kids were young. We often took car trips. Invariably, we had barely left the house when one of the two would ask “are we there yet?” Back then, it was an amusing and, at times, annoying question. Today, in our industry, it seems very pertinent because it applies to so many areas, including intelligent operations, maximized recovery capabilities, deepwater technologies and a host of other issues. To answer these questions one has first determine where “there” is. And then one has to measure our progress to “there.”

Defining “there” is fairly easy because it is a nebulous term. “There” seems to be some state of nirvana wherein we have overcome every obstacle — technical, political, economic, environmental and social — and are thus able to produce every drop or cubic meter of hydrocarbon in place at low cost, no risk to the environment, and in an social setting where our contribution is appreciated as having maximum value. How we might do this is patently unclear but it is our goal, whether by our design or through external pressure. It is “there.”

Measuring one’s progress toward “there” is a bit trickier if “there” is a vague, wildly optimistic goal. Take deep water for example. There is, without doubt, a water depth below which we will not be able to operate commercially. What that water depth might be is unknown but it is “there.” Or take intelligent operations, for example. “There” might be the day all the world’s fields operate in closed loops subsumed under a master closed loop with total automation and 100% optimization of reservoir performance. It is unlikely but it would be “there.”

The real problem with “are we there yet?” is that it blinds us to what we have accomplished. Don’t get me wrong — it is an important question and one that we must ask regularly to continue to push the technical envelope.

I often ponder what “are we there yet” might have meant to my father as he pursued his early oil and gas career in the ’40s and ’50s. His ideas of “there” would probably strike us as terribly naïve. Far past his “there” would have been satellite communications, deepwater operations, downhole monitoring and automation, intelligent operations, steerable systems, and much more that we increasingly take for granted. In other words, not only is “there” a nebulous, almost abstract state, it is a state that is redefined by each generation. Again, that is as it should be.

Or I might reference my own generation. I started in the business in 1967 in the Dollarhide field. For me, “there” would have been an efficient means to monitor the effect of our water flood. A few years later, in the Spraberry Drive Unit “there” would have been the ability to manage water more effectively or to maximize pump efficiency. My “there” definitions really took off in the ’70s when I entered the drilling sector. Progressively through the ’70s and into the early ’80s, we would have been “there” if we had been able to understand high-pressure gas reservoirs, actively steer our wells, log while drilling, drill based on more reliable seismic, communicate regularly via satellite, work commonly in water depths over 1,000 ft (305 m), use sophisticated drilling and completion fluids, monitor fracs and a host of other things.

By my ’70s and ’80s definitions, we are now not only “there” but considerably past there.

But, of course, in today’s operating environment, given our expectations and desires, we are not even close to “there.”

I always understood why my children continually asked “are we there yet?” Similarly, I understand why we, as an industry, must always ask “are we there yet?” My children missed a lot of impressive scenery in their focus on the final destination. We, in this industry, miss a lot of the technical scenery in the same manner. We have accomplished more than my father or I might have imagined. Yet, we are not close to the final objective. Perhaps we should take some time to marvel at the passing technical landscape.