Between the Hubbert-curve disciples, who predict the world is running out of oil, and the climate change contingent, which fears that if we don't stop burning hydrocarbons the world's ecosystems will be destroyed, you might think petroleum would soon be following the downward spiral of photographic film, videotape and floppy disks. To get some other perspectives, I asked my contacts which technologies they think will have a major impact on the petroleum the next 10 years.

Lyn Arscott, a consultant retired from the International Association of Oil and Gas Producers and Chevron and 1988 SPE president, observed, "The world will need oil and gas for many years to come before alternate energy is commercially available. The oil and gas industry does not need to be so defensively neurotic."

Steve Holditch, Schlumberger Fellow and 2002 SPE president, wrote, "In the next 10 years, I do not see any disruptive technology to the petroleum industry. Even if fuel cell technology has a breakthrough, the best fuel for the fuel cell will be natural gas or methanol. If a breakthrough occurs in anything else, say solar or wind, it will take 20 years for the technology to become mainstream."

So what new technologies will keep the oil flowing?

Richard Ward of Cambridge Energy Research Associates (CERA) said, "Our research indicates that over the next 5-10 years, the digital oilfield of the future (a combination of 4-D seismic, intelligent completions, enhanced automation, real time drilling, visualization and integration technologies) could increase global reserves by up to 125 billion barrels and lower industry operating costs by billions of dollars."
Khalid Aziz, professor of petroleum engineering, Stanford University, agreed, but noted the challenges ahead. "Real time monitoring and optimization of all kinds of operations will make the greatest impact," he said. "All the bits and pieces are already available; the biggest hurdle is in our ability to use this technology."

Barry Irani, president and chief executive officer of The Information Store, noted, "The petroleum industry spends billions of dollars generating, gathering, storing and managing technical, financial, contractual and other types of information, yet uses less than 10% of all stored information to make decisions. ... The means already exist for using Web technology to access data stored in legacy data stores and existing systems conveniently, quickly and in context minimizing the need to migrate data, a common practice, which is time consuming, expensive and disruptive."

Jim Rike, a pioneer of completion technology with a worldwide reputation for transferring technology via seminars, responded, "Expectations are overly optimistic for smart well technology, not because we can't make it work, but because we have never been able to anticipate what we wanted to do in a well more than 5 to 7 years ahead," he said. "The reserve numbers change, the price changes and the technology changes to thwart all cradle to grave plans."

Meanwhile, as Tom Williams of Maurer Technology said, "Without a doubt the technology that will be the most disruptive to our industry is the technology of politics. The flavors of the day, no access to leases with clean natural gas off Florida and California, hydrogen and methanol from corn are not based on science but rather the science/technology of politics."

John Tobin of the Energy Literacy Project suggested a solution. "While technology is the life blood of the industry, I hope that we all can see the much bigger picture ... an informed public is the foundation upon which stable and sustainable policy is built."

Now who are the bigger optimists, those who see the digital oil field significantly increasing reserves or those who think the public image of the petroleum industry can be significantly changed?

Eve Sprunt, evesprunt@aol.com, is an oil industry executive. Responses in quotes come from her broad network of contacts in the industry who respond to her e-mail surveys.