In the December issue each year, E&P looks back on the new technology that was introduced to the oil and gas industry during the year. The number of innovations grows exponentially with the challenges that the industry faces.

A few years ago, one of the National Oilwell Varco companies reprinted a price list for Oil Well Supply Co. of Bradford and Oil City, Pa., dated Oct. 1, 1884 – 128 years ago. At that time, you could buy a complete drilling rig for US $3,111.45 to drill a well 304.8 m (1,000 ft) deep. Of course, it was made of hemlock. The hardwood timbers could be “put together with spikes and nails.”

A portable 10-hp engine and boiler were available for $850. The operator probably needed a horse or two to move it.

Fast forward to Nov. 14, 1947, when one of the most significant industry advances occurred. Kerr-McGee began production from the first well out of sight of land offshore Louisiana on Ship Shoal Block 32 in the Gulf of Mexico (GoM). A land rig mounted on a steel platform (costing $230,000) in 5.45 m (18 ft) of water with a tender barge next to it was used to drill the well. Three 25.9-m (85-ft) wooden fishing boats were used as supply vessels and were standing by in case of emergency. Imagine the number of innovations that it took the industry to get to that point – and the new technology that followed.

As the industry moved offshore, the first jackup rig was built in 1954, taking the industry to waters depths of 76.2 m (250 ft). The CUSS I (an acronym for Continental, Union, Superior, and Shell) was the first drillship built. The vessel drilled a series of wells in 3,545 m (11,700 ft) of water in 1961 for Project Mohole. The first purpose-built semisubmersible, the Ocean Driller, started up in 1963.

In only 63 years, the industry had gone from drilling wells 304.8 m deep onshore with wooden derricks to the first well out of sight of land. Now on the 65th anniversary of the first well out of sight of land, Shell is producing from a well at a water depth of 2,917.3 m (9,627 ft) in that same GoM.

As the New Orleans Times-Picayune noted in its Nov. 18, 1947 edition, “The first oil production from the open Gulf of Mexico, in the shoals beyond the low tide limits, has fallen to the credit of a Louisiana operation conducted by Kerr-McGee Oil Industries of Oklahoma. It may well mark the beginning of a new era in worldwide petroleum extraction.”

How prophetic was the newspaper. In the January 2013 issue, E&P will be looking ahead at where the industry will be headed in the next five to 10 years. It will be fascinating to take part in the exponential technological growth in the industry’s future.