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What technologies will impact deepwater appraisal and development 10 years from now?

Conoco, Houston, Texas, U.S.

Corresponding author: A. Huffman, alan.r.huffman@usa.conoco.com

Editor's Note: This article is a written version of a presentation at the SPE Forum on Deepwater Appraisal and Development in Breckenridge, Colorado, in July 2000.

The first 20% of the full text of this article appears below.

Prognosticating the future in our industry is problematic at best and totally maddening and futile at worst. However, assessing what the trends of the future will be is critical to our success as an industry, and especially to our success in technology development. The range of technologies that our industry employs and will employ in deepwater operations is vast and impossible to cover in the space provided. However, I would like to glimpse at some technologies that will probably have significant impact on deepwater appraisal and development (A&D) in the coming years.

To accomplish this task, we must first break down the technologies into some convenient but not necessarily accurate or inclusive categories. For those technologies not included, I ask your forbearance. For this discussion, I have divided the technologies into two main categories—critical technologies and enabling technologies. Critical technologies are scientific and engineering technologies with direct impact on appraisal and development operations. Critical technology categories discussed in this article include geophysics and geology, reservoir engineering, petroleum engineering, chemical process and power technologies, and materials technology. Enabling technologies are important to our success but are not direct contributors to technical solutions in deepwater operations. Enabling technologies include information technology and human technologies.

	Geology and geophysics

 
The explosion of new ideas and techniques that has hit the geosciences in the last 10 years will continue. Several areas will make a significant impact in 10 years—the electric oil field, imaging while drilling, real-time depth imaging, multicomponent imaging, environmental and hazard analysis, and ocean sensor arrays for meta-ocean and atmospheric studies.

Permanent seismic sensor arrays (aka "the electric oil field") take the concept of time-lapse surveys a step further. Sensors are placed in the seabed, and the umbilical and control systems for the sensors are integrated into the platform design. This allows sensors to be used . . . [Full Text of this Article]