Top Technology Trends in Oil & Gas

The oil & gas industry sector - which ARC defines as upstream and midstream oil and gas exploration, production, and transportation, plus gas processing - has witnessed dramatic ups and downs in recent years.  ARC covers top technology trends in the Oil & Gas industries on an ongoing basis. Please visit Technology Evaluation and Selection Guides page for recent ARC research reports.

Oil Rig

Oil & Gas Industry Overview

oil & gas capexVolatile oil prices are a big challenge for the oil & gas companies as shown in this chart.  Both large, integrated oil companies such as ExxonMobil and Chevron and state-owned oil companies such as Petrobras and Statoil continue to adjust their capital expenditure from year to year.  However, even in a depressed environment, project costs remain high, and these companies continue to look for new ways to radically decrease project costs and time to project completion, as well as increased efficiencies to deal with more challenging market conditions and improve profitability. 

The LNG and gas-to-liquids (GTL) sectors, both typically large consumers of automation technologies, had been exhibiting good growth until just recently; but a looming global oversupply of LNG from new production in Australia, Africa, and North America is likely to curtail many of these activities for the next couple of years.  The midstream sector, which includes oil and gas pipelines, terminals, and storage operations, is experiencing modest growth.  There also continues to be a wave of modernization of automation and controls in the tank farm and terminal sectors, which have traditionally relied on less sophisticated forms of automation. 

ARC Forum Attendee Quote

"I am very glad that I attended ARC's 2016 Forum.  I found the breadth of topics and breadth of discussion quite invigorating, and I look forward to following up with the contacts I made at the Forum."

??/Raghu Narayan
Head, Engineering and Technology Division
Aramco Services

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