BP says better technology could lower oil production costs

The Oil and gas supermajor, BP (formerly known as British Petroleum), headquartered in London, England said in its Technology Outlook report published on Thursday that the average production cost of oil and gas resource classes could reduce with the help of better technology by around 30 percent per barrel of oil equivalent by 2050.

The focus lies on how technology could change the way energy is consumed and produced to 2050.

With the natural resources and policies and consumer of societal preferences laying its impact on the world of energy, BP Technology Outlook seeks to isolate some of the major longer-term technology signals from other drivers, through to 2050, based on the simple techno-economic analysis.

Most capital-intensive resources with greatest scope and potential for cost reduction are deep waters and ultra-deep waters and those which require a large number of wells such as shale.

According to BP, Improved rig and platform design, plus subsea and flow-line development, could cut costs for deepwater resources, while in shale drilling and production, a standardized, repetitive manufacturing-style approach could reduce costs.

The project demand will be met after investing US$600 billion annually.

“We estimate that application of digital tools, including sensors, supercomputing, data analytics, automation and artificial intelligence (AI), all supported by the networked computers of the ‘cloud’, could reduce primary energy demand and costs in sectors of the energy system by 20-30 percent by 2050,” BP said.