Explorationists will look to computer technology, other industries and the history of climate change to find hydrocarbons. Increased computer power, along with lessons learned in other industries, is ushering in an... more

Jets, mud-actuated hammers, water pulses and mini-lightning are boosting drilling speeds, while acoustic telemetry and embedded wire show promise in moving downhole data up the drill pipe faster. Several revolutionary drilling... more

Break the burro and see a spray of new ideas, most spurred by the quest for the 'smart' well. In this Christmas month, the petroleum industry abounds with emerging oil and... more

Offshore technology development will focus on smaller footprints and more efficient designs. The oil industry continues to focus on offshore exploration, drilling and development as the key to unlocking the Earth's... more

From nanotechnology to fiber optics, and from P2P to fuzzy logic, advances in information technology look set to digitize the oil patch. It most definitely is not your grandfather's oil business... more

The "virtual lease operator" has finally arrived, enabling operators to monitor and control production from their computers via the Internet. Hanna Oil and Gas Co., a small, family-owned independent, operates about... more

Wireless is the next revolution for getting critical information from the field to the office. Internet innovation is sweeping through the oil and gas industry, with most of the attention focused... more

From the Pacific to the Atlantic and the Arctic to Colombia, North American onshore projects show innovation at work. Watching the onshore oil and gas industry in North America is like... more

A relatively unused technique of looking at seismic reflections can reveal vast supplies of undiscovered natural gas. Hundreds of trillions of cubic feet of gas lie trapped in tight sand reservoirs... more

An industry study assesses the ability of lightweight cements to hold up under downhole conditions. It's hard to tell whether a cement job is good. Tests at the time of cementing... more

Natural gas is taking over the dominant energy spot from oil as more nations seek cleaner fuel to grow. The World Energy Council says gas will overtake coal as the second... more

World demand for natural gas is blossoming, and huge pipeline projects are in the works to serve that demand. A dramatic surge in demand for gas pushes aside arguments for oil... more

What's out: GeoNet and 4-year-old PCs. What's in: DVDs and iReservoir.com. Another dot-com is dead. GeoNet services.com, the only third-party application service provider (ASP) for the upstream and downstream sectors of... more

Shell Expro is about to tackle the longest tieback development in the UK North Sea. With a 40-mile (65-km) pipeline connection back to the Brent Charlie host platform, Penguins is the... more

Now that Shell's Malampaya deepwater gas-to-power project is pumping energy from the South China Sea to the Philippines, hope is building for the discovery of an oil rim within the... more

1. According to the Nevada Oil Reporter, Isern Oil Co. Inc., Gabbs, Nev., is drilling below 4,000 ft (1,220 m) at the No. 1-4 Gigante in Gabbs Valley, Nye County,... more

1. Texaco has been negotiating with a mystery buyer on a farm-in on its deepwater acreage in the western Gulf of Mexico. Its McClellan gas prospect in East Breaks blocks... more

1. Burlington Resources has revealed its US $262 million (£185 million) plans to tap the sour gas Rivers fields in the East Irish Sea by 2004. With reserves estimated at... more

1. TotalFinaElf (TFE) and partners are tendering for a drillship for two wells in ultradeep water off Gabon. The French operator of the Anton and Astrid Marin blocks hopes to... more

1. Seven Seas Petroleum Inc. drilled the Tres Pasos 5-W directional well to 8,262 ft (2,520 m) measured depth to the Cimarrona formation and tested the untreated formation at rates... more

1. Bouygues Offshore earned the contract for the jackets and piles for new platforms to be installed in Azeri field 88 miles (120 km) southeast of Baku, Azerbaijan. Under the... more

1. Kellogg Brown & Root has been awarded a US $47 million production services contract by the Abu Dhabi Marine Operating Co. for engineering, procurement and construction management work on... more

1. Philippines National Oil Co.'s exploration division (PNOC-EC) will resume drilling in the Cotabato Basin onshore Mindanao Island next year, after delaying operations for more than a year under threats... more

Abyssal storms create huge seabed ditches, which have the potential to wreak havoc with offshore oil and gas exploration. It's often possible to trace the route of a tornado using the... more

DWOP is the process of analyzing each step of the well construction process to generate ideas for improving performance and reducing cost. Picture this: Six months before spudding a deepwater wildcat,... more

Small-diameter composite tubes are becoming more popular in onshore fields, and marine use is drawing near. Most of the recent emphasis on specialty composites has been directed at offshore drilling... more

I have watched the leaves turn this autumn with a bit more nostalgia, and a bit more anticipation, than usual. I guess the aftermath of Sept. 11 has done that... more

Combining two companies is no easy task. But WesternGeco has come through the process with few visible scars. Mergers seem fraught with contradictions. The two companies can't talk at all during... more

Battle lines have been drawn between three alliances working this future site of significant oil and gas production. After bid rounds in September 1999 and August 2000 by the Northern Oil... more

When people ask about the future of our industry, it's tempting to point to some of our new "gee whiz" technologies. Smart pipe and four-dimensional vertical seismic profiling are two... more