The UK Government's Technology Foresight Programme addressed future science, engineering and technology issues of importance to the upstream petroleum industry both as part of the deliberations of its Energy Panel (Office of Science and Technology, 1995a) and its Agriculture, Natural Resources and Environment (ANRE) Panel (Office of Science and Technology, 1995b). Looking forward up to 20 years, recommendations for areas deserving public investment in research were based on consultation with industry, other governmental bodies and the research community. (Issues of potential relevance to the industry appear in other panel reports, e.g. those on Information Technology/Electronics and Chemicals, but are not considered here.)

The relevant topics given highest priority include:

• high hit-rate exploration techniques: increased accuracy of field identification and assessment through improved acquisition, integration, analysis and interpretation of geophysical data;

• increased oil and gas reservoir yields: improved yield from existing hydrocarbon reservoirs via more accurate characterisation and enhanced simulation, drive and production technologies.

These topics map well onto the issues highlighted in the present report on the challenges associated with exploration/appraisal and with both field development and improved recovery from existing fields.

Other key market/product areas indicated in the Energy Panel's report but receiving lower priority status were:

• drilling for oil and gas: low down-time fully automated flexible drilling with low cost consumables and extended capability under challenging conditions;

• low cost oil/gas production including platform construction and maintenance, and pipelines: automated and intensified environmentally friendly production facilities and pipelines able to handle aggressive reservoir fluids.

The ANRE Panel report focused more on generic technologies. Although not always identified with E&P industry requirements or opportunities, the following priority topics are relevant to E&P:

• robotics, remote sensor and survey systems;

• predictive modelling in the presence of uncertainty;

• artificial intelligence and expert systems.

Links can be made between a number of these generic technologies and the "high hit-rate exploration" and "increased reservoir yield" issues prioritised in the Energy Panel report.

The ANRE Panel's specific recommendations on environmental research included the following topics of relevance to offshore E&P operations:

• monitoring, surveying, further development of data and information systems, process studies, forecasting, impact evaluation studies;

• integrated ecosystem management.

Opportunities for future public funding of strategic and applied research in the UK of relevance to E&P are likely to fall within the areas of science, engineering and technology highlighted in these panel reports.

It is notable that at the level of detail employed, many of the issues highlighted by the Technology Foresight process map closely onto those issues being targeted in the Fourth Framework Programme.

Last Updated 9/9/96