Meeting the challenge of the increasing global demand for energy will depend upon the industry’s ability  to develop new technologies and deploy them effectively, a Shell official said.

Speaking at the International Petroleum Technology Conference in Doha, Shell’s executive director for exploration and production Malcolm Brinded said raising the industry’s average conventional global oil recovery from 35 to 45 per cent could add some 20 years to current global production. “As existing basins mature we need to explore in new plays, over large areas in harsher conditions with more complex geology,” he said.
This would require application of a range of technologies beyond conventional seismic, including satellite imaging, airborne sniffing, electromagnetic methods including seabed logging and enhanced seismic imaging, he added.
“We need new tools to integrate diverse data quickly. And we also need people with wide geological and geophysical understanding who are able to apply global knowledge locally,” Brinded said.
The Shell official said the world depends on the industry’s ability to sustain high levels of investment as the search for energy leads to increasingly challenging and technically demanding environments.
He said the global economy coped well with prices in the $40 or so range during 2004.
But at $60 and above there was an increasing risk that oil and gas demand would be hit by economic downturn and by costly substitution measures driven by both consuming government policy changes and consumer choice.
“If that happens, we could see significant downward pressure on prices emerge,” Brinded said.