Educating in petroleum technologies with a glimpse into the future and answering some questions
Why are new technologies for oil extraction needed in the future?
Oil has always been said to have an expiration date, especially the oil found in conventional deposits, this is one of the other reasons why the oil industry is in a constant search for new technologies to exploit and produce in optimal times the greatest amount of hydrocarbons. The sustainability character, in which the current world energetic demand, the requirements in environmental character makes that new technologies that can answer to the adaptations of the new times are very demanded.
In what specific areas are new technologies required in the oil industry?
The drilling of oil wells is one of the areas that most demand new technologies, since the demands of oil production require that the geometric shape of the wells are less vertical and seek to have a more horizontal shape, this is because as the proofundity of the producing reservoir is increasingly extended, there will be greater ease of production. Horizontal drilling has already evolved even to extended drilling and will continue to evolve also to new techniques that can optimize the process in relation to be able to build wells in less time and with less investment expenditure.
Hydraulic fracturing is a technique of enhanced recovery of crude oil that requires the adoption of new technologies, since with current technologies hydraulic fracturing is unfeasible, since the chemicals used in the preparation of the fluids used in fracturing contaminate the aquifers making this technique unfeasible in the future for its application. The new technologies must contemplate a set of techniques and use of chemical additives in the preparation of the fluid for hydraulic fracturing that does not contaminate the aquifers in the subsoil.
There is a new technology that is already being applied today, and it is artificial intelligence, especially in what is the data collection, however there are more and more data and information that needs to be collected, so AI is small to meet all that demand, so that artificial intelligence in the future should provide storage mechanism with greater capacity.
In conclusion, many more questions may arise, which together with those already discussed in this post may lead us to the conclusion that current technologies must evolve so that the oil industry can be sustainable in the future and continue to respond to the energy demand of the future but without compromising our existence due to environmental pollution and the proliferation of global warming and climate change.