Great Ideas in Energy
Nov 8, 2012
Use automation to improve drilling efficiency and safety
For 20 years, Eric van Oort worked at companies like Shell, seeing the struggle of oil and gas companies to meet their safety goal of zero people hurt on the job. Now a UT petroleum engineering professor, van Oort saw a solution: automate drilling.
“Drilling is potentially dangerous, with rig staff and heavy machinery operating in the same tight space,” he says. “So why not let machines do the hazardous work?”
“The oil industry is known for being conservative, but it’s changing rapidly, and for the better,” he says. “This is the future.”— Rose Cahalan