The past decade has been a tumultuous one for the oil and gas industry. Following a period of tremendous highs, the oil and gas industry saw both oil and gas prices sharply decrease. In the past two years, the oil and gas market has slowly begun to recover. Now the oil and gas industry is going to have to work to enter into a period of recovery, after which it will emerge stronger than ever. New technologies will be able to enable the oil and gas industry to continue to ramp up production in order to fulfill the needs of a growing market.
The Market Still Has Room to Recover
Oil and gas production has been increasing throughout the United States. As Saudi Arabia and other members of OPEC have pulled back on their cheap crude oil production, prices have been able to go up substantially. Just a couple of years ago the market hit under $40 per barrel. And while the market has started to reach $90 per barrel prices, this still offers a tremendous amount of room to grow. At its peak, crude oil was being purchased at $115 per barrel and there’s every reason to expect that it can achieve this again with time.
Technology Can Facilitate Growth
As prices per barrel decreased, oil and gas companies found it necessary to develop new and better technology. This technology was used to reduce overhead and therefore the per barrel costs, thereby still achieving revenue even in the wake of plummeting pries. This is the same technology that can now aid the oil and gas companies in the recovery. By streamlining operations and further improving upon technology, oil and gas companies will also be able to ramp up their production.
Going Digital With Wireless Sensors
One of the best examples of new oil field technology are the wireless sensors that can be used for the maintenance and repair of oil field equipment. These sensors can detect failing equipment and other maintenance problems. This reduces the need for additional oil field inspections, in addition to ensuring that equipment is repaired before it breaks down altogether. Other similar advances can include drones, which can fly over a site and detect issues from above. These drones will again reduce the need for regular human inspection, lowering expenses and improving profit margins.
Reducing Environmental Impact
Companies have also been hard at work reducing the environmental impact of their oil and gas drilling. With reduced regulations on the oil and gas market, companies are now freer to focus on the issues that they, as experts, truly believe impact the environment. In prior years, many oil and gas companies felt that the increased regulations and laws were created by legislators who did not understand the oil and gas market, and thus were driving up prices without creating a significant impact.
The outlook for the oil and gas market is now incredibly bright, but there’s still a lot of work to do. As technology further advances, it’s likely that the market will be able to both increase its revenues and even create more environmentally-friendly methods of oil and gas drilling. For now, even companies that are not able to invest in the most advanced technology can still invest in the powerful machines provided by Tiger General, LLC.