According to Wikipedia, in the 2003 movie Lost in Translation, the director, Sofia Coppola, explores themes of alienation and disconnection against a backdrop of cultural displacement. In a more general (although not a literal) sense, the expression may also be used to say that something doesn’t sound as good when told in a different way, setting, or language.

I feel that something must have gotten lost when I listen to some of my colleagues’ fears about the energy transition and digitalization transition. I believe that while the rate of change will accelerate, we’ll likely lose very little of true value in this transition and are more likely to find a variety of incremental opportunities, especially for members of the Production and Facilities community.

World energy demand continues to rise and is driven by

Some SPE members seem overly concerned about the projected decline in the oil and gas market share instead of the projected demand in exajoules, quads, BBOE/D, etc. Lost in this transition discussion is that the demand for oil and especially gas is still increasing and is likely to do so for quite some time, especially if we can make rapid progress with decarbonization and CCS/CCUS.

Given the stated policies of consumer countries, the International Energy Agency (IEA) predicts that oil production won’t plateau until 2030 and gas production will continue to increase all the way through to 2050—a staggering 50% increase from current production levels.

Maybe I am looking in the wrong places, but it appears to me that by focusing too strongly on the horizon we may have lost

By adding energy transition to the value creation and energy equity expectations of our industry, we are finding new business opportunities. However, many of these depend on innovation on technologies about which many of us currently know very little.

The cultural changes required to keep safety risks and environmental impacts as low as reasonably possible (ALARP) have been steadily gaining momentum over the past 50 years. Nevertheless, it has been a long and tortuous path to recognize the importance of human factors.

The Santa Barbara Channel (1969) and Bay Marchand (1970) blowouts had a profound impact on many of us baby boomers in much the same way as other disasters have affected subsequent generations, such as:

We have learned that it is insufficient to say or think “Not on my watch” because we may not be involved or watching at the time a series of ill-considered or imprudent decisions were made. Nor is it adequate to require everyone working in the field to attend an offshore survival or defensive driving course and hazard identification training.

We now accept that health, safety, environment, and sustainability are everyone’s individual and collective responsibility. Incorporating these operational and process safety philosophies into fully automated autonomous systems that will operate with minimal operator involvement continues to be an intellectually challenging design issue. It is, therefore, very exciting to see the SPE Human Factors Technical Section recently agreeing a memorandum of understanding with the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society to allow us to draw on the lessons learnt in other industries.

Similarly, work on many of the components of what we now term as sustainability started around the turn of the century after the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published its first two assessments. Significant momentum was added when IPCC received the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize "for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change."

To strengthen and retain their social license to operate, many in our industry, including SPE, elevated the profile of both sustainability and its cross-functional components. To facilitate the sharing of knowledge, experience, and action plans, SPE now has four technical sections and a newly established discussion group.

In thinking of sustainability as the key driver for the energy transition, one of the aspects that is sometimes lost is that there is a total of 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals.

This more or less brings us back to the start of this article. This is a great time to be working as an engineer, scientist, or economist in the oil and gas industry. (Oh, to be a YP instead of a SP!).

However, should you still be feeling a little threatened by advancing automation, take comfort in the fact that most of these grand sustainability challenges will need to be addressed by graduates from science, technology, engineering, and mathematics programs with the assistance of economists and teachers. So, there are bound to be lots of career opportunities both within and outside our industry.

The Journal of Petroleum Technology, the Society of Petroleum Engineers’ flagship magazine, presents authoritative briefs and features on technology advancements in exploration and production, oil and gas industry issues, and news about SPE and its members.

ISSN: 1944-978X (Online) ISSN: 0149-2136 (Print)