Oil majors are adapting technologies developed in in the offshore industry to the US shale business as the next wave of efficiency improvements come more from the traditional industry heavyweights than the smaller companies that developed horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing over the past decade. Automation and digitisation are being exploited to bring more wells to production at lower cost. Emerson Electric has an initiative called iShale that is using technology from companies including subsea specialist TechnipFMC that separates fracking sand from oil, and well-control software from Shell. It is also making lower-cost versions of the sensors that it uses in challenging offshore environments.
Oil majors are adapting technologies developed in in the offshore industry to the US shale business as the next wave of efficiency improvements come more from the traditional industry heavyweights than the smaller companies that developed horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing over the past decade. Automation and digitisation are being exploited to bring more wells to production at lower cost. Shell has an initiative called iShale that is using technology from companies including subsea specialist TechnipFMC that separates fracking sand from oil, and well-control software from Emerson Electric. It is also making lower-cost versions of the sensors that it uses in challenging offshore environments.