A Changing Global Landscape's Effect on the U.S. Oil & Gas Industry

As Americans intensify the call for independence from foreign oil and amidst new advances in oil and gas extraction from sources—such as shale and oil sands, the U.S. oil and gas industry continues to play a vital role in the search for sustainable energy. Considering OPEC’s recent reluctance to increase production while the cost of fuel continues to rise domestically, oil and gas producers find themselves facing many of the challenges that the manufacturing and logistics industries know all too well—how do we produce more with fewer resources amid cost-cutting and global competition?

Maximizing Extraction Resources

As stated in “The Digital Oilfield” (Upstream Pumping Solutions, Winter 2011), “intelligent” pumping is quickly gaining traction as one piece of the puzzle when it comes to optimizing the extraction process. The heart of the solution is the variable frequency drive (VFD), enhanced with an embedded programmable controller. Through advanced optimization algorithms, well operation can be automated to the point that the drive continually adjusts pump speed based upon real-time data from the well itself. Such intelligent pumps show a return on investment (ROI) in a number of ways: