While the timeline for the transition is unclear, a number of jobs in the oil and gas sector that are currently being done by humans will, perhaps sooner than we think, pass to robots, according to the United States-based data and analytics-based company Global Data.
While Global Data is providing neither a timeline for the labour-displacing development, nor the likely extent to which robots will replace humans in the sector, or its impact, the company is predicting that the industry will arrive at a junction where the phenomenon will become “the oil and gas industry’s growth engine,” a circumstance which strongly suggests that the substitution of humans with robotized devices, will be an integral part of the operating strategy of at least some of the major oil companies, going forward. The issue is likely to be of some concern to oil-producing countries, particularly in developing countries, where the emergence of oil and gas sectors are regarded as the opening of doors on potentially lucrative jobs, even some that are relatively far down the scale of the emoluments food chain.
“The volume of robotics use cases in the oil and gas industry is expected to grow rapidly, in tow with digitalization,” Anson Fernandes, an oil and gas analyst at GlobalData is quoted as saying in a statement sent to the international oil and gas news resource entity, Rigzone. Down the road, Fernandes is quoted as saying, “Industrial robots with analytical support from digital technologies is expected to become the mainstay across the oil and gas industry. This, reportedly, will apply “especially in the upstream sector, where personnel safety and operational security concerns are heightened,” Fernandes is quoted as saying. The Global Data report names BP, Chevron, SINOPEC and Equinor as being among the “leading robotics adopters in the oil and gas industry” according to the Rigzone statement. Some of the leading robotics’ vendors in the oil and gas sector include Cognex, Cyberdyne, Estun Automation and FANUC, the report highlighted.
In a report sent to Rigzone early last year identifying themes that were “set to have the most influence” on the oil and gas sector in 2021, GlobalData highlighted, “tech themes such as robotics, industrial internet, artificial intelligence, big data, cloud computing, and cyber security.” Focus on the further robotizing of the oil and gas sector is likely to have its attention on the Houston, Texas-based Nabors Industries, a leading provider of advanced technology for the energy industry which has established highly regarded competencies in the creation of technology designed to deliver workable responses to the requirements of the energy sector. Nabors is also a provider of offshore platform rigs in the United States and in other international markets. In 2021 Nabors disclosed that the world’s first fully automated land drilling rig, created for ExxonMobil, had reached total depth on its first well.
