Beyond the boundary

Conventional fuels will continue to supply the lion's share of the world's energy needs for decades to come. But these resources are becoming harder to find and develop, forcing producers into ever deeper waters and more hostile environments. Continuous technological progress is essential to allow them to enter these new environments.

Technology is also enabling them to produce more from what they have already discovered, leading to significant improvements in recovery rates from existing oil reservoirs.

For example, the history of

Prudhoe Bay operation over a period of 30 years, advances in the application of horizontal drilling, coiled tubing drilling, miscible gas injection and other technologies have driven the original estimate of 40 per cent oil recovery up to 60 per cent. And that output will continue to increase in the future.

New deep reservoir investigation techniques will increasingly give BP the ability to track oil, gas and water underground. Oil fields will one day become a digital virtual reality, allowing it to evaluate far more accurately where oil is left in the reservoir and how to extract it.