The last drop

With surging global demand for oil and gas, the industry is one of the fastest growing markets for process automation.

The need for high levels of safety and low operational costs, especially where reserves are becoming exhausted and hydrocarbons are expensive to extract, means installing low-maintenance, reliable systems is key to ensuring fields such as those in the North Sea can be exploited to their maximum ability.

'In the UK offshore industry there is a trend for large players such as BP to sell their assets to smaller companies such as Venture Production that are moving in for a mopping-up exercise to get the last of the oil out,' said Richard Sturt, business unit manager at

. 'Everything must be highly cost-effective as the margins are narrow in these areas. Control systems must be fit for purpose as many projects are on very tight budgets despite high oil prices.'

Nick Laming, senior vice-president, process automation at