由于石油和天然气行业面临一系列挑战，该行业正在加倍重视技术开发和合作。

今年 2 月，在吉隆坡举行的国际石油技术会议 (IPTC)为期三天，能源领导人分享了对不断变化的能源格局中平衡、协作和创新必要性的见解。

马来西亚副总理兼能源转型及水资源转型部长法迪拉·尤索夫在开幕式上向观众表示，尽管可持续性、可靠性、可及性和公平性都是该行业的因素，但“获得负担得起的能源不是一种特权，而是一项权利”。

马来西亚国家石油公司总裁兼集团首席执行官丹斯里·东姑·陶菲克表示，随着能源的发现和分配方式以及世界能源消费方式的变化，该行业发现自己正处于不断变化的境况中。他说，随着世界和行业努力在向世界供应能源的同时保持可持续发展并关注气候变化，全球动态和地缘政治发挥着作用。

“我们正站在十字路口。尽管各大经济体的立场不同，但不断增长的能源需求与迫切的气候行动需求交织在一起，”他说。“前进的道路需要更多的合作，而不是分歧；需要政府、企业、学术界和整个行业之间的合作，这样我们才能分享我们的最佳实践并发掘创新解决方案。”

他说，满足这些需求需要“务实和协调的方法。我认为，没有哪家公司，也没有哪个国家，能够独自完全满足能源安全、可负担性和可持续性的要求。只有通过合作和集体的实际努力，我们才能实现公正、协调和公平的转型，丰富生活，保护环境，同时为子孙后代带来持久的价值。”

马来西亚国家石油公司宣布将在 IPTC 期间与各公司签署五份谅解备忘录。

马来西亚国家石油公司上游业务执行副总裁兼首席执行官 Mohd Jukris Abdul Wahab 在首席执行官对话会上表示，合作的性质似乎正在从服务提供商和客户之间的合作演变为双方拥有共同目标的“不同形式的合作”。

事实上，他说，合作必须扩大到包括监管机构、服务业和运营商在内的多方，各方必须齐心协力。“推动这件事情不是一个人或一家公司的工作。开放更多合作、建立信任并拥有共同目标才是正确做法。”

他说，在科技领域，数字化转型将成为推动马来西亚国家石油公司前进的主要动力。“数字化进步的创新实际上帮助我们使这些企业更加可行。”

SLB 首席执行官 Olivier Le Peuch 在同一会议上表示，数字化运营和人工智能 (AI) 能力将成为该行业的关键技术。

他说，它们有潜力改变这个行业的运作方式，并有助于解锁“我们所有人都拥有的巨大数据湖，跨资产的地下和地面数据。因此，如果我们作为一个行业做到这一点，我们就可以改变这个行业。”

尽管行业可能会发生变化，但预计石油生产将继续进行，因此污染恢复至关重要。他说：“石油将继续存在，需要支持以提高产量、降低电力成本和减少碳排放。”

寻找石油

谈到提高产量，沙特阿美西部地区和战略勘探总监 Khalid Rufaii 在关于勘探未来的小组讨论中表示，该行业需要更好地从已发现的石油中开采出更多石油。他说，目前通常只能采收 35% 至 45% 的石油。

他说：“超过 50% 的资源仍留在地下，需要开采。”

与此同时，她表示，石油不应受到可再生或非常规能源的威胁。“不要把它们看作与石油和天然气勘探的竞争，而是对我们的努力的补充，”鲁法伊说。

他以非常规石油为例。他说，用于开采非常规储量的技术（例如水平井和水力压裂）也能够加速常规勘探和生产。“我们所有人都以某种方式相互补充。”

Viridien 首席执行官 Sophie Zurquiyah 在同一小组讨论中指出，她看到人们关注更高端的技术，这些技术能够更快、更好地了解地下，有助于缩短勘探周期。

“我们的想法是能够缩短周期时间”，特别是因为该行业需要比十年前更快地开采碳氢化合物，她说。“你需要更有效率；你需要更快地开采出这些油桶。而为了快速开采它们，你需要更好地了解这种物质。”

她说，这就是为什么地球物理和地球科学数据的获取和解释技术取得了如此多的重大进展。她说，这些进展包括海底节点勘测和使用人工智能绘制地下地图。

马来西亚国家石油公司勘探地球科学解决方案高级总经理 Mohamad Rizam Sarif 表示，勘探的成功源于地球科学和工程专业知识的结合。

他说，从一开始就将这些团队整合在一起“让我们的思想统一起来”，并使我们能够以“探索开发而不是探索发现”的心态来对待野猫钻井。从一开始就进行整合使我们能够实现“探索目标和开发目标，因为这又是为了赚钱”。

与此同时，萨里夫承认，一些勘探工作最好与合作伙伴一起进行。例如，他说合作是勘探边境地区的关键，因为它有助于分摊风险和成本。

道达尔能源公司负责欧洲、中东、北非和亚洲勘探业务的副总裁 Amine Soudani 同意合作对于边境地区非常重要，并列举了道达尔能源公司和马来西亚国家石油公司在开拓巴布亚新几内亚作为边境地区的勘探工作中的合作。

他说：“这是一个边境地区，实际上，这里事关重大。”

他还指出，每个盆地在开始生产之前，都是从一个边界开始的。

他说，在边境地区进行勘探确实存在“先来者风险”，无论是巴布亚新几内亚，还是道达尔能源公司发现但未能将其货币化的南非。

他说，由于运营商获得的勘探资金越来越少，他们对钻头的钻进地点也越来越挑剔。不过，他补充说，政府的可预测性可能会有所帮助，特别是在边境地区。

生产石油

专家在推动油田开发前沿的小组讨论中表示，虽然推动过去的技术创新可以实现油田开发项目，但有时需要创造所需的技术。

中国海洋石油总公司副总裁孙福杰指出，该公司在JZ25-1W油田应用的海底生产系统、在流花11-1油田应用的圆柱形浮式生产储卸船，以及在陵水36-1油田实施的提高采收率计划，都是通过技术创新实现的项目。

他称，该油田海床下约30米水深的水下生产系统是“在受限区域实现高效、经济开发油气的新解决方案”。他指出，在流花11-1油田，圆柱形的“海葵1号” FPSO是第一台在亚洲近海安装的此类装置，目前正在用于深水油田的二次开发。

中海油还依赖数字和人工智能技术。他说，过去 40 年来，运营商收集了每个油田的勘探与生产数据，现在还能够利用实时钻井和生产数据，这些数据可用于更好地了解地下和生产性能。这些工具可以帮助“提高效率和准确性”。

马来西亚国家石油公司上游开发副总裁 Hazli Sham Kassim 表示，他面临的挑战之一是更快地交付项目，有时只需过去项目所需时间的一半。在采购和物流方面，重点是更快、更经济地完成工作，他说。

“我们如何利用技术帮助我们更快更好地完成项目？对我来说，我们实现这一目标的方式是通过与合作伙伴合作，”他说。

OneSubsea 销售和商业区域总监董宏坤表示，风险与回报共担的合作有助于将海底压缩等技术引入该行业。

“我们能不能做得更快一些？更快意味着更经济。更快就是更好。”他说。

他表示，通过战略性地使用技术、建立伙伴关系和协作，土耳其近海的一处天然气田从发现到首次投产仅用了 30 个月的时间，并计划将项目工期缩短一半。

壳牌马来西亚上游业务机会经理 Khoo Choo Beng 表示，开发项目有时需要更多时间，而不是更少。这家超级巨头的 Rosemari-Marjoram 深水开发项目是马来西亚海上最长的海底酸性天然气管道，该项目的设计产量为 800 MMcf/D。这也是壳牌在马来西亚的第一个高 H ₂ S 项目，它将带来附近的回接机会。

他说道：“这是工程师梦想的游乐场，因为在一个集成开发中，我们拥有你能找到的所有工具包和技术，并且将它们全部应用到一个项目中。”

该项目于 2014 年被发现，于 2021 年进入前端工程和设计阶段，并于 2022 年 9 月做出最终投资决定。该平台于 2024 年 10 月安装，预计 2026 年产出第一批天然气。

“我们实际上花了大约 7 年时间，与我的同事所说的有点相反，速度更快，成本更低，” Beng 说道，并指出由于气体中 H2S 含量_高，壳牌必须重新开始设计。

贝克休斯亚太区油田服务和设备副总裁庄野表示，有助于油田开发的一件事是将解决方案提供商纳入项目的最早规划阶段。

她说：“必须从规划阶段、开始阶段、工程阶段开始，才能找到适合目的的技术和解决方案。”

她还表示，数字技术正在推动行业运营方式的变革，特别是在自主运营、远程监控和运营、资产健康和监控、减排、预测运营和变革管理方面。“毫无疑问，它将有助于提高效率。”

边际和棕地焦点

Medco Energi 海上项目交付高级经理 Sunu Broto Wusono 在一次棕地小组讨论会上表示，边际油田面临的挑战包括储量较低但资本支出和运营支出较高、与现有设施距离较远以及定价和需求的不确定性，而生产许可证即将到期，所有这些都可能使问题变得复杂。

例如，Medco 持有的一份产量分成合同将于 2028 年到期，该公司选择加快开发无人系统，使用轻量级平台设计和简化处理设施来获取边际油田的储量。他说，这种方法“节省了大量时间”，使 Medco 能够按时完成项目。

由于大量化石燃料产量来自现有油田，因此在关于通过创新和最佳实践最大限度发挥棕地潜力的小组讨论中，成熟资产成为了焦点。

哈里伯顿亚太区高级副总裁马丁怀特指出，全球约四分之三的石油产量来自成熟油田，尽管采收率可能还达不到50%。

他说：“我们越能最大限度地回收棕地，我们就能为全球系统增加更多的石油。”随着能源需求的增长，该行业将需要增加供应以满足这种需求。

“最容易找到石油的地方就是我们已经知道的地方，”怀特说。

最大限度地提高棕地石油产量首先要从数据开始，但也需要技术创新和最佳实践。“我们可以从油藏到加油站的每个步骤中获取数据。我们可以跟踪这些数据，对其进行建模，并降低风险，”他说。

Expro 亚太区副总裁 Mrinal Vohra 呼吁采取整体方法来最大限度地提高棕地产量，这种方法结合了油井、油藏和设施管理 (WRFM)。他说，WRFM 框架可以将各种学科结合在一起，以保持生产持续进行。

“我发现大多数操作员甚至不知道平台上歧管内发生了什么，”他说道，“你获取信息，对其进行诊断，将其放入模型中，然后制定计划决策，无论是否要干预水库设施，然后对资产执行该操作”，然后循环继续。

他说，虽然没有灵丹妙药，但整体方法可以识别和解决实现最佳生产的因素。

Dialog Group Berhad 首席运营官 Keith Collins 表示，棕地具有很高的潜力，尤其是当像他们这样的二级所有者将新技术应用于成熟油田时。

他说，有时，油田在前任所有者的管理下被忽视，因此二级所有者会对这些资产采用不同类型的思维方式。“看看运营标准和程序，并让人们以不同的心态参与其中。这在很大程度上与组织的心态有关。”

他说，在稳定阶段，重点是优化运营支出、修复优先项目和提高产量。提高产量的一部分是挖掘现有数据以获得新见解并纠正过去的潜在误解。柯林斯说，错误有时会因时间压力而悄悄出现，然后继续“固着”，而不是得到纠正。“它会继续显现出来。”

他说，定期回顾并查看数据，甚至每 5 至 8 年重新处理一次地震数据都是有意义的。他补充说，如果你首先了解现有数据，就没有必要花大价钱获取新数据。

SLB 亚洲生产系统副总裁 Mohamed Aly Sadek 表示，了解数据并利用数据了解设备和设施性能至关重要。由于技术创新必须经过测试，运营商才愿意在其油田中部署该技术，因此棕地通常是此类试验的目标。

他说：“棕地是一种非常著名的环境”，可以在受控环境中测试技术。“总体而言，棕地是一个极好的试验场”，尽管我们需要记住，它们可能会出现自己的问题。

萨迪克说，他的一位同事经常说，今天的绿地就是未来的棕地。但他表示，要想在未来取得成功，该行业需要确保其所学的东西能够作为今天绿地开发的一部分延续下去。

As the oil and gas industry faces a host of challenges, it is doubling down on technology development and collaboration.

Across the 3 days of the International Petroleum Technology Conference (IPTC) in Kuala Lumpur in February, energy leaders shared their insights on the need for balance, collaboration, and innovation in the evolving energy landscape.

Fadillah Yusof, Malaysia’s deputy prime minister and minister of energy transition and water transformation, told an opening ceremony audience that even as sustainability, reliability, accessibility, and equity are factors in the industry, “access to affordable energy is not a privilege but a right.”

Petronas President and Group CEO Tan Sri Tengku Taufik said the industry finds itself in changing circumstances with shifts in how energy is discovered and distributed, as well as how the world consumes it. Global dynamics and geopolitics play a role as the world and industry strive to balance supplying energy to the world while being sustainable and mindful of climate change, he said.

“We stand at a crossroads. Rising energy demands intersect with the urgent need for climate action, even as positions taken by major economies diverged,” he said. “The path forward calls for more collaboration, rather than divergence; cooperation between governments, businesses, academia, and the industry at large, so we can all share our best practices and unearth innovative solutions.”

He said that meeting such demands requires "a pragmatic and coordinated approach. No single company, I would also argue no single country, can fully address the requirements for energy security, affordability, and sustainability, and do so alone. It is only through collaboration and collective practical effort that we can achieve a just, coordinated, and equitable transition that enriches lives and protects the environment but still delivers lasting value for future generations.”

Petronas announced intentions to sign five memoranda of understanding with various companies during IPTC.

Mohd Jukris Abdul Wahab, executive vice president and CEO, Upstream for Petronas, said during the CEO Dialogue that the nature of collaborations seems to be evolving from that of service provider and client to “collaboration in a different form” where both parties share a common goal.

In fact, he said, collaboration must extend to include multiple shareholders, including regulators, the service sector, and the operators, with all parties coming together in a focused effort. “This is not one person or one company’s job to drive this thing. Opening up more for collaboration, creating the trust, and having a shared goal is the way to go.”

And in the world of technology, digital transformation will be a major driver for how Petronas moves forward, he said. “The innovation of digital advancement actually helped us to make these ventures a lot more viable.”

Speaking during the same session, SLB CEO Olivier Le Peuch said digital operations and artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities will be crucial technologies for the industry.

They have, he said, the potential to transform the way the industry works and can help unlock “the huge data lakes that all of us have, subsurface and surface data that are across assets. So if we do that as an industry, we can change the industry.”

And while the industry may change, the expectation is that oil production will continue, making pollution recovery important. “Oil is here to stay and needs support for enhancing production, reducing the electricity cost, and reducing the carbon,” he said.

Finding Oil

When it comes to enhancing production, Khalid Rufaii, director for Saudi Aramco’s western area and strategic exploration, said during a panel on the future of exploration that the industry needs to become better at extracting more from the oil it has already found. Currently, He said, it’s typical to only recover between 35 and 45% of the oil in place.

“Over 50% remains in the subsurface and needs to be extracted,” he said.

At the same time, she said, oil shouldn’t be threatened by renewable or unconventional energy sources. “I don't look at those as competing with oil and gas exploration, but rather complementing our effort,” Rufaii said.

He cited unconventional oil as a case in point. Techniques used to exploit unconventional reserves such as horizontal wells and hydraulic fracturing were able to accelerate conventional exploration and production as well, he said. “All of us complement each other in one way or another.”

Viridien CEO Sophie Zurquiyah, speaking on the same panel, noted that she has seen a focus on higher-end technologies that enable faster and better understanding of the subsurface, helping to shorten the exploration cycle.

“The idea is to be able to shorten the cycle time,” particularly since the industry needs to unlock hydrocarbons faster than even a decade ago, she said. “You need to be more efficient; you need to get those barrels out quicker. And to get them out quickly, you need a better understanding of the substance.”

She said that’s why there have been so many significant advances in acquisition and interpretation technologies for geophysics and geoscience data. Among these are ocean bottom node surveys and the use of AI to map the subsurface, she said.

Mohamad Rizam Sarif, senior general manager for geoscience solutions, exploration at Petronas, said that success in exploration comes from combining geoscience and engineering expertise.

Combining those teams at the outset “gets our minds together” and makes it possible to approach a wildcat with the mindset of “explore to develop versus explore to find,” he said. Integration from the outset makes it possible to meet “both exploration objectives and also development objectives, because, again, it's about making money.”

At the same time, Sarif acknowledged that some exploration work is best taken on with partners. For example, he said collaboration is key for exploring frontier areas because it helps to spread out risk and costs.

Amine Soudani, TotalEnergies’ VP for exploration in Europe, Middle East, North Africa, and Asia, agreed that collaboration is important for frontier areas and cited the cooperation between TotalEnergies and Petronas in exploration efforts to open up Papua New Guinea as a frontier.

“This is a frontier area where, actually, what is at stake is material,” he said.

He also noted that every basin, before it begins production, starts as a frontier.

Exploring in a frontier area, whether it’s PNG, or in South Africa where TotalEnergies discovered but couldn’t monetize gas, does carry “first-comer risk,” he said.

And as operators have access to less capital for exploration, they are becoming choosier about where they spin the drill bit, he said. What could help, though, is predictability from governments, particularly in frontier regions, he added.

Producing Oil

While pushing technology innovations of the past can make possible a field development project, sometimes the tech required needs to be created, experts said during a panel on pushing the frontiers of field development.

Sun Fujie, vice president at China National Offshore Oil Corp. (CNOOC), pointed to the use of sub-seabed production systems in use at the company’s JZ25-1W field, the cylindrical floating production, storage, and offloading vessel in use at Liuhua 11-1, and the enhanced oil recovery program in place at its Lingshui 36-1 field as projects made possible through technology innovations.

He called the subsea production system under the seabed in the field in about 30 m water depth a “new solution for efficient and economic oil and gas development in restricted areas.” And at the Liuhua 11-1 oil field, the cylindrical Haikui-1 FPSO is the first such unit to be installed offshore Asia and is being used for secondary development of the deepwater field, he noted.

CNOOC is also relying on digital and AI technology. He said the operator has collected E&P data for every oil field for the past 40 years and is now also able to take advantage of real-time drilling and production data, which can be used to better understand subsurface and production performance. The tools can help “enhance efficiency and accuracy.”

Hazli Sham Kassim, VP for upstream development at Petronas, said one of the challenges he faces is delivering projects more quickly—sometimes in half the time that a project of yesteryear may have required. On the procurement and logistics side, there’s a focus on doing things faster and more cost effectively, he said.

“How do we use the technology to help us to deliver the project faster and better? And to me, the way we achieve that is by collaborating with partners,” he said.

Hongkun Dong, sales and commercial regional director for OneSubsea, said collaboration that enables a share of risk and rewards have helped bring technologies like subsea compression into the industry.

“Can we do it faster? Faster means more economical. Better is faster,” he said.

Through strategic use of technology, partnerships, and collaboration, it was possible to bring a gas field from discovery to first production in 30 months offshore Turkey, he said, adding there are ambitions to halve project schedules.

Khoo Choo Beng, business opportunity manager for Shell Malaysia Upstream, said developing projects sometimes requires more time, not less. The supermajor’s Rosemari-Marjoram deepwater development is the longest subsea sour gas pipeline offshore Malaysia, and the project is designed to produce 800 MMcf/D. It is also Shell’s first high-H₂S project in Malaysia, and it will enable nearby tieback opportunities.

“It’s an engineer’s dream playground because in a single integrated development, we have every kit and technology that you can find that is all into a single project,” he said.

Discovered in 2014, the project went to front-end engineering and design in 2021 and reached final investment decision in September 2022. The platform was installed in October 2024 and first gas is expected in 2026.

“We actually took about 7 years, a bit contrary to what my colleagues say, faster and cheaper,” Beng said, noting Shell had to go back to the drawing board because of the high H₂S content of the gas.

Zhuang Ye, VP for oilfield services and equipment, Asia Pacific, at Baker Hughes, said one thing that can help with field development is incorporating solutions providers into the earliest planning stages for a project.

“It has to start at the planning stage, the beginning stage, the engineering stage, to come up with the technology and solution that is fit for purpose,” she said.

She also said digital technologies are driving change in the way the industry operates, particularly around autonomous operations, remote monitoring and operations, asset health and monitoring, emissions abatement, predictive operations, and change management. “It will help to increase the efficiency, no doubt.”

Marginal and Brownfield Focus

Sunu Broto Wusono, senior manager for project delivery offshore at Medco Energi, said during a brownfield panel that marginal fields present challenges such as lower reserves but higher capex and opex, distance from existing facilities, and uncertainty around pricing and demand, all of which can be complicated by the looming expiration of a production license.

In one instance where Medco holds a production sharing contract set to expire in 2028, the company opted to fast-track the development of an unmanned system using a lightweight platform design and a simplified processing facility to access reserves at the marginal field. The approach “saved a lot of time” and allowed Medco to meet its schedule for the project, he said.

Because so much fossil fuel production comes from existing fields, mature assets took center stage during a panel on maximizing brownfield potential through innovation and best practices.

Martin White, Halliburton’s senior vice president for Asia Pacific, noted that about three-quarters of oil produced around the world originates from mature fields, although recovery factors may not even reach 50%.

“The more we can do to maximize recovery from brownfields, the more barrels we can add to the global system,” he said. And as energy demand grows, the industry will need to grow supply to meet that demand.

“The easiest oil to find is where we already know it is,” White said.

Maximizing oil production from brownfields starts with data but also requires technological innovations and best practices. “We can take data from every step of the process from the reservoir to the petrol pump. We can track that data, and we can model it, and we can de-risk it,” he said.

Mrinal Vohra, vice president, APAC at Expro, called for a holistic approach to maximizing brownfield production, one that incorporates well, reservoir, and facility management (WRFM). The WRFM framework can bring various disciplines together to keep production going, he said.

“Most operators that I found are not even aware of what’s going on within their manifold on a platform,” he said. “You take the information, you diagnose it, you put it into a model, you then make plan decisions, whether you’re going to intervene with reservoir facilities, and then you go and execute that on the asset” and the cycle continues.

He said there is no magic silver bullet, but a holistic approach can make it possible to identify and address the factors that enable optimal production.

Dialog Group Berhad Chief Operating Officer Keith Collins said the potential of brownfields is high, especially when secondary owners such as themselves apply new technology to a mature field.

He said that sometimes, fields have been neglected under previous owners, so secondary owners apply a different type of thinking to the assets. “We look at the operating standards and procedures and … get people involved in a different mindset. A lot of this is about the mindset of the organization.”

During the stabilization phase, the focus is on optimizing opex, repairing priority items, and enhancing production, he said. Part of enhancing production is mining existing data for new insights and correcting potential misinterpretations of the past. Collins said errors sometimes creep in due to time pressure and then remain “hardwired in” rather than being corrected. “It continues to manifest itself.”

Stepping back and looking at data periodically and even reprocessing seismic data every 5 to 8 years makes sense, he said. It’s also not necessary to spend a fortune on new data, he added, if you first understand the existing data.

Mohamed Aly Sadek, vice president production systems at SLB in Asia, said it’s critical to understand data and use that to understand equipment and facility performance. And because technological innovations must be tested before operators are willing to deploy the tech in their fields, brownfields are often a target for such trials.

“Brownfields are a very well-known environment” that make it possible to test technology in a controlled environment, he said. “Overall, brownfields are an excellent testing ground” although it’s important to remember that they may present their own issues.

Sadek said one of his colleagues frequently says the greenfields of today are the brownfields of the future. But to be successful in the future, he said, the industry needs to make sure what it learns is carried over as part of the development of the greenfields of today.