In this article, Gaurav Agrawal of the SPE Research and Development Technical Section (RDTS) spoke with David Reid of NOV, a global oilfield services provider and technology developer.
This series highlights innovative ideas and analysis shaping the future of energy, with a focus on emerging technologies and their roadmaps, potential, and impact. With these conversations, we hope to inspire dialogue and accelerate progress across new energy frontiers.
David Reid is the chief technology officer (CTO) and chief marketing officer (CMO) of NOV, where he plays a key role in driving the company’s global innovation and brand strategy. With a career spanning over 3 decades in the energy sector, Reid has been instrumental in advancing NOV’s technology portfolio and positioning the company at the forefront of industry transformation.
As a thought leader, he has led numerous initiatives focused on integration, digitalization, automation, and sustainable energy solutions, ensuring NOV remains a pioneer in energy technology. His expertise spans product development, corporate strategy, and storytelling, making complex industrial challenges more accessible to diverse audiences.
Beyond his role at NOV, Reid is deeply committed to humanitarian causes. He is actively involved in redM, a nonprofit organization dedicated to combating human trafficking by raising awareness and mobilizing action. His leadership in redM reflects his passion for social impact, leveraging technology and storytelling to inspire change. A frequent speaker at global conferences, Reid brings a unique perspective on the intersection of energy, technology, and human empowerment. He continues to drive innovation while advocating for a future that is both technologically advanced and socially responsible.
RDTS: You have a unique perspective with over 30 years in the energy industry and have been a witness to various technology roadmaps unfolding while also driving change as a technology agent yourself. How has the automation evolution impacted oil and gas applications?
Reid: The evolution of automation in oil and gas—particularly in drilling—has been a long and fascinating journey. It started as far back as 1965, with a visionary SPE paper from Smedvig (now Seadrill) that proposed mechanization to remove people from the rig floor to increase safety and speed. The reality took longer to deliver, but that vision sparked decades of innovation. We went from simple mechanization with BJ Machinery’s Type V racking machines to highly intelligent systems that now outperform manual operations in safety, efficiency, capability, and speed.
Today, we’re starting to see industrial robots take over all remaining rig floor tasks and systems that can learn from real-time data that reaches into the well itself. Automation has moved from theory to necessity—especially in harsh, high-cost environments like deepwater or low-cost repetitive shale drilling—changing how we design, operate, and maintain rigs.
RTDS: Directional drilling was relatively new 30 years ago. Both drilling and the drilling rig have improved considerably in functionality and complexity. Could you highlight the step changes in the rig design and technology?
Reid: One of the biggest shifts started in the 1990s, particularly in Norway, where pipe-handling systems were fully mechanized from the pipe deck into the floor to manage tubulars up to 20-in.‑diameter. That was groundbreaking and became the blueprint for modern mechanized rig systems.
The late 1990s deepwater boom demanded even more innovation—manual handling wasn’t an option with the volumes of pipe we were moving offshore. Around the same time, high-tech control systems were introduced, including remote capabilities first demonstrated by Hitec (now part of NOV) at the Offshore Northern Seas Conference in Stavanger in 1994. That was another major moment as it hinted at a future where operations could be managed remotely.
In 1998, a big step in drillstring control emerged with fine automated drilling control of the inputs based on optimal parameter adjustment in concert with the emergence and proliferation of plate disk brake control on drawworks and the use of AC motors in the system.
The next step in directional automation began with dysfunctional responses to well conditions like stick/slip and then evolved to automated mud pulse management, allowing the feedback and input to be managed off the rig.
Today, remote directional is a feasible norm, and the final tools for directional automation are being developed and tested in the field. The introduction of broadband downhole connectivity with wired drillpipe has been growing over 20 years, providing a nirvana of data flow between the surface, complete wellbore, and string measurements.
Now you see most functions on a rig being automated with managed pressure drilling, completions, and wireline all starting to show signs of automation process and controls. Rigs are integrated platforms of digital control systems, networked intelligence, and increasingly autonomous robots and downhole commands, with artificial intelligence (AI) prediction being advanced to autonomous systems of control and full process automation. At NOV, we have now operated our test rig for a few years without a driller’s cabin on the floor at all, and clearing the floor is becoming feasible.
RTDS: How has this automation impacted the staffing, performance, safety, and other similar KPIs?
Reid: The shift has been profound. Initially, people thought automation would just make things faster and cheaper, but what it truly revolutionized was safety and predictability. In reality, speed and cost took the wrong turn, but the value in many applications still facilitated adoption, and the speed and removal of people is a very current activity.
Automated pipe handling and mechanized drill floors removed people from high-risk zones. We also eliminated a lot of performance inconsistency—automation doesn’t fatigue or get distracted. From a key performance indicator standpoint, we’ve seen stronger uptime, more consistent drilling parameters, fewer injuries, and higher well quality. The rigs are smarter, and they’re getting smarter every year. Removing personnel and reducing the price point is really seeing a return to the forefront with the implementation of less customization and more use of justifiable industrial robotics.
RTDS: Material handling has long been one of the highest-risk activities on a rig. How has automation in this sub-area improved safety and efficiency, and what’s next for this space?
Reid: Material handling was one of the first areas to get attention, especially in Norway in the mid‑1990s, where they fully mechanized large pipe handling.
That changed everything. Manual work with heavy tubulars was one of the riskiest parts of rig operations. Today, robots and hydraulic arms do that job with precision, speed, and safety. We’re now moving into predictive systems where sensors and AI can anticipate movement, automate storage and retrieval, and even flag unsafe behavior before it happens. We have a rapidly evolving frontier on our hands.
RDTS: Controls and visualization are key to managing increasingly complex rig systems. How have advances in this area empowered operators and improved rig performance?
Reid: In 1994, we saw remote control systems demonstrated publicly in Stavanger, but it’s only recently that we’ve begun realizing that potential.
The leap has come from connecting downhole data with surface automation in real time, so instead of reacting to dysfunction, systems now can predict and prevent it.
Visualization tools today offer layered diagnostics, intuitive control interfaces, and predictive insights. We’ve gone from operator-driven rigs to system-assisted, and now we’re heading toward system-driven rigs with operator oversight.
RDTS: NOV has a broad and diverse manufacturing footprint. The fiberglass division is distinctive from other oil and gas verticals. How have robotics and automation influenced your manufacturing?
Reid: The materials and processes require tight tolerances in most of our manufacturing processes. When we produce long strings of reeled fiberglass pipe, automation becomes essential.
Like drilling rigs, it’s the highly repetitive tasks that get mechanized and then automated. Robotics has allowed us to automate repetitive, high-precision tasks, resulting in consistent quality and reduced waste in many of our manufacturing plants.
We do have a highly customized nonmetallic shape-forming system that involved converting a workshop crane into a sophisticated cutting machine for large shapes. It has been used to create fast construction bridges over railway lines in large, easy-to-install, lightweight structures.
Across our manufacturing network, automation has meant faster ramp-up times, better repeatability, and improved worker safety. And it’s not just machines—we’re using data to optimize the entire manufacturing chain, from raw materials to final inspection. We have a commercial business that helps non-NOV plants improve their performance with digitized smart systems.
We have often operated in countries and states where the use of automated processes can be replicated and costs managed to make the global supply network very feasible, close to the markets we serve.
RDTS: In your opinion, has software development kept pace with robotics or other machinery development? What are the unique challenges in enabling software development for automation?
Reid: Software has often lagged behind mechanical innovation, particularly because it’s invisible until it fails. The real challenge is interoperability—integrating legacy systems with modern platforms. And because software interacts with live operations, it has to be rock solid. We’re now designing software with modularity in mind, making it easier to adapt and evolve. But we still need more collaborative ecosystems across the industry to truly unlock automation’s full potential.
Inside NOV, our Max platform facilitated every system within our vast ecosystem of acquired companies to communicate and share data. The secret for us was to translate many forms of code rather than ask everyone to adapt their code to one standard. It has gone very well, and we have a highly interoperable system of data and a powerful base of edge computing that operates in a remote cloud-like fashion.
RDTS: To progress automation and maintain a leading edge, what have been the change management and employee reskilling challenges? How has NOV addressed them, and what have the learnings been?
Reid: It’s never just about the tech—it’s about the people. We’ve learned that early engagement is key.
Employees need to see how the technology helps them, not replaces them. We’ve invested in training programs, simulator-based learning, and digital academies. The key lesson? When you invite people into the process, they innovate with you. Our field teams have helped shape many of our most successful tools.
RDTS: How often do you use AI tools like ChatGPT or Perplexity in your work?
Reid: We have used AI in our data science for over 20 years now. The latest generation of generative AI has everyone buzzing with opportunities. We took a sample of employees from across the board and tested a few systems.
Not all were ready for what we needed, but we have found a path where many are reporting large cost reductions and savings in the execution of our work. We have now implemented generative AI training and use it for all employees.
My team uses AI regularly as accelerators for research, ideation, and even strategic planning. These tools let us test ideas quickly, find patterns in complex topics, and generate content at speed. They’re not replacing critical thinking, but they are expanding what’s possible to do in a day.
RDTS: We’d love to hear your opinion on how AI will impact automation roadmaps.
Reid: AI is the nervous system we’ve been waiting for in automation. We’ve spent years building the muscles—robots, control systems, fluids and gas processing, and networked systems.
Now AI connects those systems to make decisions in real time. The roadmap shifts from rule-based automation to adaptive systems that learn and evolve with each job. AI will help eliminate downtime, optimize drilling, completing, and processing in ways humans simply can’t, and make remote operations not just possible, but preferable.
RDTS: How might AI impact our innovation velocity, in general, in oil and gas?
Reid: It already is. We are able to prototype faster, simulate entire operations before we build them, and spot risk factors before they appear in the field.
AI flattens the innovation curve—it reduces the time between idea and implementation. In a complex sector like oil and gas, that speed makes the difference between leading and lagging.
RDTS: I presume that collaboration with technology developers from outside the oil and gas industry is necessary to maintain both cost efficiency and accelerate commercialization. How effective are our external collaboration processes? What can we do to further enhance them?
Reid: We’ve made great progress, but we can still get better. The best breakthroughs often come from outside our bubble—whether it’s robotics from automotive, AI from tech, or materials from aerospace.
What we’ve learned is that success depends on trust and aligned incentives. To go further, we need shared innovation spaces, more agile IP frameworks, and cultural openness—being okay with not always having the answer first.
RDTS: What advice would you give to young professionals entering the energy sector today?
Reid: Be a bridge. The energy sector is a fusion of physical grit and digital possibility.
Learn how the equipment works, but also understand systems thinking, data, and software. Your value will be in connecting those worlds. And don’t just look at where the industry is—look at where it’s going. This is a sector in reinvention mode, and there’s never been a better time to be part of that.
RDTS: Beyond your dual jobs as CTO and CMO, you’re deeply involved in philanthropy. You founded redM to address a unique humane cause. Can you share more about redM’s mission and how others can get involved in supporting this cause?
Reid: The drive for redM is about facing one of humanity’s darkest problems—human trafficking—with hope and courage. Our goal is to build global awareness without fear-based messaging.
We want people to feel empowered, not overwhelmed. Through education, advocacy, and community mobilization, we’re equipping people to recognize and respond to trafficking. Anyone can get involved by donating, volunteering, or simply sharing the message. Learn more at joinredm.com and follow redM Join the Movement on social media. Together, we really can change the world.
Read the third article in this series, which also looks at the expanding use of artificial intelligence in the upstream sector with Zikri Bayraktar, a senior machine learning engineer with SLB’s Software Technology and Innovation Center.
