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The first wells used to search for oil were drilled more than 150 years ago.

When Gerald Schotman, Shell’s chief technology officer, looks at the unconventional oil and gas business, he sees so many young technologies and “from the perspective a chief technology officer, that is such an opportunity.”

The 15th annual Abu Dhabi International Petroleum Exhibition and Conference attracted major national and international oil and gas companies from around the world to discuss common challenges and the opportunities in the region.

Oil and gas operations are moving to more complex deepwater and onshore unconventional projects, and activity in the industry is higher than ever before.

Recent activities around career planning for facilities engineers led me to a list of "must read" books. The recent ATCE generated two revelations. As an industry, we do a poor job of managing major capital projects, and we do not know how to design separators.

Ted Frankiewicz' Distinguished Lecture presentation on “Diagnosing and Resolving Chemical and Mechanical Problems in Produced Water Treating Systems” was the subject of a recent webinar.

Papers in this month's issue include a modeling methodology for integrity maintenance of pipelines, the need to include viscosity changes in transient modeling calculations and the use of computational fluid dynamics to evaluate a production separator in the North Sea.

At the end of the day, when you are working with heavy oil, the question is how to design your system, including both the layout and the functional aspects of various equipment.

Operators’ demands for structural designs are changing along with the need to produce from harsher environments, deeper waters, remote areas, and marginal fields. New-builds and modifications require different approaches in assessment of cost, design, and construction.

There is little doubt that the industry is committed to improving its safety performance—and most agree that improving the collective culture around safety is an effective approach to achieving this goal. But the specifics of how to achieve lasting change are more difficult.