Clean and cost effective drilling 

Exploration drilling faces two major challenges:

• The first is to ensure that the drilling activities do not harm the natural environment, and
• the other involves finding ways of reducing exploration drilling costs.

A number of geological basins which could be prolific sources of oil and gas are currently closed to the industry because they lie in areas such as the Arctic where animal and plant life are particularly sensitive to possible pollution.

The ability to drill exploration wells without having a negative impact on the environment or discharging waste to it represents a major concern for the industry.

Drilling expenditure dominates exploration budgets, so being able to drill exploration wells more cost- effectively would allow a larger number of wells to be drilled for a given level of investment.

Improving the management of drilling risk in well operations and developing smarter methods for acquiring sub-surface data could reduce costs.

The development of lighter exploration drilling concepts which use smaller vessels can produce a step change in technology for such operations and make wells cheaper.