A recent roundtable meeting held by Trelleborg AB (www.trelleborg.com) addressed issues raised in its “Next Level Report,” which collected data from a survey of professionals at all work levels in the offshore oil & gas industry. A main topic of discussion was the current low barrel price. John Drury, managing director of Trelleborg’s offshore operation in the UK, concluded that industry workers should take advantage of the low market price by inventing new solutions that will be beneficial to the environment and the industry as a whole.
“During the years that the oil price was high, specifications were developed by putting specification on top of specification,” says Drury. “Now is a time to review them sensibly and change them. Although we all hope the oil price will go back up, there is a risk when it does that everything will slow back down again in terms of innovation. That would be the irony of the situation. By focusing on engineering and material specifications, the aim is to optimize products that are delivered into the oilfield.”
Trelleborg’s Next Level Roundtable videos can be found on Trelleborg Group’s YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/user/trelleborg), featuring roundtable members analyzing the company’s Next Level Report at Offshore Europe in September. They examine the offshore industry and discuss what might be stifling innovation. A copy of the Next Level Report is also available for download on Trelleborg’s website (http://trelleborg.tecs1.com/nextlevel-report). It features data from a survey of offshore professionals at all work levels.
Trelleborg experts and roundtable members will also be available at booth 5541 in Hall A at this year’s Offshore Technology Conference (OTC). (For more information on the OTC, turn to page 42.) They will demonstrate key solutions that can help operators to bridge the gap between cost and performance, and will also highlight some ways that collaboration and innovation can lower project costs, optimize productivity, and retain competitiveness as barrel prices recover.
