Engineering Challenges at the Energy Frontiers

During a recent speech, given on the occasion of the Hinton Lecture, the main annual lecture of the Royal Academy of Engineering, Bob Dudley, Group CEO for BP, said that he expects the oil industry to keep exploring new ways to extract fossil fuels in order to help fulfil the world's energy needs: "Demand has driven energy production to frontier after frontier. Given that fossil fuels are a naturally declining resource and the unrelenting growth in demand, we would expect that process to continue."  He also remarked, "to get the energy we need as a society, our industry needs to go to new places and face new challenges."

Referring to the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico last year, Dudley said:
"Changes that have been made after accidents and disasters have often been about creating independent and expert scrutiny and challenge - and that is exactly what we are now doing in BP following last year's accident." Dudley said the industry faces a succession of new technological frontiers where companies are learning as they progress.

"Generally we have been both innovative and successful in managing the risks involved, but in some cases, accidents have been the driver for change."

Dudley also said: "I think it is time for our whole sector to consider whether we need to take a collective step forward in instituting stronger systems of checks and balances, scrutiny and challenge, at an industry level."

Dudley pointed out that apart from deepwater drilling, BP is also exploring other new frontiers, such as the production of biofuels: "We are now seeing significant technology advantages with certain renewables which are now making them cost competitive with fossil fuels, such as ethanol made with Brazilian sugar cane," Dudley said, while indicating that it is still early days for renewables: "With fossil fuels, Mother Nature has done us a huge favour of concentrating sunlight into accumulations underground - which is why oil, gas and coal have a huge cost advantage over the alternatives."

Founded in 1976, The Royal Academy of Engineering promotes the engineering and technological welfare of the UK, and provides advice to the British government. The Hinton Lecture is named after the Academy's first President, the late Lord Hinton of Bankside.

Click here to read a transcript of the full lecture.