At a closed-door roundtable held recently at the headquarters of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC), regional experts weighed in on the significance of innovation and technology ahead of RDPETRO, an oil and gas conference dedicated to research and development, to be held on May 9-10th in Abu Dhabi.
Present at the seminar were members of the RDPETRO steering committee including Qasem Al Kayoumi, chairman RDPETRO 2018, Khadija Al Daghar, ADNOC’s R&D manager, Dr Steve Griffiths, SVP of research at Khalifa University and also programme co-chair of this year’s RDPETRO technical committee, and Professor Karl Rose, senior strategy advisor at ADNOC and RDPETRO steering committee member.
Qasem Al Kayoumi highlighted the importance of innovation, technology and R&D investment as a key enabler to ADNOC’s 2030 Smart Growth strategy for creating a more profitable upstream, a more valuable downstream and a more sustainable and economic gas supply.
“Our leadership has a clear vision about research and development and it revolves around arming UAE nationals with applicable knowledge and skills so that they can play a major role in bringing about change” said Khadija Al Daghar. “RDPETRO is an ideal platform for this expertise to be harnessed and showcased.
“Research, innovation and technology are the enablers towards a more efficient, cost optimised, safer and more profitable oil and gas industry. It decides who will stand out in the future and lead the market with innovative technologies that will address domestic special needs. This is why an event like RDPETRO is much needed,” she added.
“The environment has changed, resources are limited and oil prices are unstable. Technology and R&D, are therefore, key drivers for the industry in these challenging times. Other primary drivers for transformation are economic growth, shifting of energy demand to population centres of the East and global climate change concerns,” added Professor Rose.
Dr Griffiths delved deeper into the technical aspects of the event, highlighting in particular the conference industry sessions and the specific topics of drilling and operations and water management, in particular water treatment and disposal.
“Be it artificial intelligence or robotics, there is so much exciting news emerging in these different technical domains and how they can be applied to the oil and gas industry to increase efficiency. At RDPETRO accelerating deployment of these technologies will be high on the agenda,” he said.
Tiago Hipolito, ADNOC’s advisor for R&D planning and policies, and RDPETRO Event Director, concluded the meeting highlighting that “RDPETRO is not just another conference or exhibition, but a complete ecosystem and platform to bring solutions from academia, start-ups and industry worldwide to solve industry technical challenges. We received more than 370 proposed technical solutions from 27 different countries and 133 institutions, and together with our 13 RDPETRO partners we are selecting the best R&D projects, to award and fund their development.
“We want to be different, disruptive and innovative as well as add value to all participants”.
