Energy security

COLUMN: Technology is the Key to a Sustainable Oil, Gas Industry

Oil and gas professionals from around the world will converge on Houston on May 2 for what has long been the industry's biggest event: the annual Offshore Technology Conference. How well attended the show is this year is likely to reflect current sentiment in the sector, so there will be plenty of fingers crossed that attendance is at least as large as the 94,700 people who visited Houston's NRG Park last year. It's been more than 18 months since the price of oil started to slip below $100 per barrel, beginning a steady decline to below $30 early this year. But recent weeks have seen a sustained recovery in the price to more than $45 per barrel, which is leading some to feel upbeat about the sector's prospects later on in the year. Yet people who work in the oil and gas sector should not get their hopes up that oil will return anytime soon to the levels seen before the price collapse. A lot has changed in the downturn’s aftermath. Iran's coming in from the cold – and turning its pumps on;  slowing economic growth in China, as well as  a couple of other BRIC countries as well; and Brexit uncertainty – the worry that the UK will vote to leave the European Union – may all combine to send the oil price back down again soon enough.