After years of relying on outside technology, Saudi Aramco is striving to bring technology in house. It is focusing on R&D to explore underground, undersea and in reservoirs using robots a thousandth the size of a human hair.

The globally dominant oil company aims to reengineer itself into a fully integrated energy and chemicals company.

“Saudi Aramco is undergoing a major… transformation spanning every function of the company and including major new businesses,” Khaled Buraik, vice president of petroleum engineering and development for the company, said at the Offshore Technology Conference held recently in Houston.

Over Buraik's three decades in the oil and gas industry he has witnessed many positive developments in the quest to meet surging global demand for energy. Yet, “as rewarding as all these moments have been, I must say that I consider the present moment to be the most exciting time in my memory of the oil industry at large and for Saudi Aramco specifically,” he said.

Saudi Aramco is ramping up its research and development, incorporating nanotechnology to explore unconventional gas and investing in research centers in Houston, Massachusetts and elsewhere.

“We are pursuing R&D to bring out breakthrough achievements, not simply merely incremental enhancements,” he said.

The company has an urgency and optimism about where it's headed, he said. It is striving to become fully integrated in natural gas production, including in unconventional plays, refining and chemicals.

Upstream technology is an area where Buraik wants to break new ground.

“At Saudi Aramco we are pushing from a traditional role as buyer and consumer of technology to our own global technology and R&D strategy,” he said.“We envision becoming an enabler and center of new technologies in the business that we do.”

The goal, ultimately, is the same. The company wants to develop its oil and gas fields to maximize reservoir performance and add to the value chain. However, time and money are now flowing to specializations such as geology, geophysics, drilling, production, engineering and geophysical modeling.

The company is striving to answer key questions crucial to its ambitions: “Can we acquire four times the data from seismic (readings) in 50% of the time, at 50% of the cost?” Buraik asked. Similarly, the company is striving to boost reservoir recoveries, perhaps by as much as 15% to 20%.

Saudi Aramco is also continuing its reservoir nanoparticle program. The reservoir robots, or Resbots, move through water and into reservoirs to capture data about their makeup, and may increase recovery.

Perhaps most significant for Saudi Aramco, the company is producing the technology itself.“We have already conducted a major field test in house manufacturing of nanoparticles,” Buraik said. “This year we will conduct two major field tests; one will focus on enhanced reservoir characterization, the other on enhanced recovery.”

Saudi Aramco is also making a shift from its historic R&D focus on conventional oil and gas. “Now we are moving to a new frontier, which is the unconventional,” Buraik said. “The pursuit of the unconventional gas is one of our most exciting new efforts.”

Saudi Aramco is focusing on shale potential in the northwest, east and southeast areas of the kingdom.In the east there is an “excellent” tight-gas opportunity, with infrastructure nearby.

“Technology has revolutionized the industry to (focus on) challenges and to unlock unconventional,” he said. “Given our local infrastructure, the availability of water is also a challenge.” Research is under way for different water uses.

Technology has also come into play in the Red Sea, where the country is drilling its first deepwater well.

But because the prospect is below a thick salt section, the company has adopted an integrated approach using seismic, electromagnetic and high-precision gravity to better define the substructure behind the salt.

Saudi Aramco is embarking on investment in several research centers, including the three in the US

The Houston center will span upstream disciplines, while a Cambridge, Massachusetts, facility adjacent to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology will conduct several research initiatives, including nanotechnology.

“Our resources are not unlimited,” Buraik said.“So when we cannot go alone, we will collaborate and team up with others.”

For more coverage from the Offshore Technology Conference, see epmag.com.