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Bloomberg
Supercomputers that create 3-D seismic maps of BHP Billiton Ltd.’s oil and gas assets are accelerating work to bring new fields into production and have already notched savings of $500 million in development costs at a project in the Caribbean.
The computers are among initiatives aimed at using technology such as drones and robot drills to cut operating costs and lower the development bills of potential projects including the Jansen potash deposit in Canada, Chief Technology Officer Diane Jurgens said Friday in an interview. Crunching exploration data at a center in Houston is cutting the time needed to produce oil from sites in Trinidad and Tobago to three years from seven years, she said.
“It helps get us closer to the oil the first time, and closer to the reserve and that’s taken years off what we’d typically have to do in terms of drilling and exploration,†said Jurgens, who was appointed to the post in February after being hired last year following a 17-year career with General Motors Corp. and earlier roles with Boeing Co., “Current operations were sped up by four years, that’s $500 million you’ll save through getting the first oil to surface faster.â€
The biggest mining companies are placing an increased emphasis on using new technology to extend a cost-
cutting drive aimed at bolstering margins as tepid global expansion limits demand growth and as commodity prices trade about 50 percent below a 2011 peak.