Authors / CoAuthors
Williamson, P.E. | Wright, D.J.
Abstract
The oil and gas exploration and development industry is a significant Australian industry. In 2000 the value of oil and gas produced was $10.5 billion. This meant that Australia remained more than self sufficient in petroleum, contributing to economic activity and avoiding the balance of payment pressure that importing that amount of petroleum would represent. There is thus an incentive to maintain a healthy petroleum exploration and production industry. R&D for the upstream petroleum industry however, needs to be targeted to the requirements of the differing facets of the industry under the diverse conditions in which the industry operates or could operate. These conditions include changes in oil prices and perceptions of prospectivity, uncertain access to gas markets and the effects of international agreements such as the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Different petroleum companies also have differing exploration and production portfolios and different needs. Petroleum service industry companies try to meet industry?s needs. Governments have their own goals in promoting and regulating the industry and derive considerable revenues for economic rent applied to reserves held by the Crown. In the above context, a range of scenarios was considered in a planning process prioritising future needs for petroleum R&D in Australia. In this context two groups of senior petroleum industry, research and government representatives carried out scenario planning workshops in 1998 and 1999 to define scenarios and associated R&D priorities to assist in planning and identifying opportunities for petroleum R&D. The results of this study highlight core areas of R&D that are required under most of the scenarios. These are considered highest priority and high priority areas. Given the long time frame (in the order of 10 years) needed to develop and maintain R&D capability, this highlights for government, academia and industry the sustained effort needed for development and maintenance of capability particularly in these core areas of R&D. In 1998 and 1999 when the workshops that formed the basis of this study were undertaken, Australia was arguably in the `low oil and gas price scenario?. This scenario puts an onus on government to support regional studies to promote exploration and most priority petroleum R&D. Under this scenario support from industry is substantially aimed at reducing cost. Although oil prices have increased, coincident increases in stock market pressures for competitive profits from the industry has arguably left the industry in 2001 still in the low oil and gas price scenario. Thus there remains a strong need to maintain a local petroleum R&D capability to meet Australia?s needs.
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nonGeographicDataset
eCat Id
37901
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Keywords
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- External PublicationScientific Journal Paper
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- resource management
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- petroleum geology
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- petroleum exploration
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- economic geology
- Australian and New Zealand Standard Research Classification (ANZSRC)
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- Earth Sciences
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- Published_Internal
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2002-01-01T00:00:00
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