[Editor's note: A version of this story appears in the August 2020 edition of E&P. Subscribe to the magazine here.]  

Technology and time slow for no man, woman or child. Ten years ago, search engines were battling for the top spot, social media was beginning to toddle along and smartphones were nowhere close to the super-speed geniuses they are today.

Technology is the lifeblood of the oil and gas industry. A look back at the top 10 technologies to watch in 2010, E&P editors identified advances in MWD/LWD designs, drill bit designs, subsea compression, zipper fracs and more as the keys to successfully unlocking resources. The truth of those predictions, aided in part by the COVID-19 pandemic, is evident in 2020 in the uneasy truce between global oil and gas producers and full oil storage tanks.

The industry, amid the growing calls for a transition to cleaner energy resources, faces many challenges moving forward. However, as harrowing of a time it finds itself in currently, the industry’s resilience and its ability to respond will help ensure its promising future. The work it is doing today will define how the industry will operate tomorrow.

This work extends to how editors and graphic artists can better deliver the industry’s news and insights. Today, with this issue, E&P takes another step on an evolutionary journey many years in the making. Featuring a fresh new design and expanded coverage, this issue is the first of several changes planned for E&P.

The new look and new areas of coverage will bring a full-spectrum perspective on exploration and production. We’ll continue to deliver the technology- and operations-oriented content readers have come to expect while also digging deep into the rise of the global LNG trade, crucial market trends, and environmental, social and governance issues impacting the industry.

In short, there will be everything you have come to expect in the print magazine and much more—but in an all-digital package. This move to digital enables the use of more video interviews with industry leaders and more animations of complex technical concepts. This enhanced digital experience is mobile, enabling the sharing of information when and where it is necessary, be it in the out in the field or in the boardroom. The mobile-friendly magazine ensures the content is immediately available.

Where the future is concerned, Buckminster Fuller, a 20th-century inventor and visionary, gave some sound advice: “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”

Look for the new model of E&P next month. I’m sure you will not be disappointed.

View the August issue of E&P. 

Comments