Siemens 2012, Issue 3 Interview with Dirk Wegg about trends in the oil & gas industry

Interview with Dirk Wegg about trends in the oil & gas industry

COMOS Plant Manager: Hello Mr. Wegg, can

you tell us about the developments you are cur-

rently witnessing in the oil and gas industry?

Dirk Wegg: The demand for energy in indus-

trialized and newly industrializing countries is

steadily increasing. However, over the coming

years, the global community will not yet be

able to meet this demand with renewable or

alternative energy sources. In fact, over the

next 20 to 30 years, raw materials such as oil

and gas will play an increasingly important

role in terms of energy supply. Having said

this, deposits which are easily exploited have

been virtually exhausted. To this end, ever

greater risks have to be taken in order to ex-

tract oil and gas from remote areas. As such,

deep sea drilling activities are commonplace

these days and initial projects exploring ex-

traction in areas with extreme climatic condi-

tions, such as in the Barents Sea north of Nor-

way and Russia, are currently underway.

Extracting the raw materials, and the plant

equipment needed for this, is correspondingly

more costly and complex. At the same time,

the economical and political pressure under

which the plant operators are placed contin-

ues to increase. Indeed, the issue of personal

and environmental safety remains a key focus.

There will be ever more official rules and reg-

ulations to comply with. Furthermore, addi-

tional time pressures are placed on companies

these days. In the past, a whole decade could

pass between the discovery of raw material

resources and their extraction - however, the

process must now take place in a significantly

shorter time period.

12 COMOS Plant Manager | 3/2012

Interview with Dirk Wegg about trends in the oil & gas industry