Robots take over major oil and gas operations
By Sunny Oputa

In the next 13 years, experts predict that robots will become part of our daily lives.
As you can’t do without your cell phone and internet today, so it will be with robots as from 2030.
When the time comes, robots will be cooking foods for man, making dishes, serving beer in pubs, waiting upon customers, running office errands, doing production and some administrative functions. More importantly and very curious that majority of oil and gas operations will be manned by robots in order to reduce operational cost and enhance efficiency.
At this age in which self-driven cars are making waves, customer service has been taken over by computer generated messages, artificial intelligence is having upper hands in our everyday activities, the coming of robots to dominate core oil and gas operations are sure at hand. If the reduction of cost will be propelled by robot and ensure increase or stable bottom-line oil men are gearing to embrace it.
Imagine a team or group of robots manning a rig, handling major drilling and completion works. What of a robot or group of robots detecting pipeline leaks and sealing it or ordering for maintenance. If robots take over some of the functions been carried out by man, what will happen to the teeming human capital involved in oil and gas production?
Will man lose its space and function to robots? People are becoming skeptical that the age of robots may become a boomerang or a coup which man launched to eliminate its own existence and meaningfulness.
The culture of robots has become wide in Japan, which is the home for robot fans. The same has massively penetrated United Kingdom and United States.
According to Ogura Suzuiki, an ardent robotics fan, the study of how robots can help man improve operational efficiency at low cost have been out there for decades. Only that the maturity and implementation of the use of robots is catching up with us soon
Experts believe that man will now focus more on front end engineering, designs and core/complex activities that requires more of thinking, and leave manual and regimented functions to robots.
Will robots really help to reduce OPEX in oil production and enhance efficiency? Only time will tell. Howard Schultz, the Chairman/CEO of Starbucks in his book “Onward …How Starbucks fought for its Life without Losing Its Soul” wrote ‘The taste is in the cup’. The proof of whether robots will help to reduce man’s callous destruction of the environment, improve health, safety, lower cost, enhance efficiency will be in the robots. Therefore, the proof is in the robots.