Trends In Industrial Research

Publication Rights Reserved This paper was prepared for the 40th Annual Fall Meeting of the of the Society of Petroleum Engineers of AIME, to be held in Denver, Colo., Oct. 3–6, 1965. Permission to copy is restricted to an abstract of not more than 300 words. Illustrations may not be copied. The abstract should contain conspicuous acknowledgment of where and by whom the paper is presented. Publication elsewhere after publication in the JOURNAL OF PETROLEUM TECHNOLOGY or the SOCIETY OF PETROLEUM ENGINEERS JOURNAL is usually granted upon request to the Editor of the appropriate journal, provided agreement to give proper credit is made. Discussion of this paper is invited. Three copies of any discussion should be sent to the Society of Petroleum Engineers office. Such discussion may be presented at the above meeting and, with the paper, may be considered for publication in one of the two SPE magazines. Although industry performs a large majority of total United States R and D, more than half its research is financed by the Federal Government. R and D growth in industries that participate heavily in Government research contracts has been much greater than R and D growth in industries that primarily pay for their own research. Rate of R and D expansion has recently decreased sharply. This has been accompanied by a growing integration of research with the business elements of the companies. Attempts are being made to measure the value of research, and more emphasis is being placed on increasing research productivity. Petroleum industry R and D trends have been generally consistent with those followed by other industries that largely finance their own R and D programs. Insufficient data are available to determine petroleum exploration and production research growth trends. The outstanding technological trend in exploration research is the emphasis being placed on improvement of the seismic system, particularly by conversion to digital recording and data processing. In drilling and production research, the outstanding trend involves development of new offshore technology to permit operations in increasingly deep water. The major trend in reservoir and oil recovery research is development of economic heavy oil recovery processes. Introduction The last two and one-half decades have represented a period of outstanding technological development. This has been the period of miracle drugs, synthetic fibers, high speed computers, the transistor, lasers, color television, jet travel, the atomic and hydrogen bombs, space satellites, and many other developments. This has been a period when research and development of concern to the Federal Government has changed from a modest activity conducted primarily by the Department of Agriculture, the U.S. Geological Survey, and the Naval Observatory to a massive effort critical to the defense of the Nation and the Free World.