Daily Times

Robots could steal the jobs of around one in five oil and gas workers worldwide in the next 10 years as more companies turn to automation to cut costs, new analysis from Rystad Energy shows.

In a report published earlier this week, Rystad Energy projected that at least 20 percent of the jobs in sectors such as drilling, operational support and maintenance could become automated by 2030. This could affect over 400,000 jobs in some key energy-producing countries, according to the firm.

Rystad Energy’s calculations show that Russian and US employees could be hit hardest by the adoption of robotics across the petroleum industry, with as many as 200,000 and 140,000 people respectively possibly losing their jobs. However, the study did not say anything about possible job losses in Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest oil exporter. Robots capable of replacing some roughnecks are being developed by Texas-based oil and gas drilling contractor Nabors. The company’s website offers a wide range of robots capable of working on drilling rigs. For instance, its ‘Electric Drill Floor Robot’ can “reduce the need for manual labor on a rig’s drill floor,” while its ‘Electric Robotic Roughneck’ can replace “the need for casing crews.”

The adoption of robotics in the area of inspection, maintenance and repair (IMR) operations, especially for subsea activities, has gained the most traction among operators in recent years, according to Rystad Energy.