IBM Opens Supercomputing On Demand Center for Oil Industry
27 August 2004
IBM has opened its third supercomputing on demand (Deep Computing Capacity On Demand) center in Houston, this one targeted at the exploration and production segment of the petroleum industry. Landmark Graphics, a Halliburton company, is the anchor.
This makes great sense from an IT point of view (and is very cool). Such analytical supercomputing capacity will increasingly be the mainstay of the oil industry, especially as exploration and production becomes evermore taxing. IBM’s model—to treat computational cycles like a utility service that a company buys when it needs it—offers a way for a larger number of smaller companies to have the supercomputing capabilities of the supermajors, and hence increases the likelihood of sucking those remaining barrels from fields that otherwise would lie abaondoned.
That said, the task for which they are trying to gear up is staggering.
“The petroleum industry is under incredible pressure now that the demand for oil is rising much faster than the supply. We are gearing up to meet expectations that world demand will grow by more than 60 percent over the next 30 years,&rdquo said Peter Bernard, president, Landmark.
That works out to satisfying some 132 million barrels per day of demand. Even with the best technology—and I have no doubt that all sectors of the oil industry and their partners such as IBM will continue to make amazing advances—that seems beyond implausible. To put that number in a different perspective: that’s an increase of almost 50 million barrels per day: approximately the same amount consumed by the entire world in 1972. Also factor the ongoing daily depletion in global reservoirs and that even the more optimistic estimates of peak production project a date well before those 30 years pass.
Not investing in oil and gas is not an option. But it is past time to reverse the disproportionately miniscule level of investment in renewables and alternative fuels. Even if technology could prove the solution, where would we be in 30 years? More dependent on remote and rapidly depleting stocks of fossil fuels without a robust alternative. That is an approach that will guarantee disaster.
Comments