Oil company operations are moving into more inhospitable and remote locations. In turn this has placed greater dependence on reliable process control and oil field automation technology. By way of example the talk will investigate the industry’s current control priorities and the challenges we now face to maximize production and extend oil field life.

It will be emphasized that, in many respects, upstream remains ‘virgin’ territory for the exploitation of modern control techniques and there remains significant potential for academia to help address some specific control issues.