Software in the oil industry

The paper reviews the challenges of today's oil industry which is dominated in Europe by offshore production. Some of the key computer applications are examined, discussing new software development methods which have been adopted in order to achieve significant reduction in development times. The range of modern software development tools is considered, with the decreasing impact of traditional programming languages such as COBOL and FORTRAN. The use and benefits of non procedural languages are also discussed together with some views on their relevance to high energy physics. The paper concludes with a look into the not-too-distant future, stressing the need for new approaches to software development and improving the facilities for information handling. (orig.)