Developing a State-of-the-Art Subsea Engineering Laboratory for Training the Next Generation Energy Industry Manpower

With the world population slated to rise significantly over the next few decades, the demand for energy is also going to rise multifold. Although renewables are making their presence felt in the overall energy mix, the world is far from seeing them as a primary source of energy. This is primarily since energy from these sources is currently not being delivered at the scale at which it is required, to meet the growth in the total energy demand. Going forward, although renewables will account for a higher percentage of the overall energy mix, the percentage of the energy mix that consists of oil, gas and coal will also be significant. This is evident from the fact that fossil fuel consumption reached a new high in 2023, driven primarily by the rising oil consumption (BP Energy Outlook, 2024). Figure 1 shows that 84% of the energy mix in 2023 consisted of hydrocarbons. A large part of the growing demand for energy is due to the emerging economies, with India and China leading the group. Keeping the Paris Agreement of 2015 in context, the successive COP meetings discuss strategies of adoption of technologies to achieve the Net Zero target, as sustainably as possible. This includes shifting the mass transportation systems from fossil fuels based to electricity based, along with efforts that need to be taken to enhance the efficiency of the electrification grid. With solar, hydro and wind incapable of providing electricity at such a scale, and nuclear taking a significant amount of time for commercialization, the onus falls on coal and gas, which are the current drivers for producing electricity across the globe. The surge in demand for electricity is going to be a function of the exploration and development of hydrocarbons, thereby leading to major investments being made in the upstream sector across the board. Investing in research and development (R&D) is going to be crucial for providing successful future energy sustainability (Kelechukwu, E.M., 2011). R&D efforts in reducing uncertainty in exploration and enhancing efficiency of production have resulted in production from reservoirs which were considered uneconomical a few decades ago (Alnuaim, S., 2019). The onshore market for oil and gas is already contributing towards energy sufficiency. However, onshore projects will need to be supported with offshore discoveries, to meet the above-mentioned surge in demand. The global offshore market is expected to grow at the CAGR of 8.7%, to USD 65.63 billion by 2030, almost double of USD 33.22 billion, in 2022. Figure 2 indicates the Asia-Pacific drilling market size prediction up to 2030.