How do you effect technological change in an industry that's been transformed by it over the past decade? If you're managing technology in the heretofore flush oil-exploration business, a little taste of downturn might do the trick. Oil and natural gas exploration and production, a roughly $148 billion sector of the economy that, according to the Department of Energy, puts out some 8.1 million liquid barrels of the stuff domestically each day, has ridden a decade-long wave of technical advances in geological surveying, drilling, data visualization, and decision support that's pushed down costs and improved precision. Now, companies are trying to keep improving when profits aren't gushing. "The exploration and production industry is very technically savvy," says Richard Ross, VP and CIO of Amerada Hess Corp., a $13.6 billion oil and gas company in New York. Amerada last year saved several million dollars by moving a building-sized oil rig in Algeria in seven days instead of 11, thanks to a knowledge-management system that pooled the know-how of experts via the Web. Low oil prices mean "we may move fewer rigs," Ross says. "But if we can do it in four days less, we'll save money."
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