The oil and gas industry will continue to boom in the coming few decades. Obtaining oil and gas from conventional and non-conventional resources will become more and more challenging. This intensifying need will impose very considerable demands on work force, financial and technology capabilities. Since the future supplies of oil and gas are to expand, advanced technology will become increasingly necessary to obtain access to more challenging conventional and non-conventional resources. Therefore oil and gas technologies will be very costly to operate in the coming future due to hostile, hard-to-reach environments. The offshore oil industry will become a complicated myriad of advanced equipment, structures, and work force. Our objectives are to identify potential applications and research directions of robotics and automation in the oil & gas field and explore the obstacles and challenges of robotic and automation applications to this area. This study performs the necessary survey and investigation about the work conditions of robotics and automation equipment in the oil and gas industry, especially offshore oil rigs. The oil & gas industry processes are first investigated. The personals and tasks are then explored. Furthermore, this paper reviews the current robotic automation technology. The challenges and requirements are identified for robotics and automation equipment in the oil and gas industry. The requirements of robotics and automation in the oil & gas industry are presented. Future research opportunities are discussed from a technical perspective.

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The oil and gas industry will keep booming in the coming few decades. The intensifying need to obtain oil and gas from more challenging conventional and nonconventional resources will impose very considerable demands on the sector's human, financial and technology capabilities. Since the future supplies of conventional and non-conventional oil and gas are to expand, it will become increasingly necessary to obtain access to resources in more technologically advanced areas. Oil and gas technologies will be destined for hostile, hard-to-reach environments, which could be very costly to operate in the coming future. The offshore oil industry is a complicated myriad of equipment, structures, and work force. Our previous work has discussed the challenges of robotics and automation in the offshore oil&gas industry with severe work conditions. This paper reviews the current technology, presents the requirements of robotics and automation in the oil&gas industry and discusses future research opportunities from a technical perspective. Our objectives are to identify potential applications and research directions of robotics and automation in the oil&gas field and explore the obstacles and challenges of robotic application to this area.