BP 2013 Annual Report Download - page 20

Our employees enable BP to deliver our strategy
and meet our commitments to investors, partners
and the wider world.
Our people are talented in a wide range of disciplines,
from geoscience, mechanical engineering and
research technology to government affairs, trading,
marketing, legal and others. And our approach to
professional development programmes and training
helps build individual capabilities, reducing a potential
skills gap. This is vital in a world where oil and gas
companies face an increasing challenge to find and
retain skilled and experienced people.
We aim to achieve a balance between building
internal expertise and recruiting external
professionals and graduates. We have a strong,
experienced leadership team and a pipeline of
talent for the future.
We use technology to find and produce more
hydrocarbons, improve our processes for
converting raw materials and develop lower-
carbon products.
The development of technology from research
and development through to wide-scale
deployment can take several years. For example,
to reach the next generation of deepwater oil
reserves, where rock pressures can reach 20,000
pounds per square inch, we are developing new
subsea technologies through our Project 20K.
Technology programmes in our upstream
business include advanced seismic imaging to
help us find more oil and gas and enhanced oil
recovery to get more from existing fields. New
techniques are making recovery of
unconventional oil and gas, like shale,
economically viable.
See bp.com/technology.12 Seismic imaging
We use our imaging expertise to increase the
productivity and quality of the data we capture
on land and offshore. With 80% of future
offshore oil and gas reserves thought to be
under salt canopies up to 7 kilometres high, our
new supercomputer in Houston helps to reduce
the completion times for imaging jobs from
several months to a matter of days.
4 Enhanced oil recovery (EOR)
Our LoSal EOR technology can help develop
previously unexploited resources from existing
oil fields. LoSal uses water with a low salt
content to release more molecules of oil from
the sandstone rock where they are held.
5 Shipping efficiency
Our ‘virtual arrival’ system can reduce fuel
consumption and emissions by allowing vessels,
ports and other parties to work together and
agree an optimum arrival time for each vessel.
3 Production optimization
Our Field of the Future technologies provide
real-time information to help manage operational
risk, improve plant equipment reliability and
optimize production. We use these technologies
to monitor more than 600 wells.
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Our distinctive capabilities
Advanced technology
Proven expertise
The Pangbourne technology centre is home to
chemists and liquid engineers dedicated to
providing products and services for Castrol’s
customers.
Graduate intake
We hired 814 graduates,
including 44% recruited
from outside the UK
and US.
Group leaders
We have more than 500
group leaders with an
average of 20 years’
experience.
Internal promotion
We promoted 4,979
employees including
645 group and senior
level leaders.
External hires
We hired 8,854 people
including 211 group and
senior level leaders.
LinkedIn ranked BP thirteenth
most sought after company
to work for in the world (see
linkedin.com/indemand).
Developing the talent pipeline
Employees
See page 47.
We focus our downstream technology
programmes on the safety, integrity and
performance of our refineries and petrochemical
plants and on creating high quality, energy efficient,
cleaner fuels, lubricants and petrochemicals.
BP employs more than 2,000 scientists and
technologists.
Our long-term research programmes with
universities and research institutions around the
world are exploring areas from reservoir fluid
flow to energy biosciences. We have a strategic
approach to university relationships across our
portfolio for the purposes of research,
recruitment, policy insights and education.
In 2013 we invested $707 million in research and
development (2012 $674 million). See Financial
statements – Note 8.
BP Annual Report and Form 20-F 201316