As mature assets supply more of the world’s energy, operators are looking to recover more from existing reservoirs, improve efficiency and strengthen asset performance. Advances in AI, connected technologies, production chemistry, artificial lift, surface systems and digital intelligence make it possible to manage production and recovery as one connected performance challenge.

What does this transformation mean for operators seeking to maximize value from existing resources? We sat down with Paul Sims, president of Production Systems at SLB, to discuss how production and recovery can unlock performance and extend asset life.

Why is improving production and recovery from existing assets such a critical focus for the industry right now?

Paul: The industry still needs new exploration and developments, but production and recovery have become much more important. Energy demand continues to rise, while new discoveries are fewer, more marginal and more selective. More of the world’s supply must come from assets we already operate.

Today, approximately 70% of global production comes from mature assets that have passed peak production. By 2030, that figure is expected to approach 80%. Conventional reserve replenishment has also fallen significantly over the past several decades, with recent analysis putting the current replenishment rate close to 30%. Unconventional production has helped, but it is not enough by itself to close the gap.

That reality makes production and recovery a strategic imperative. Operators need to arrest decline, improve uptime and recover more from existing reservoirs while lowering cost and managing risk. This is not a choice between new fields and existing assets. Both are important, but to meet growing energy needs, existing assets must carry more of the load.

What are the main challenges in improving production from aging fields?

Paul: Production systems become more complex as assets mature. Reservoir pressure declines. Water production increases, sometimes reaching very high levels as the asset ages. Corrosion accelerates, equipment ages, scaling and sanding become more likely, and operating conditions become less predictable.

These challenges rarely occur in isolation. A reservoir issue can become a well issue. A well issue can become a surface constraint. A chemistry or flow assurance challenge can affect uptime and reliability. That is why we must look at the field as one connected system—reservoir, wells, lift, chemistry, facilities, pipelines, networks and operations—not as a collection of separate challenges.

Through our ongoing interactions with customers, we focus on improving field performance from first oil to final barrel. We frame this around two connected paths: optimizing production today and maximizing recovery for the long term. Production optimization is about arresting decline, managing constraints, maximizing uptime and producing incremental barrels at lower cost. Maximizing recovery is about changing the curve by draining the reservoir more effectively, improving sweep and recovering barrels that would otherwise remain behind.

Where do you see the greatest inefficiencies—and opportunities—in production systems today?

Paul: Value is lost when changes in the field are not understood or acted upon early enough across the full production system. As assets mature, variability increases: reservoir pressure changes, water production rises, flow assurance issues appear, lift conditions evolve and facilities can become constrained. A decision that looks right for one part of the system can have consequences elsewhere if the broader production architecture is not visible.

The biggest opportunity is to treat mature-field production as a connected system challenge, not a sequence of isolated interventions. Connecting reservoir, well, lift, chemistry, facilities, interventions and digital workflows allow teams to identify the highest-impact constraint, diagnose issues earlier, prioritize the right actions and avoid deferred production.

Integrated approaches are already changing outcomes. In the North Sea, a holistic intervention strategy combining subsurface expertise, digital technologies and advanced intervention solutions increased intervention success rates from about 65% to 90%. The broader lesson is that operators can unlock the next barrels by connecting expertise and workflows so they can act earlier and more selectively.

Even small changes can materially affect value. For a 10,000-barrel-per-day asset at $70 oil, a one-percentage-point increase in water cut can displace about 100 barrels of oil per day. Over five years, including the cost to process and dispose of the additional water, that can erode roughly $10 million in net present value.

What technologies and digital solutions are delivering value today?

Paul: The technologies delivering the greatest value are those that connect decisions across the production lifecycle. Intelligent completions, artificial lift, production chemistry, surveillance technologies, advanced interventions, surface and process technologies, and AI all create value individually. Their real advantage comes when they work together as an integrated operating environment.

Production chemistry is a good example. Flow assurance and equipment integrity directly influence production performance. The integration of ChampionX significantly expands SLB’s ability to combine production chemistry, artificial lift, digital intelligence and production optimization into coordinated workflows that help operators optimize the full production environment.

Artificial lift follows the same philosophy. Lift is a life-of-well journey that requires continuous optimization as reservoir conditions change. Through SLB’s Global Performance Live Centers, specialists remotely monitor more than 4,000 ESP systems around the clock, helping customers maximize uptime, reliability and production.

Surface and modular solutions can also accelerate value. In one Middle East deployment, a compact Production Express™ modular facility enabled approximately 6,000 barrels per day of additional production in less than six months.

On the recovery side, Recovery Express™ is designed to help customers move more quickly through a cycle that traditionally can take six years or more from concept and design through field pilot and final investment decision. It brings together modular, interconnected solutions to reduce uncertainty, accelerate pilots and scale recovery more economically.

How is digital transformation changing production optimization?

Paul: Digital is redefining how production decisions are made. The industry is moving beyond monitoring individual assets toward connected operating systems that continuously sense conditions, coordinate decisions and improve performance across the system.

By combining physics-based models, AI, automation and real-time operational data, operators can identify constraints earlier and respond faster. The objective is no longer simply better visibility. It is reliable action. Digital workflows allow data to flow across operations, analytics to reveal interdependencies and insights to be translated into execution.

SLB digital production solutions, including OptiFlow™ production assurance solutions and OptiSite™ facility, equipment and pipeline solutions, help turn production data into coordinated action. OptiFlow combines AI, physics-based models and data-driven analytics to identify production constraints, optimize flow performance and predict production impacts. OptiSite provides continuous visibility into facilities, equipment and pipelines to improve reliability, increase efficiency and reduce unplanned downtime. Together, they help connect decisions from the reservoir to the pipeline and enable customers to respond faster to changing conditions.

Our conversations with customers are both constructive and practical. They want to scale proven digital workflows across assets, apply AI where it delivers real operational impact and enable teams to make faster, more confident decisions. The industry is moving beyond monitoring and insights toward connected operations that continuously optimize performance.

What will it take to unlock the full potential of production and recovery?

Paul: The next breakthrough will not come from a single technology. It will come from connecting disciplines that have traditionally operated too independently—reservoirs, wells, artificial lift, chemistry, facilities, interventions and digital technologies—into one coordinated operating model.

Recovery is tightly linked to subsurface challenges: understanding the reservoir, physics and flow. Production is also a wellbore, surface, facilities, chemistry, uptime and operations question. To meaningfully move the production curve, we must consider subsurface and surface attributes together.

The companies that continuously sense changing conditions, make better decisions and execute across that integrated production architecture will recover more resources, improve operational resilience and consistently produce lower-cost barrels. In the coming decade, industry leaders will not simply produce more oil and gas. They will produce it more intelligently, with greater integration across domains and a clearer connection between technology, execution and measurable asset performance. That is the future SLB is helping to build.