The oil and gas industries remain an important drive for the world economy. On one hand, global demand for fossil fuels is still rising, and on the other hand, companies face complex investment challenges due to the harsh operational environment of exploration and production activities. Workforce regulations aim to provide a safe and secured working environment. However, exploration and production activities still cause local and global environmental risks such as groundwater contamination, or climate change in broader scale. Analyzing and reporting mechanisms are key performance indicators of sustainable development at the level of oil and gas companies. Obtaining and analyzing required data, nevertheless, seem to be a persistent challenge as to what degree these findings can affect the routine and strategic decisions of the oil and gas companies. In order to enable oil and gas companies to measure and control risks and manage incidents, artificial intelligent technologies in extended monitoring and supervising E&P operations is known to be an efficient prevention strategy. Such tools not only aid in profitability of the oil and gas companies, but also increase awareness of environment and climate change to act more responsibly. In this study, the significances of environmental policies were investigated through interviews with executives and stakeholders, revealing that the implementation of environmental protection policies is affected by the financial stability of the companies, and under severe economic situations, companies seem less enthusiastic in strictly implementing those policies. This paper provides a comprehensive review of emerging technologies in addressing existing and foreseen challenges in sustainable development in oil and gas industries, with the aim of suggesting prime solutions for strategic planning attempts.

The Abadan Plain Basin is located in the Middle East region which is host to some of the world’s largest oil and gas fields around the Persian Gulf. This basin is a foredeep basin to the southwest of the Zagros Fold-Thrust-Belt, bounded along its northern and eastern margins by the Dezful Embayment. Most of the rocks in this basin have been deposited in a carbonate environment, and existing fractures have made the formations a favourable place for hydrocarbon accumulations. The basin is enriched by oil and, therefore, gas reservoirs are few, and some of the explored reservoirs exhibit significant degrees of overpressure. This paper has compiled several aspects of the Abadan Plain Basin tectonics, structural geology and petroleum systems to provide a better understanding of the opportunities and risks of development activities in this region. In addition to the existing knowledge, this paper provides a basin-wide examination of pore pressure, vertical stress, temperature gradient, and wellbore stability issues.

Alaska holds more than 68 billion barrels of proved oil reserves and more than 36.7 trillion cubic feet of proved natural gas reserves with some special conditions such as proximity to permafrost, making Alaskan petroleum reserves unique. The low temperature in shallow reservoirs prohibited hydrocarbons’ ideal maturation, thereby generating several heavy and viscous oil accumulations in this state. This also limits the enhanced oil recovery (EOR) options, leaving the thermal methods off the table to avoid permafrost thawing, which can cause wellbore collapse. Several solutions have been attempted for improving oil production from heavy and viscous oil in Alaska; however, they have not yielded the desired recovery, and ultimate recovery factors are still less than the global average. One solution identified as a better alternative is using CO₂ as an injecting fluid, alternated by water or mixed with other injectants. This paper provides a comprehensive overview of all studies on using CO₂ for enhanced oil recovery purposes in Alaska and highlights common and unique challenges this approach may face. The suitability of CO₂-EOR methods in the Alaskan oil pools is examined, and a ranking of the oil pools with publicly available data is provided.