(In second paragraph corrects spelling of name, please read

Abdellah, not Abdelah)

By Curtis Williams

HOUSTON, May 6 (Reuters) - A top executive of

Schlumberger NV ( SLB ) , the world's largest energy services firm,

on Monday predicted autonomous drilling of oil and gas wells

will beat autonomous driving cars to market and create new

efficiencies for oil producers.

Autonomous drilling is ripe for adoption by many of the

world's oil majors, Abdellah Merad, an SLB executive vice

president, said at the Offshore Technology Conference.

"We believe we will be almost autonomously drilling even

before we can autonomously drive," Merad told the conference.

"We have already with many large customers, NOCs (National Oil

Companies) IOCs (International Oil Companies) and large

independents that are on the way where we are dealing with

automation, autonomous drilling," he said.

Autonomous drilling will increase efficiency and with the

use of artificial intelligence result in improvements in the

quality of the wells as each one is an improvement on the next,

he said.

In January SLB announced that it and Equinor ( EQNR )

drilled a well in Brazil that was over 2.5 kilometers using

autonomous control mode that resulted in a 60% increase in rate

of penetration, faster well delivery with reduced cost and

carbon emissions.

"Less people onsite, it is safer, it is going to be

reliable," Merad told Reuters on the sidelines of the OTC

conference.