A natural gas fired turbine, manufactured by Caterpillar Inc. subsidiary Solar Turbines Inc., runs a compressor at a Williston Basin Interstate Pipeline Co., a subsidiary of MDU Resources Group Inc., natural gas compression station in Bismarck, North Dakota. In the world of oil and natural gas, engineers, geologists, and drilling and production departments tend to get the lion's share of the credit when good things happen, and most of the blame when they don't. That's fair, given the crucial roles these groups of employees play within the thousands of companies that make up the U.S. oil and gas industry. But in recent years, as overall domestic production has risen at a pace no one could have foreseen even five years ago, the credit has begun to shift. These human resources remain indispensable to the success of any company, but the deployment of a raft of advancing technologies has played an ever-advancing role over time in enabling companies to maximize recoveries and profits.