How New Technology is Revolutionizing Oil & Gas
For
years, Big Oil played catch-up with the banking, e-commerce, and retail
industries in embracing digitalization and new technologies to boost profits
and efficiency. 
Over
the past year, however, Big Oil and many companies in the upstream and downstream
segments have started to adopt a growing number of digital solutions to seek
cost cuts through innovation and new technologies. Many oil and gas firms,
especially the world’s biggest, are already using data analytics, cloud
computing, digital oil fields, digital twins, robotics, automation, predictive
maintenance, machine learning (ML), and Artificial Intelligence (AI).
Technology
consultancy firms say that the number of companies using advanced digital
solutions for their businesses will only grow in the future.
Although
the oil and gas sector was slower than others to come on board with
digitalization, now digital disruption and transformation is front and center
of every oil industry conference anywhere in the world.
And
now oil and gas firms have started to form partnerships with oilfield services
providers and Big Tech to work to digitally transform operations.
The
industry’s first three-party collaboration comes from three of the biggest
companies in their respective sectors - U.S. oil and gas supermajor Chevron
teamed up with the world’s biggest oilfield services firm, Schlumberger, and
with tech giant Microsoft to accelerate the creation of innovative Petro
technical and digital technologies.
Under
the partnership, the companies will jointly work to build Azure-native
applications in Schlumberger’s DELFI cognitive E&P environment initially
for Chevron. This will help companies to process, visualize, interpret, and
obtain insights from many data sources.
“We
believe this industry-first advancement will dramatically accelerate the speed
with which we can analyze data to generate new exploration opportunities and
bring prospects to development more quickly and with more certainty,” said
Joseph C. Geagea, executive vice president, technology, projects and services
for Chevron.
“It
will pull vast quantities of information into a single source amplifying our
use of artificial intelligence and high-performance computing built on an open
data ecosystem,” Geagea added.
Schlumberger’s
CEO Olivier Le Peuch said:
“Working
together will accelerate faster innovation with better results, marking the
beginning of a new era in our industry that will enable us elevate performance
across our industry’s value chain.”
Microsoft’s
chief executive Satya Nadella noted that “There is an enormous opportunity to
bring the latest cloud and AI technology to the energy sector and accelerate
the industry’s digital transformation.”
Microsoft,
as well as many other tech giants including Amazon, Google, and ABB Group, is
already selling digital solutions to the biggest oil and gas companies in the
world. Chevron and Exxon have teamed up with Big Tech to unlock opportunities
and efficiencies in their key growth priority, the Permian basin.
‘Digital’
is already a fundamental part of the business for energy companies, Accenture
said in a research report this year.
According
to an Accenture survey, 97 percent of upstream and 91 percent of downstream
executives report that emerging technologies have sped up the pace of
innovation in their organizations over the past three years.
Distributed
ledger technology, AI, extended reality, and quantum computing- - or DARQ as
Accenture has dubbed the four technologies - have the potential to transform the
energy industry, according to the firm.
A
total of 80 percent of upstream and 90 percent of downstream executives are
currently experimenting with one or more of these four technologies,
Accenture’s poll showed. In addition, 76 percent of upstream firms and 80
percent of downstream companies agree that the combination of all four
technologies will bring extensive changes to their business, higher than the
global average of 69 percent. Unsurprisingly, AI is the top cited technology of
these four as the one capable of creating the greatest impact on energy firms
over the next three years.
“The next challenge is to develop the next generation of technologies to become really differentiated and stay ahead of the competition,” Richard Holsman, Global Digital Lead for Resources, serving the oil & gas, chemicals, natural resources and utilities industries, and Julie Adams, Global Energy Research Lead, said in Accenture’s report.