DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION OF ENERGY

MEOG  - Omar Saleh, Microsoft's director of manufacturing and resources for the Middle East and Africa, says the intelligent cloud, analytics and other digital technologies are driving the industry forward.

In the oil and gas industry, technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), the internet of things (IOT), machine learning and big data can serve operators by increasing productivity and streamlining processes, all while helping them attract and retain talent, and remain secure and compliant.

When asked about the most important benefits of digital technologies for the upstream oil and gas segment, respondents to the "Accenture and Microsoft 2017 Upstream Oil and Gas Digital Trends Survey" cited faster and better decision-making, shorter time to first oil and gas, and reduced risk enabled by real-time decision support as the three most important benefits for upstream oil and gas companies. Additionally, 39% of respondents said the greatest risk from a lack of digital investment is becoming uncompetitive.

From exploration to drilling, from production to transportation, from storage to trading, the intelligent cloud and the intelligent edge come together to deliver digital capabilities that can majorly boost operational excellence, improve profitability, whilst bringing about safer and more productive operations.

Advanced analytics, empowered by operational data lakes and machine learning algorithms, is already delivering actionable insights of the mountains of data generated by IOT, structured and unstructured data accumulated over decades.

Applying cognitive intelligence can improve productivity by leveraging digital assistants and BOTs that bring along many applications to enhance knowledge capture and reuse, as well as timely insights embedded in everyday use apps like chat messaging apps and internet browsers.

The industry can also improve on safety by leveraging computer vision, for example, to track behaviours that promote safe operations like wearing personal protective equipment, identifying hazards like oil spills and smoke, as well as controlling access and geofencing of personnel and assets within permitted zones.

AI helps make sense of the piles of seismic data, logs, and project data that operators collect. Using this technology to search across, identify and correlate images and patterns saves geoscientists and engineers countless hours navigating through loads of data across their organisations. Bringing around big computing capabilities combined with time-series data, we are also able to develop reservoir models that furnish a dynamic and current understanding of reservoir characteristics.

Artificial intelligence is also delivering and promising big advancements in drilling optimisation; enabling better penetration rates, asset longevity, and reducing downtime.

Operators are able to predict events like stick-slip that can cause twisting and damage of the drill string, and bring around major delays. Also, relying on AI technologies, we are able to predict the optimal path for drilling bits, and steer them within the pay zone.

IOT and machine learning also help us drive unparalleled asset performance and availability, allowing for operations continuity through accurate predictions about asset and process failures.

The intelligent edge is a game changer here as well, as it allows the deployment of rich machine learning predictive models to edge devices and controllers. In essence, this reduces the dependence on, and usage of, communications and enables predictive decisions to be actioned in a timely manner.

Collectively, this allows companies to build rich models for determining when, and under what conditions, machinery will break down, as well as deploy near real time responses. Maintenance ahead of failure, brings dramatic value in sustaining production, reducing downtime, and optimizing the overall maintenance process, cutting costs and allocating resources efficiently.

Equally important to the intelligent cloud and intelligent edge discussion is streamlining those experiences to the industry's information and field workers through secure productivity platforms.

The oil and gas industry needs to make sure it is empowering a connected workforce; providing them the tools and insights as and when needed. There is a need to bring predictability and integration across different processes, and to optimise tasks.

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