Big Data analytics and applications, the Internet of Things and other technologies are designed to make operations more efficient, secure and safe. Operators and service companies already are seeing the benefits of these technologies, but with any project challenges can arise, and game plans need to be put in place.
For this roundtable, E&P interviewed Ole Eyvind Evensen, IBM upstream strategy leader; Earl J. Dodd, supercomputing strategist and architect with Ideas and Machines Inc.; Randall Hoppe, industry director for oil and gas at Microsoft; and Lisa Davis, a member of the managing board of Siemens AG.
E&P: What are some of the major challenges that exist for oil and gas companies in regard to Big Data analytics and applications? In which areas are your clients asking for the most assistance?
Evensen: Oil and gas operations cover several very different but interdependent disciplines.
The challenges they face include capturing, safeguarding and sharing more volumes of data that can be tapped for new insight.
The foundational data management challenge is being addressed in a situation where there is a shift to the cloud, adding an infrastructure element to the equation.
The opportunities we are discussing with our clients are to shift data to the cloud, which allows for new services while being able to explore a new generation of Big Data analytics that can be utilized across regions.
Price, security and flexibility are key considerations.
Well delivery (drilling) is facing a major change with the need to improve real-time decision-making capabilities. The velocity and volume of drilling data available are posing a challenge for the disciplines involved. Compared to exploration they face a wider challenge to be able to access and use their historical data. These data are a vital source for insight, to develop predictive capabilities that can be applied during operations and to avoid nonproductive time and undesired incidents.
A highly instrumented well may generate more than 2 TB of data per day during drilling, which requires skills and unifying processes as well as suitable technology to manage streaming Big Data. The typical client request in this area is to help develop predictive capabilities, which can be implemented into existing operating models.
Operations are facing a similar trend of increasingly digitalized facilities. An offshore rig may have more than 70,000 sensors. They are potential sources for insight to understand equipment condition and overall system performance. Looking to other leading industries such as automotive and aviation allows a view of the art of the possible. Our clients are asking us to share lessons learned from other industries and to help them create a digitalization roadmap for safer, leaner and more efficient production.
Dodd: The top technology challenges for today’s oil and gas companies around Big Data analytics and applications concentrate around algorithm scaling, algorithm robustness, data saliency, workflows security, and skills development and retention.
With the growth and demand of (near) real-time processing of data, the oil and gas industry should investigate and move toward functional programming languages and tools. The industry should come together to extend the current functional language base, form a working standard and develop application- kernels migration tools based on this functional language suite. Only functional languages and tools can address the future of algorithm scaling and robustness.
Data saliency at real-time speed is a problem that is not receiving enough attention from academia and industry. ‘Garbage in is still garbage out,’ as I learned over three decades ago. What’s missing are the skills to understand our complex workflows and what represents data saliency and output appropriateness. Skill assessment, retraining and retention go hand-in-hand with the Big Data challenges.
An immediate concern for the oil and gas industry is the security vulnerability of our workflows and their parameterizations. Data per se is not at risk; your workflows are in danger. If I can leave the reader with a single call to action, it would be this: Secure the workflow setups and the parameters used.
Hoppe: In 2016 Microsoft and Accenture commissioned an oil and gas digital trends survey that identified five key trends in the oil and gas industry that focus on data and analytics.
The first trend is that digital technologies like Big Data and the Internet of Things are recognized as adding value to upstream oil and gas companies by helping to reduce costs, speed decision-making and increase work productivity.
Secondly, oil and gas companies will continue to invest at the same amount or slightly more in digital technologies despite low oil prices.
Third, digital investments in oil and gas are focused on enabling the mobile worker and using the Internet of Things for predictive analytics. This trend is expected to continue for the foreseeable future.
The fourth trend is that gaining maturity in analytics will be key to reaping the benefits of Big Data and other digital technologies. Finally, the cloud is becoming increasingly important to oil and gas companies as a stepping stone for other digital technologies.
As upstream oil and gas companies prioritize investments in their organizational capabilities, they’re spending smarter today on digital technologies.
Davis: Longer term volatility in oil prices requires a step change in the oil and gas industry to permanently lower production costs.
That means exploring different ways of thinking and doing business to remain competitive.
While the oil and gas industry is no stranger to Big Data, properly harnessing those data to their fullest potential is a powerful antidote to volatility and rising development costs.
In oil and gas digitalization brings a convergence of IT and operational technology connectivity that enables data to travel from the field to the control room to the enterprise network, underscoring the need for a unique set of solutions to address the crossover between IT and operational technology.
Few owner-operators are ready to take the full ‘digital plunge’ due to concerns such as cybersecurity, costs and data confidentiality. We work closely with customers to explore and implement digital solutions that can be scaled up incrementally and ultimately integrated into a full-fledged digital enterprise framework. This scalable approach minimizes risk and interruptions, enables the investment to be spread out over time and enhances the ‘comfort level’ at all levels of the organization.
E&P: What strategies can oil and gas companies employ to improve their uptake?
Evensen: Leading oil and gas companies may choose to be a first mover or a fast follower. There is no real third option. Leaders are advocates of improvement and change and take pride in strategic initiatives. They have a clear vision of where they want to take their organizations and recognize the importance of people buy-in.
A good approach to secure buy-in is to include all affected disciplines in both the target setting and a critical review of the processes being affected. New data allow new insight and shared situational awareness that can influence how people can and should work and collaborate. Without a holistic approach, including the organization, the processes, technology and old as well as the new Big Data will expose the effort to weak links.
Dodd: Strategies for improvement are based on long-term return value to oil and gas companies and include the following areas, leveraging a top-down approach: Rethink the organizational structure for business process performance and optimization; rethink the workflows for digital transformation and cybersecurity; and rethink the entire data life-cycle model and its value chain across all stakeholders.
The industry is not in a data sprint; we are in a workflow optimization marathon. Agility and suitability are the new capabilities of the digitally transformed organization. A digitally transformed oil and gas company has core capabilities supported by organizational enablers. Data and algorithms are part of one’s core capabilities and require sustainable enablement.
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