Digital Disruption in Oil and Gas
Oil and gas industry is crucial for the world economy. The oil and gas drilling sector makes up between 4.6% and 6.5% of the global economy. According to the World Energy Outlook’s findings, by 2035 the global energy demands will increase by one-thirds. Oil and Gas companies have good business prospects in the emerging economies particularly in BRICS nations- Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.
The good thing about Digital technologies is that it offers the opportunity to collaboratively develop industry-leading solutions; recently we have seen how industry giants like GE and BP are co-creating a new industry approach by developing and piloting digital capabilities together.
The oil and gas industry is usually divided into three major sectors: upstream, midstream and downstream. The upstream oil sector is also commonly known as the exploration and production (E&P) sector. Midstream is the shipping and pipelines, and downstream is the refining of the crude oil into value added products for commercial sale. There are oilfield services companies too like Halliburton (HAL) and Baker Hughes (BHI) that work across all the phases of production.
O&G industry has a track record of leveraging the Digital technologies for its operational efficiencies, from digital distributed control systems (DCS) to advanced Digital oil field instrumentations, Deloitte defined the digital oilfield as “the evolution and convergence of a number of oil and gas drilling, exploration and digital control technologies coupled with standardized communication technologies.”
According to some recent reports, The Global Digital Oilfield Market is expected to reach USD 30.78 Billion by 2020. IIoT, Automation, Cloud, virtual reality, augmented reality, cognitive computing, predictive analytics, 3D printing, Surveillance drones and other advanced technologies are helping the O&G companies to reduce their production cost and to manage their complex operation related issues. And O&G companies are eager to invest in Digital technologies like never before.
Deploying technology does not automatically create value. While deploying a certain technology it is necessary that the deployment strategy is linked with the specific business priorities, for upstream players operations efficiency and safety is crucial, for midstream companies maintaining and optimizing their networks is a top priority and even though downstream players are relatively mature in monitoring risks and optimizing operations through their standardized operations and process-control systems…but to deal with fast changing global environment and emerging challenges they are also keen to find the new areas of optimization to extend their value beyond refinery.
Here are the links to Oil and Gas Series:-
Digital Disruption in Oil and Gas
Digital Trends in Oil and Gas Industry
Oil and Gas – Make in India
Oil and Gas – Ease of Doing Business(EODB) in India
European Union’s Growth Strategy – Fossil Fuels vs. Renewable Energy
