Guest Editorial

As our industry continues to adapt and evolve to meet the changing needs of our fast-moving world, we see a sizable and growing prize for those who are willing to work and think differently, challenge traditional approaches, forge new working relationships, and act boldly.

The market may be different from what we have previously experienced, but the path to a successful digital transformation is durable and the core principles of success have not changed.

Understanding the impact of oil and gas operations and embracing transparency around data better equips companies to take transformative action and “bounce forward” rather than back. The increased speed in realizing actual value delivers benefits to the bottom line, now and in the energy future.

While the individual circumstances of upstream companies may vary, they all must take decisive action to pivot away from “business as usual” and instead, pursue new growth models.

Digitalization and automation successes are here to stay. Instead of making small incremental steps in well construction operations, allowing disruptive shifts can lead to tangible performance gains in efficiency, safety, and well integrity.

In addition to the well-recognized elements of digital transformation such as real-time monitoring, remote intelligence, and extraction of insights from data, there is a need to evolve the industry hardware through application of enhanced edge computing.

Unlike shale, deepwater plays—which are highly front-loaded investments with long project cycles—will be least affected by the current round of severe investment reductions. Large offshore plays in safer regions have become essential elements of the core business of large oil and gas players.

In 2004, US oil production was in decline, Facebook did not exist, and attitudes toward climate change were in flux. In years since, what has happened—and what’s important for the oil and gas industry of tomorrow?

Despite the global downturn, the long-term transition to net zero presents a major opportunity to create new multibillion industries based around the North Sea. Cross-sector collaboration and major state/private sector intervention, together with strong leadership, will be key.

Now more than ever, safely managing the role of digitalization and the demand for decarbonization while efficiently balancing the books will be critical for companies to survive and thrive.