Digital Transformation
Maldonado serves as controls and systems engineering lead at Aker BP.
The oil and gas sector stands on the edge of a digital revolution, yet legacy systems and resistance to change continue to hold it back. I reflect on my experience in digital drilling and argue that the industry’s biggest barrier isn’t technology itself, but the culture that surrounds it.
For YPs entering the industry, cracking the data code is more than a technical exercise; it’s your power skill and your competitive edge.
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Pulled directly from the reservoir rock, core samples provide critical data used to determine how exploration should proceed. Until recently, core analysis remained old school, however, there is an ongoing transition to bring the process of core description into the digital age. -
Case studies from around the world prove that big rewards await companies that optimize the artificial lift systems keeping their mature fields alive. The success stories involve a mix of monitoring, automation, and performance tracking.
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Saudi Aramco is on a mission to increase the amount of seismic data that it collects by fourfold, while reducing costs and acquisition time by half of what it spends today.
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It has been an impressive comeback for a technology that once stood on the brink of failure. The upstream oil and gas industry has largely resolved crippling technical challenges that shortened the life of fiber-optic cables in downhole applications and is now working on a big encore.
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Some of the world’s largest exploration and production companies say the big bets they have placed on high-performance computing over the past several years are set to pay off.
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Robotic submarines, capable of operating by themselves thousands of feet underwater for months or perhaps years at a time, are under development as the vanguard of tomorrow’s subsea oil and gas fields.
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Unmanned aircraft are finding their place in the oil and gas industry by providing aerial geologic modeling to address reservoir-related challenges and making inspections safer.
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Surya Rajan, a director at IHS Cambridge Energy Research Associates (CERA), discusses the drivers for innovation in oil and gas along with expected areas for technology development.
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Industry has developed smart completions, smart wells, and smart fields. The next frontier is real-time reservoir management (RTRM) using all of the data from smart installations, as well as artificial intelligence.
