Oil industry focuses on high technology
Emerging technology is rapidly changing the oil and natural gas industry, and companies must keep up to stay relevant, speakers and participants said at an innovation forum this week in Oklahoma City.
“I don’t see it as a choice for us,” said Kentaro Kawamori, chief digital officer at Chesapeake Energy Corp. “We have to adapt to the new realities of the digital world. It’s a fundamental shift in how we run our business. We are using data to make decisions in real time, ahead of problems happening. It’s all about how we use data to pull hydrocarbons out of the ground more efficiently.”
Kawamori was among the representatives from oil and natural gas companies throughout Oklahoma and Texas who met Wednesday at Oklahoma City’s Energy Innovation Center for the forum led by Microsoft and Baker Hughes, a GE company.
“Because technology is
changing so fast and we are all learning every day in this business, bringing people together like this allows us to create a sense of community,” said Tammi Warfield, Microsoft’s general manager of customer success. “The real value comes when people talk to each other.”
While technology a few years ago was too expensive for many smaller oil and natural gas companies to fully adopt, recent changes — including cloud-based computing — have made it easier for smaller companies to embrace, said Lori Garcia, a senior account executive at Microsoft.
“They don’t have to have the services and infrastructure and data centers and run a lot of cable,” she said. “With the evolution of technology, it’s available to everyone. They can have technical capabilities right-sized for their companies that previously weren’t available to them.”
Bringing operators and tech together
Baker Hughes held the event at its Oklahoma City Energy Innovation Center. The forum is one of the first such events since the company this summer said it is broadening its focus from traditional research and development to launching new products and services as startups.
“We’re focused on bringing technology to the oil and gas sector and the industrial sector,” Taylor Shinn, Baker Hughes’ director of ventures and growth, said Tuesday.
“It’s important to bring the operators together with the technology companies to see what the needs are and how to address them.”
Speakers demonstrated how oil and natural gas companies can use artificial intelligence to predict problems such as stuck
pipe while drilling, pump failure and tank overflows. They also showed how companies can use blockchain technology to share data among partner companies and reduce the cost of monitoring and enforcing contracts.
Speakers also showed how companies can use virtual reality and augmented reality for training, collaboration maintenance and design of equipment such as refineries and offshore drilling rigs.
New technology is requiring companies to invest more in employees with technical backgrounds, but it’s also leading existing employees to learn how to integrate technology into what they’re already doing, said John Westerheide, director of emerging technology at Baker Hughes.
“The concept of the citizen/data scientist is good,” he said. “It’s not necessarily what a person’s background used to be, but it’s what the person’s background is going to be.”