Oil Fields Push for High-Tech Future

An unlikely consequence of the downturn in oil prices over the past five years has been its push to use new digital technology to increase efficiency.

The 2015 US oil glut led to a stunning fall in oil prices, yet this reduction has encouraged the industry to embrace a range of transformational technologies: For the first time, technology is able to capture data of a single production well, enabling off-site decision-makers to monitor the progress occurring in some of the world’s most complex waters.

“The combined impact of supercomputing and artificial intelligence is helping us see our world through new eyes” says Bernard Looney, the chief of upstream operations for BPOpens a new window . “We can uncover resources. We can compare wells instantly. We can pinpoint corrosion risks by applying machine learning to 40 years’ worth of data.”

Underwater AI

One of the most sophisticated artificial intelligence advances is the use of undersea robots, designed by ExxonMobil to perform the initial detection of potential oil sites.

“Our goal is to have these submersibles embody the reasoning of the scientists that program them,” says Brian Williams, MIT professorOpens a new window and designer of artificial intelligence software for undersea exploration. “You want the explorer to do the science without the scientist there. They need to be able to analyze data, keep themselves out of harm’s way and determine novel solutions in novel situations that go beyond basic mission programming.”

Norwegian oil and gas company Equinor (formerly Statoil) is also attempting to expand its use of sub-sea drones to allow platforms to be run wholly from onshore.

“We aim to develop smaller and lighter installations, which are unmanned, robotized and controlled from shore” says Bjorn Kaare Viken, the vice president for technology management for EquinorOpens a new window . “An example is (our) use of sub-sea drones, which are placed permanently underwater. These drones will make their breakthrough this year as they will be installed on multiple fields.”

Big Data from the Deep

The need to apply additional high-tech analysis has come as a result of the relatively recent ability to generate vast amounts of data from oil and gas exploration. The data inform decisions about which sites warrant further exploration, directing billions of dollars of further investment their way.

“As an example, the average off-shore rig generates 50 terabytes of data annually through sensors, as well as operational and financial sources” says Binu Mathew, the global head of digital products for Baker HughesOpens a new window . “Yet less than one percent of that data is actionable, tagged or analyzed.”

Equinor plans to use super computer advances to collect and analyze automatically all of its oil and gas data in a digitalization process. The ability to wrangle the Big Data used in oil and gas not only lowers the cost and speeds up the process, but has Equinor betting that it could also lead to accessing oil that can’t be captured using current techniques.

“Think about how much seismic data we have collected from the Norwegian Continental Shelf,” says Elisabeth Birkeland Kvalheim, the chief technology officer for EquinorOpens a new window . “What if we could process and interpret these data automatically? And if we could add machine learning into this equation, there is reason to believe that the machines would find oil and gas which humans have not been able to find.”

Artificial intelligence is already being used onshore to identify the most productive wells and make repairs to the unproductive ones.

“Oil and gas companies that have embraced technology are presenting strategic recommendations for specific well sites requiring immediate attention,” says Shiva Rajagopalan of Seven Lakes.Opens a new window “Without this dynamic awareness of well health and location, pumpers end up treating all wells the same.”

Current technology is being expanded to further automate the industry. BP plans to use fiber-optic cables for even its most remote offshore wells, which would provide necessary data for the immediate monitoring of projects. According to the Wall Street Journal, these kinds of improvements could lower BP’s costsOpens a new window by as much as 20%.

Sensor-Driven Overhead Drones

Overhead drones equipped with special sensors are also increasingly being introduced as a way to gather inspection information. The technology is not yet developed enough to replace human judgement of inspections, but drones can provide significant information with their high-definition and thermal cameras.

“What we’re working on already [and] that we’ll be introducing within the next year, is applying machine learning to the drones” says Renner Vaughn, director of oil and gas at commercial drone operator, CapeOpens a new window : “Teaching the drones to be able to recognize visual cues in its camera feed and then allow the user to make adjustments or automatically change certain aspects of a system based upon those inputs.”

While the high-tech advancements are expected to push the industry forward, they also mean that many of the 160,000 oil and gas jobs lost when prices began to fall in 2014 are not expected to return.

“People have left the industry, and they are not coming back,” saysOpens a new window Michael Dynan, vice president for portfolio and strategic development at Schramm, a Pennsylvania manufacturer of drilling rigs. “If it’s a repetitive task, it can be automated, and I don’t need someone to do that. I can get a computer to do that.”