Why oil & gas companies should embrace the digital age more fully

UNLIKE other industries that are enjoying a sudden embrace of benefits from data, the oil and gas sector is well-acquainted with analytics. For decades, energy companies have relied on rich pools of data to discover and understand the potential in their reservoirs and other production opportunities.

Even so, most have yet to capture the full potential of their data because they haven't always been able to generate actionable insights or make better and faster decisions based on data. This will change as these companies upgrade their digital capabilities and improve the way they connect these insights to their operating models.

We expect to see dramatic cost savings and significant improvements in productivity and revenue. One integrated oil company managed to save about 10 per cent on unit costs by digitising a remote offshore operations centre; another reduced operating costs per barrel by about 10 per cent and recovered more reserves by applying selective applications in intelligent oilfields through collective computing and sharing real-time information at all company levels.