Driving the Next Generation of Oil and Gas Exploration and Production

ARC has been blogging for a few years now about its strong belief in the real business value that IIoT-enabled solutions can provide companies in all industries, but most especially in the oil & gas segments of upstream, midstream and downstream. The “lower for longer” oil price environment is finally forcing most of the players (i.e. IOCs, NOCs, E&Ps, oilfield service providers, etc.) in oil & gas to refocus their operations by leveraging digital technologies to survive and eventually thrive in this new “normal”. One only needs to look at the growing number of partnerships (future blogs coming) among the major oilfield service providers to see that digital transformation is now “for real” in the oil patch.

Next Generation of Oil and Gas Exploration Strategic Alliance

A recently formed strategic alliance between Halliburton and Microsoft hopes to speed the digital transformation of the oil and gas industry. Jointly announced by the companies last month, the partnership aims to leverage artificial intelligence (AI), internet cloud applications, and other breakthrough technologies to drive efficiency improvements and enhance value across exploration and production (E&P) operations.

“Halliburton is at the forefront of the digital transformation occurring in the E&P industry,” said Nagaraj Srinivasan, senior vice president of Landmark and Halliburton Digital Solutions. “We believe open architecture and community-based innovation are necessary to drive this fundamental change and we’re proud to work closely with an industry leader like Microsoft to deliver tailored E&P digital business solutions to our customers across the globe.”

Jason Zander, corporate vice president of Microsoft Azure, the company’s suite of business cloud services, said, “Halliburton is focused on delivering intelligent cloud solutions to drive the next generation of efficient oil and gas exploration and production. We are excited to bring the power of Azure’s hyperscale, hybrid, and global cloud-platform technologies to this alliance to enhance the value chain for our mutual customers.”

Researchers and engineers from both companies will leverage and optimize Microsoft technologies in machine learning (ML), augmented reality (AR), user interactions, and industrial Internet of Things (IoT), as well as Azure’s high-performance infrastructure and built-in computing capabilities to deliver tightly integrated solutions across the energy value chain.

Areas of collaboration include: applying deep learning to reservoir characterization, modeling and simulation, building domain-specific visualization for mixed reality, creating highly interactive applications, and fueling the digitalization of E&P assets.

ARC is a zealot in its continued belief that the areas of opportunity within the oil & gas value chain (full stream) to benefit from digital transformation are as vast and deep as the wells and basins across the globe that are being exploited to continue to bring to the world affordable and efficient energy, products, and transportation.