When we look back at the year in review, 2020 brought new challenges and situations for many companies. One of the biggest industries affected by the pandemic was the oil & gas industry. Reduced travel & lack of jobs presented a lot of problems to overcome.
2020 was a year that brought extraordinary learning opportunities and opened new doors for the oil and gas industry. The Oil & Gas Industry learned to embrace digital transformation and 3D digitalization.
RigZone.com wrote an article asking, “What Were The Top Oil and Gas Trends in 2020.” Below are some of the highlights from that article.
“Bob Benstead, Vice President, Strategic Planning with business cloud software firm Infor: One of the biggest trends I’ve seen in oil and gas in 2020 has been a reduction in operating costs through fewer full-time equivalents (FTEs) and the deferral of capital projects. Another is the growing desire for companies to take on digital initiatives that require them to look outside of their traditional industry. This has largely been driven by industry contraction and the pressures of the pandemic to enable remote operations.”
“Michael Krause, data scientist with artificial intelligence (AI) firm Beyond Limits: COVID-19 jump-started the long-awaited digital transformation and AI adoption in many upstream oil and gas organizations. Many domain experts, engineers and operators have had to learn new skill sets and built trust in AI and other modern technologies in a very short period of time.
Technologies such as Cognitive AI have helped to build trust because this hybrid AI approach combines machine learning techniques with encoded human knowledge to provide explainable audit trails. This level of transparency allows decision-makers to see how and why a recommendation is made, allowing them to implement remediation actions with confidence.
Additionally, the remote working environment has made it challenging for senior-level workers to provide immediate guidance to junior-level workers – but the visibility and transparency provided by the audit trail allows users to better understand the outputs without having to call an expert for support, allowing for more efficient and reliable decision-making.”
“Vicki Knott, CEO of automated control room specialist Crux OCM: Digital transformation was a buzzword from January to March (and long before), then when COVID hit the oil and gas world paused. We saw a couple of customers put autonomous projects with us on hold. We worried that this was going to continue but instead saw quite the opposite in time. Multiple customers doubled down on their efforts and, in fact, planned more aggressive project roll-outs. We also were able to accelerate additional product offerings in our roadmap to gain efficiencies through automation as fast as possible.”
Industrial3D is pleased to see the Oil & Gas Industry embracing the need for digital transformation. Digitalization brings so many new opportunities and opens up new doors for remote work, company training, and improved sales opportunities. We are excited to see the growth that digital transformation will bring to the oil and gas industry in 2021.
