Intelligent Energy: The Past, the Present, and the Future

Abstract

Abstract The first ten years of Intelligent Energy have been interesting and rewarding. The oil and gas industry has seen many successful IE implementations with significant value delivered. We have established improved communication and collaboration, and seen changes enabled by real-time data and new technologies such as predictive analytics. However, we have not yet delivered the level and scale of transformation that was envisioned at the start. Our industry has moved more slowly at the same time as the "outside" world – our own homes and other industries – has moved much more quickly. As individuals, we consume information and communicate very differently from ten years ago – e.g., through online booking, social media, and the use of map-based solutions. There is an ease of connecting across the world and "things talk" 1 – but not in the oil patch to any large degree. In this paper, and based on more than ten years of experience working exclusively with IE and with more than a dozen of the key industry actors, we will present an analysis of the IE domain, lessons learned and suggestions for where we should go from here. We will consider the reasons for our current state, attempting to answer why it might be more difficult to transform in the oil and gas industry than elsewhere 2. Why have some of the barriers been much bigger than we expected? The business case is as strong as it was ten years ago, the technology is more robust, and we have more young people in the industry as well as a higher level of acceptance of technology and change in our personal lives. So we should find it easier to make more rapid progress now than in the past. What must change to achieve that progress?