Oil industry: digital reality. The digital path of oil. Leader of digital transformation

The global energy industry is on the verge of technological and structural reform. According to the World Health Organization economic forum, digitalization of the oil and gas industry alone could generate additional revenue of $1.6 trillion by 2026. However, this technological transition can be a very painful transformation for many older industrial plants.

IN recent years New terms and concepts have emerged to describe the ongoing digital transformation. The structure of the world, including the industrial one, is being changed by the concept of intelligent enterprise (IE) - a set of technological innovations that includes artificial intelligence (AI), intelligent automation (IA), deep learning technologies, predictive analytics and cognitive computing.

According to the International Data Corporation, the market for cognitive solutions and artificial intelligence will grow to $46 billion by 2020, an increase of 500% compared to 2016 levels.

Science fiction is becoming a documented reality of rapid changes in the socio-economic space: the boundaries of the ongoing transformation are rapidly expanding - from intervention in human genes to the fourth industrial revolution. Accenture believes that increased use of IE solutions will improve the efficiency of use labor force and could increase the productivity of national economies in a number of countries by 40% by 2035.

Should you spend money on new technologies?

While the financial sector, real estate and healthcare are rapidly transforming, leading the investment in IE systems, the oil and gas industry has not yet benefited significantly from the new digital order. The oil industry has just gone through the most difficult period over the past 30 years. The fall in oil prices since 2014, the reduction of 350 thousand personnel worldwide, and the fall in investment in production are a serious crisis that the oil and gas industry has faced in recent years. The result was attempts to optimize the business and the beginning of using the potential of new technologies to increase the efficiency and profitability of companies.

According to a survey conducted by Oil & Gas IQ among representatives of the largest international oil and gas companies, when answering the question “How can intelligent enterprise systems impact your business?” 65% were in favor of reducing costs, 45% - optimizing processes, 44% - modernizing business, 42% - saving time, 35% - winning in competition.

But for now oil companies seriously lag behind the changes occurring in other industries at enormous speed. According to recent surveys, four out of five oil and gas industry professionals are “excited” about the changes taking place, and three out of four believe that IE systems will help companies save money by reducing capital expenditures and operating expenses. However, one in three respondents said that their company has not yet begun, and some do not even have the intention, to integrate innovative IE solutions into their existing business model.

Digitalization of the oil and gas industry is aimed primarily at the ability to quickly make decisions balanced by assessing risks, as well as increasing the productivity and value of the company. BP CEO Robert Dudley, speaking about digital transformation, notes the importance of making operational decisions, as well as changing the way people work. But the oil and gas industry is traditionally conservative, only a few, the most financially secure, players show themselves to be bright innovators in certain areas. According to the head of the upstream company Bernard Loney, big data will lead to a revolution in the oil industry. "Accept new era, don’t wait for it to be imposed on us,”- calls the top manager.

During 2017, BP acquired Beyond Limits, an artificial intelligence and cognitive computing startup that adapts NASA's deep space exploration upstream technologies for the sector. Chevron is actively developing GPUs for visualizing seismic data and creating 3D reservoir models. The main goal is to determine the most suitable locations for drilling.

Shell is developing machine learning algorithms for seismic exploration to automatically detect and classify geological structures in onshore and offshore oil and gas fields. The main question that each oil and gas company will have to ask and solve is how wasteful it can be in creating and deploying miracles from the arsenal fourth industrial revolution.

Thus, the Italian Eni had to reduce capital expenditures by 20% due to the huge costs of the HPC3 hybrid high-performance computer, launched in early 2017, intended for use in the hydrocarbon exploration and production segment, launched in early 2017. But experts note that IE elements can be installed on top of existing legacy systems and use data that is already generated by the hardware. This will significantly reduce the cost of digitalization in oil and gas projects, which is good news for an industry in which four out of five megaprojects under implementation are behind schedule or over budget.

According to surveys, two technological areas from the arsenal of IE systems can bring the greatest effect in the oil and gas industry: predictive analytics and intelligent automation systems. Deep learning technologies are important for accurately analyzing failures in industrial plants and can find application in the capital-intensive oil and gas industry. Intelligent systems Automation allows, through data integration, to switch to automatic execution of functions traditionally performed by personnel.

Experts note that by 2020, the oil and gas industries will face a personnel crisis: half of experienced engineers and geophysicists will reach retirement age. Digitalization can affect the entire value chain in the oil and gas industry. Among the most promising segments for the transition to digital technologies are asset and infrastructure management, field development, geophysical services, pipelines, and refining.

Russian way

In November 2017, Gazprom approved a target program for the development of a unified information space until 2022. The company has set itself the task of introducing automated solutions at all levels of management, based on modern trends in the transition to the digital economy.

Gazprom declared three principles on which its policy in this area is based: innovation, integration and import substitution. Advanced IT solutions are used that ensure maximum integration of information and management systems and a synergistic effect for Gazprom’s business. The company is trying to give preference to domestic developments. An informatization strategy is being implemented, 35 information management systems have been introduced, which has made it possible to automate many important business processes. A data processing center with strict information security requirements was built.

Gazprom now has a corporate data warehouse with key performance indicators of production processes used when making key management decisions. It is planned to comprehensively automate production accounting and planning, create a virtual unified data warehouse, which will receive information from facilities in real time, as well as introduce monitoring, modeling and forecasting tools technical condition production assets. Great hopes are associated with the use of elements of a promising enterprise management model - the concept of Industry 4.0 (the fourth technological revolution).

It involves widespread use digital technologies and tools for proactive management of production facilities and processes along the entire value chain to maximize business profitability. Using powerful computing resources and a software platform for processing large volumes of data, it is planned to create digital models of existing production facilities (“digital twins”).

Gazprom Neft also sees great potential for digitalization. Most interesting direction are changes affecting business management, business processes, restructuring the organizational model and conducting business in the company. According to Gazprom Neft, digital transformation involves a symbiosis of large-scale technological and organizational transformations aimed at radically increasing business efficiency through its complete digitization at all stages of value creation. According to the head of the oil company, Alexander Dyukov, technologies can be used throughout the value chain, from geological exploration to fuel sales at gas stations, which will improve operational efficiency.

Localization opportunities

The main prospects for digitalization in Russia are related to energy. There is potential for localization here. Thus, according to Simon Huffeto, senior director of the energy industry at Dassault Systèmes, IT solutions that are created for the specific needs of companies in Russia can be used in the future on the global market. IN Russia Dassault Systèmes is actively involved in the digitalization process of the business, collaborating with key market players. One of the main partners was the Rosatom corporation. Dassault Systèmes actively cooperates with the corporation’s subsidiary, the ASE group of companies.

“We began interaction within the framework internal processes design and construction nuclear reactors. Over time, we realized that companies have excellent opportunities to bring joint solutions to the energy market not only in Russia, but also abroad. Based on our developments, ASE has created its own Multi-D platform - a set of tools that runs on our 3DEXPERIENCE platform, allowing the implementation of all capital construction projects in terms of organizing technical information, optimizing the sequence of work, and designing civil engineering projects. We are helping ASE develop this technology, but we also have other plans for cooperation,”- said Huffeto.

In the oil and gas sector, Dassault Systèmes works with equipment manufacturers, engineering firms that design and maintain facilities technical support and support, as well as with operators operating the facilities. The proposed solutions help to design and build infrastructure facilities, manage capital construction projects, and optimize processes in operating enterprises.

Dassault Systèmes is interested in projects in the field of alternative energy in Russia. The company has optimistic forecasts for the development of this segment.

“In Russia, the share of alternative energy sources is very small. But there is huge potential, especially for remote regions where local energy generation is needed. Alternative energy can help the economic development of remote areas, as well as create for the Russian economy competitive advantages on the world market. Good example cooperation - a project between RUSAL and RusHydro in Krasnoyarsk, where the hydroelectric power station is environmentally pure source energy, used to produce aluminum.

Another factor is that Russia has very large cities, the development and growth of which create great difficulties for public utilities. Smart Grid technology would help here with the goal of creating long-term and environmentally friendly urban development. There are many projects and different opportunities, but in all of these projects there is a challenge - managing complexity. How to cope with the increasing complexity of projects? In all of these areas, the most helpful modern technologies, and working in 3D plays a very important role here,” notes Simon Huffeto.

Neural networks, digital twins, artificial intelligence. Industry 4.0 technologies will change the oil industry beyond recognition

Architects of the Digital Age

Typically, the most technologically advanced areas are considered to be the areas of information technology and biomedicine. The attitude towards companies in traditional industries, such as those involved in metal rolling or oil production and refining, is completely different. At first glance, they seem conservative, but many experts call them the main architects of the new digital era.

Industrial giants began automating production processes back in the mid-30s of the last century. Over the course of many decades, hardware and software systems have continuously improved and become more complex. Automation of production processes - for example, in oil refining - has made great progress. The operation of a modern oil refinery is monitored by hundreds of thousands of sensors and instruments, and fuel supplies are monitored in real time by satellite navigation systems. Every day, the average Russian refinery produces more than 50,000 terabytes of information. For comparison, the 3 million books stored in the digital storage of the Russian State Library occupy hundreds of times less - “only” 162 terabytes.

This is the same “big data”, or Big Data, a flow comparable to the information loading of the largest websites and social networks. The accumulated array of data represents a unique resource that can be used in business management. But traditional methods of information analysis are no longer suitable for this. Working truly effectively with such a volume of data is only possible with the help of Industry 4.0 technologies. In a changing economic paradigm, rich industrial “historical experience” is a serious advantage. Big data is at the heart of artificial intelligence. Its ability to learn, understand reality and predict processes directly depends on the amount of loaded knowledge. At the same time industrial companies They have a powerful engineering school and are actively involved in introducing and improving new technologies. This is another circumstance that makes them key players in the “new economy”.

Interesting things on the web

Petr Kaznacheev, Director of the Center for Resource Economy, RANEPA: “As a first step towards an “integrated” artificial intelligence system in oil and gas, one could consider “smart” management and corporate planning. In this case, we could talk about creating an algorithm for digitizing all key information about the company’s activities - from the field to the gas station. This information could be sent to a single automated center. Based on this information, using artificial intelligence methods, forecasts and recommendations could be made to optimize the company’s work.”

Leader of digital transformation

Realizing this trend, industrial leaders in Russia and the world are restructuring business processes that have developed over decades, introducing Industry 4.0 technologies into production based on the industrial Internet of things, artificial intelligence and Big Data. The most intensive transformation is taking place in the oil and gas industry: the industry is dynamically “digitalizing”, investing in projects that seemed fantastic just yesterday. Factories controlled by artificial intelligence and capable of predicting situations, installations that tell the operator the optimal operating mode - all this is already becoming a reality today.

At the same time, the maximum task is to create a management system for production, logistics, production and sales that would unite “smart” wells, factories and gas stations into a single ecosystem. In an ideal digital model, the moment a consumer pulls the nozzle lever, company analysts in the operations center instantly receive information about what brand of gasoline is being filled into the tank, how much oil needs to be extracted, delivered to the plant and refined to meet demand in specific region. So far, none of the Russian and foreign companies have been able to build such a model. However, Gazprom Neft has advanced the furthest in solving this problem. Its specialists are currently implementing a number of projects, which should ultimately become the basis for creating a unified platform for managing processing, logistics and sales. A platform that no one else in the world has yet.

Digital twins

Today, Gazprom Neft refineries are among the most modern in the industry. However, the fourth industrial revolution opens up qualitatively new opportunities, while simultaneously placing new demands on automation. More precisely, we are talking not so much about automation, but about almost complete digitization of production.

The basis of the new stage will be the so-called “digital twins” - virtual copies of refinery installations. 3D models reliably describe all processes and relationships occurring in real prototypes. They are based on the work of artificial intelligence based on neural networks. The “digital twin” can suggest optimal operating modes for equipment, predict its failures, and recommend repair times. Among its other advantages is the ability to constantly learn. The neural network itself finds errors, corrects and remembers them, thereby improving its performance and forecast accuracy.

The basis for training the “digital twin” is an array of historical information. Modern oil refining plants are as complex as the human body. Hundreds of thousands of parts, tens of thousands of sensors. Technical documentation for each installation occupies a room the size of an assembly hall. To create a “digital twin”, all this information must first be loaded into a neural network. Then the real thing begins difficult stage— the stage of training artificial intelligence to understand the installation. It includes readings from sensors and instrumentation collected over the last few years of plant operation. The operator simulates various situations, forces the neural network to answer the question “what will happen if you change one of the operating parameters?” - for example, replacing one of the raw material components or increasing the energy supply of the installation. The neural network analyzes the experience of past years and, using a calculation method, excludes non-optimal modes from the algorithm, and learns to predict future job installations.

Interesting things on the web

Gazprom Neft has already completely digitized two industrial complex involved in the production of automobile fuel - a catalytic cracking gasoline hydrotreating unit at the Moscow Oil Refinery and an installation operating at the company's oil refinery in Omsk. Tests have shown that artificial intelligence is able to simultaneously take into account a huge number of parameters of their “digital twins”, make decisions and notify about possible deviations in work even before the moment when the trouble threatens to develop into a serious problem.

At the same time, Gazprom Neft is testing comprehensive solutions that will minimize the impact of the human factor on the scale of the entire production. Similar projects are currently being implemented at the company’s bitumen plants in Ryazan and Kazakhstan. Successful solutions found experimentally can subsequently be scaled up to the level of large refineries, which will ultimately create an effective digital production management platform.

Nikolay Legkodimov, Head of the Advanced Technologies Advisory Group at KPMG in Russia and the CIS:“Solutions that simulate various components, assemblies and systems have been known and used for quite a long time, including in the oil and gas industry. We can talk about a qualitative leap only when a sufficient breadth of coverage of these models has been achieved. If we manage to combine these models with each other, to combine them into a whole complex chain, then this will indeed make it possible to solve problems at a completely new level - in particular, to model the behavior of the system in critical, unprofitable and simply dangerous operating conditions. For those areas where re-equipment and modernization of equipment are very expensive, this will allow preliminary testing of new components.”

Performance Management

In the future, the entire added value chain in the logistics, refining and sales block of Gazprom Neft will be united by a single technological platform based on artificial intelligence. The “brain” of this organism will be the Performance Management Center, created a year ago in St. Petersburg. This is where information from “digital twins” will flow, here it will be analyzed and here, based on the data received, decisions will be made. management decisions.

Already today, in real time, more than 250 thousand sensors and dozens of systems transmit information to the Center from all the company’s assets included in the perimeter of the Gazprom Neft logistics, refining and sales block. Every second 180 thousand signals arrive here. It would take a person about a week just to view this information. The digital brain of the Center does this instantly: in real time it monitors the quality of products and the quantity of petroleum products along the entire chain - from the exit from the refinery to the end consumer.

The strategic goal of the Center is to radically increase the efficiency of the downstream segment, using the technologies and capabilities of Industry 4.0. That is, it’s not just about managing processes - this can be done within the framework of traditional systems, but making these processes more efficient: through predictive analytics and artificial intelligence at every stage of business, reducing losses, optimizing processes and preventing losses.

In the near future, the Center must learn to solve several key problems that affect the efficiency of business management. This includes forecasting the future 60 days in advance: how the market will behave in two months, how much oil will need to be processed to satisfy the demand for gasoline at the current moment in time, what condition the equipment will be in, whether the installations will be able to cope with the upcoming load and whether they need repairs. At the same time, in the next two years, the Center must reach 50% capacity and begin to monitor, analyze and forecast the amount of petroleum product reserves at all oil depots and fueling complexes of the company; automatically monitor more than 90% of production parameters; analyze the reliability of more than 40% of process equipment and develop measures to prevent losses of petroleum products and a decrease in their quality.

By 2020, Gazprom Neft sets a goal to reach 100% of the capabilities of the Performance Management Center. Among the stated indicators are analysis of the reliability of all equipment, prevention of losses in the quality and quantity of products, and predictive management of technological deviations.

Daria Kozlova, senior consultant at VYGON Consulting:“In general, integrated solutions bring significant economic benefits to the industry. For example, according to Accenture estimates, the economic effect of digitalization could amount to more than $1 trillion. Therefore, when we are talking about large vertically integrated companies, the implementation of integrated solutions is very justified. But it is also justified for small companies, since increasing efficiency can free up additional funds for them by reducing costs, increase the efficiency of working capital management, etc.”

Interesting things on the web

Just last year, the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) predicted that US crude oil production was on track to reach all-time highs. In October 2017, US crude oil exports rose to almost 2 million barrels per day, which became a new record for America - it now rivals Kuwait in export volumes.

This state of affairs causes concern among industry leaders, especially OPEC, and among supporters of alternative energy - they hope for a decrease in US oil production and an increase in prices; even current production values are of serious concern. Last month, Citi released a forecast that US shale oil production would double in five years. New players will appear in the largest regional markets, which will change the supply structure; one of the fastest growing markets is Asian, and the export of shale oil there from the United States has already become sensational.

American shale companies are announcing ambitious projects to increase production. Their plans threaten to undermine OPEC's efforts to stabilize the global oil market and restore commodity prices. According to the EIA, oil production in the United States in 2018 could reach 10 million barrels per day, this level could become a record since 1970, in which the previous maximum was reached - 9.6 million barrels per day. Over the past 10 years, shale oil production has transformed the traditional market - significantly reducing conventional oil production, as well as prices, including in 2014 and becoming a serious problem for OPEC.

Digital technologies and software are having a major impact on shale oil production, further transforming the energy industry. A number of experts believe that the energy sector is on the verge of a real transformation change - comparable to Amazon's revolutionary transformation in retail. This opinion was expressed in American Forbes by Mark Mills, a strategic partner of Cottonwood Venture Partners, a technology venture fund specializing in digital solutions for the oil and gas industry. Mills cited examples of startups offering horizontal drilling software, on-demand contractor networks, and AI-powered well design platforms and other innovative solutions. What they have in common is that they are highly specialized in various segments of the oil industry, providing solutions that significantly reduce time, labor and costs while improving results.

According to Mills, three factors in technological development will create an “Amazon effect” in the oil and gas industry that will change the face of the industry forever. These are cheap computing technologies with the possibility of their industrial application, the ubiquitous presence of communication networks, and finally, cloud technologies. The Internet of Things is pervasive in the oil and gas industry, along with data analytics technologies and artificial intelligence.

It is these areas of modern digital technologies that will become one of the driving forces of the second shale revolution. In particular, shale oil project operators are increasingly turning their attention to effective business software solutions that level the playing field between independent players and the oil and gas industry giants that previously dominated for decades.

But the oil and gas industry is complex, and technological innovations come to it unevenly, Nikolay Legkodimov, head of the advanced technologies consulting group at KPMG in Russia and the CIS, explained to Forbes. What is closest to the consumer - retail(refueling and related products), will indeed transform quite seriously: due to new payment methods, cross-selling with other products and offers, development of loyalty programs, integration with other retail services, etc. More and more it will look like regular retail. This part, both abroad and in Russia, will be highly dependent on technology.

However, Legkodimov believes that in areas that are not visible to the end consumer, but are nevertheless fundamental, for example, mining and processing, digitalization penetrates to a lesser extent, but not because it is less in demand, but because it has been there for a long time . There is historically large funding, serious industrial groups and serious vendors who are working on automating these productions: “Accordingly, there will not be any fundamental changes here, simply because there is no low base effect. Of course, some new developments will be introduced. For example, the same AI-based mechanisms will improve equipment reliability/resilience management. Also, geological exploration will be a consumer of everything digital - where there is a lot of data, there are many options for using IT.”

As Daria Kozlova, senior consultant at VYGON Consulting, told Forbes, it is necessary to separate the concept of operational technologies, which are directly related to exploration and development of fields (4D seismic, horizontal drilling), and digital technologies, which allow collecting and analyzing large volumes of information, increasing the efficiency of companies. . “Digital technologies are an infrastructure that makes it possible to increase the efficiency of operational technologies or speed up the process of their implementation. Therefore, on the one hand, they will put pressure on the price of oil, worsening economic efficiency tight oil development. On the other hand, digital technologies increase drilling efficiency. They likely contributed to the decline in the Bakken breakeven point from $58/bbl in 2014 to $32/bbl in 2016.” But the shale revolution is nevertheless limited not only by technology, but also by economics and shale production. “In my opinion, its prospects are solely a question of whether oil is expensive enough on the market to make it technologically difficult enough to extract it from shale,” Nikolai Legkodimov explained to Forbes.

So far, US independent oil companies have not invested enough money in technology (compared to healthcare or the financial sector), but, according to Mark Mills, in the near future future will happen there is literally a flurry of mergers and acquisitions in oil and gas software development. The reason for this consolidation is clear: there are many independent companies among shale oil producers, and technological improvements will separate the winners from the losers. Some independent shale companies are seriously burdened with debt resulting from expansion of production, and not all will survive the new digital revolution.

And among the competitors there are not only the flagships of the oil and gas industry, but also renewable energy sources, which step on the heels whenever oil prices rise, and which are already actively using modern software - this will become a strong motivation for shale producers. And indeed, in conditions low prices In the oil industry, industry leaders are paying increasing attention to this area, introducing digital technologies and collaborating with global IT companies - IBM, Microsoft. “The number of “smart fields” and “smart wells” is increasing around the world. BP, for example, even held its own “Digital day,” says Daria Kozlova.

In her opinion, Russian companies are not lagging behind their foreign partners in this direction. There are 27 intellectual fields operating in Russia. Considering that Russia has a significant resource potential of hard-to-recover reserves, prospecting areas, as well as projects to apply enhanced oil recovery methods, digital technologies can have a significant impact on the level of production in the country. “According to our estimates, the potential additional effect could be up to 150 million tons by 2035. Therefore, their implementation may even need to be further stimulated,” Kozlova explained.

But the Russian oil industry, Legkodimov notes, has traditionally not been at the forefront of technology, and now this trend is breaking. At the same time, it is important to understand that we are not talking about the introduction of promising technologies, but still about automation. “Digital field” or “digital plant” is to a large extent an automation program: “To talk about a digital breakthrough where it is not always possible to abandon manual data entry and paper storage of records, in my opinion, is a little naive.”

As Danila Shaposhnikov, partner at North Energy Venture, notes, leading global companies are now working on the “smart field” area: Chevron - iFields project, BP - Field of the Future project, Shell - Smart Fields project. Russian companies are also not lagging behind.

“However, startups remain the center of development of these technologies. The world's leading independent and corporate venture funds, including Energy Ventures, Lime Rock Partners, Altira and many others, are investing in this sector. The venture industry focuses on the following technological areas: Instrumentation & Field Capture - collecting data using sensors from ground, underground and underwater O&G infrastructure; Data Integration & Analytics - interpretation and analysis of data, including in real time, for geological modeling, optimization of drilling operations, etc.; Networking & Communications - technologies for remote monitoring of field infrastructure facilities,” noted Shaposhnikov.

He also noted that in Russia the number of venture funds with a focus on oil and gas technologies is growing; for example, RDIF recently announced the creation of a joint fund with Saudi Arabia with a mandate to invest in high-tech oilfield services.

Text: Natalya Petrova, Illustrations: Alexey Stolyarov

To assess the effect of the changes taking place today, it is enough to mentally step back into the past and remember how we lived, worked and did business 10-15 years ago. Analysts, however, argue that this is just the beginning of the process, and promise the business world dramatic changes in the near future. On upper floors corporations feel the wind of change well: in the survey general directors of international companies, which is regularly conducted by IBM, technology came out on top among key business factors back in 2012 and has since reliably maintained this position.

Experts note that the danger of the ongoing processes lies primarily in their scale and speed. Scientific and technological progress has never occurred at such a speed - and this speed continues to increase, leaving less and less time for thinking, forecasting and preparation. The changes themselves have never before been so all-encompassing: digitization does not bypass any area of our lives and sooner or later the numbers will come to every industry and to every home. In addition, all previous technological breakthroughs concerned the material world, but now the boundaries between the material world and virtual space are blurred, mixing together what was always reliably separated. How to deal with these changes? What to expect from them and how should businesses proceed?

Alexander Dyukov, Chairman of the Board of Gazprom Neft: « We live in a special era - the era of the fourth industrial revolution. This era has a very serious impact on the global economy. We see very well how quickly new industries emerge, how new companies appear and grow. Those players who previously dominated are forced to either accept the challenge of developing digital technologies and try to actively engage in them, or leave the market. If we talk about the oil industry, then, unlike, for example, the banking business, we are not so dependent and not so sensitive to the digital revolution. However, the use of digital technologies can provide certain advantages to companies. We have chosen a course for global technological leadership, and one of the conditions for this leadership is the effective, rapid use of digital technologies.”

In the general flow

At first glance, transformations seem to happen haphazardly and unpredictably. The “digital icebreaker” begins here and there - one industry is touched on a tangent, another is turned upside down, recent market leaders are derailed, and companies that no one had heard of a year ago come to the fore. Thus, with the development of the Internet, print media are slowly but surely leaving the market, giving way to electronic ones. Not only the method of disseminating information is changing, but also the genres and formats of handling the printed word. Mobile application technologies are also changing market after market - trucking, banking services, tourism. Next in line are retail, cellular communications and even B2B markets, where mobile applications, replacing various service functions. The interaction model proposed by Uber at one time has become a household name today.

Wave after wave of various digital technologies and associated transformations rolls in: the Internet, social networks, big data, neural networks... However, a careful study of events and their driving forces shows that behind the external diversity lie common universal features that allow us to say that we have dealing with a single process. This process of change is increasingly referred to as digital transformation.

Educational platform

A striking example of the implementation of a platform solution within a company is the Gazprom Neft Corporate University. This is a new form educational projects, allowing employees not only to be consumers of knowledge, but to actively participate in its creation. The prerequisite for the emergence of the Corporate University was, on the one hand, the need large quantity employees in improving their qualifications, and on the other hand, a colossal array of knowledge and experience accumulated by the company’s experts. The platform format provides both with virtually unlimited opportunities for interaction due to the total integration of the educational space.

At the same time, Corporate University does a lot of work behind the scenes to ensure that the service is of the appropriate quality. The structural basis of this work is the faculties and departments within them. The department is a professional community, which is a key instrument for preserving and disseminating knowledge. Carriers of professional experience and knowledge can act in two roles within this community. As experts, they ensure high quality training content and ensure that competency models, profiles, tests and curricula. As internal trainers, they develop and implement training courses. One of the most important tasks of the Corporate University is to involve managers and holders of expertise in this work and help them strengthen the skills and abilities that are needed to carry it out. At the moment, the Corporate University already has 21 departments and it is planned to open 9 more. The platform format of the Corporate University makes it possible to involve thousands of experts in its work, who are able to provide the educational process for tens of thousands of managers and employees.

What features are we talking about? Firstly, the increase in the number of connections. The number of connections increases every time some element of the physical world, previously isolated, is connected to the digital world. Such an element can be the person himself or some of the objects and devices surrounding him. Phones, cameras, players have become digital - they are all turning into auxiliary devices for connecting a person to a network. Refrigerators and washing machines are already mastering wi-fi. We are dealing with the Internet of things. Digital self-service checkout. Digital reception. Digital code on a museum exhibit. The emergence of compounds in itself is not a new phenomenon; the novelty lies in the rapid growth of their number.

Every active connection becomes a source of information for the digital ocean. This information was scattered in physical world, but with the new connection it joined the general information array. And the explosion of connections leads to an explosion in the amount of information available. In other words, we are accumulating big data.

Available information, in turn, opens up hitherto unknown possibilities for interaction. Today, the game strategy of a basketball team can be based not on the experience of the coach, but on a machine analysis of the shots and behavior of the opposing players on the field. Using big data, Amazon analyzes the subtleties of its customers' preferences and makes surprisingly accurate offers to them. Yandex.Traffic, interacting with various sources, collects information about the situation on the road and improves traffic flows.

As a result, increased digital density—the number of connections, available information, and interactions—creates a bridge between the physical and digital worlds: the digital world more and more accurately reflects the physical one and, in turn, begins to transform it. This influence can be direct, as in the example with basketball, shopping and city navigation, or more indirect. An increase in digital density at some point develops into qualitative changes environment, in which people and businesses exist.

Big Data

Gazprom Neft is already successfully using the phenomenon of growing digital density to improve business efficiency. Thus, back in 2012, the company launched the ERA (Electronic Asset Development) program, aimed at developing automation in exploration and production. Geological information about all the company's fields is accumulated and analyzed in its own information system GeoMate, and in the “Chess and Technical Mode” program, information from wells is stored and the technological mode of their operation is formed.

The implementation of various IT solutions immediately brought results - the company has increased the amount of information related to geological exploration, field development, well operation, etc. Today, to effectively process seismic data and build hydrodynamic models, Gazprom Neft is turning to the help of the supercomputer St. -Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University. Such power is needed to benefit from the enormous amount of heterogeneous and poorly structured data obtained when studying complex reserves.

Konstantin Kravchenko, Head of the Department of Information Technology, Automation and Telecommunications: “It is very important to understand that digital transformation is not the replacement of one technology with another. Digital transformation is, first of all, a change in the business management model, a change in business processes, a restructuring of the model of organization and conduct of business in a company, and in the case of oil and gas companies we are talking about the transformation of all areas of its activity - exploration, production, refining, sales and corporate management. Therefore, in order for such large-scale transformations to be carried out, a digital transformation strategy is required. We must move from individual innovative initiatives and projects to a unified step-by-step plan for the transition to the digital economy. And such work is already underway at Gazprom Neft.”

Another example of the active practical use of the opportunities that the idea of digital transformation brings with it is the analysis of information using machine learning - artificial intelligence. Every day, large volumes of data are received from Gazprom Neft's production assets - operational well measurements (liquid and oil flow rates, product water cut, bottomhole pressure values), research physical characteristics formation and produced fluid. At the same time due to various reasons this data may not always be correct or complete and its analysis may lead to incorrect conclusions about the current condition of wells or the field as a whole and ultimately affect development decisions. Such solutions may include hydraulic fracturing or well workover, drilling sidetracks, or the use of tertiary enhanced oil recovery methods.

The task of artificial intelligence in this situation is to find errors in the data and additionally determine missing values, thereby improving the quality of information, identifying new, previously unnoticed patterns, and speeding up the analysis process itself. Only a machine can analyze every megabyte of data, integrate heterogeneous data, and take into account various patterns when making forecasts. Today, specialists from the Gazprom Neft Scientific and Technical Center, together with the MIPT Engineering Center, began developing algorithms for teaching machines the appropriate skills. In the future, we will create a full-fledged intellectual assistant for a developer specialist.

Signs of transformation

Digital transformation has a lot of symptoms that can be roughly grouped into three groups. Firstly, there is a change in the mentality of end consumers, which has already been called consumerization. The meaning of the changes is that specialized IT technologies are increasingly becoming available to the mass user. In turn, users try to use “home” technologies in the office without thinking about their security. Over the course of a decade and a half, the technological emphasis has shifted significantly from the business segment to the consumer segment: if at the beginning of the millennium the leaders were technology companies such as Microsoft, Cisco, IBM, which worked primarily with business, now Google, Apple, Facebook, aimed at the average person at the very end of the chain. People in droves have received a first-class digital experience - and their expectations and behavior have changed dramatically. The man who yesterday, together with his son, filmed his area with an iPhone from a quadcopter is not satisfied with a mobile banking application with an interface like an ATM or the old simple scheme of “pay - fill up - go” to a gas station - he wants to get something more, something , which corresponds to the rest of his experience. At the same time, if a person needs to send a large file at work or urgently contact someone, he will not hesitate to use online file sharing or instant messenger. Businesses must take these trends into account so that the moment does not come when the company will seem antediluvian not only to clients, but also to its own employees.

Performance Management Center

In June 2017, the Gazprom Neft Oil Refining and Marketing Performance Management Center (ERC) opened in St. Petersburg. The strategic goal of this unique project for the industry is to build a unified digital platform for managing the efficiency of the value chain - from the receipt of oil at refineries to the sale of petroleum products to the end consumer. The center uses modern data analysis technologies, predictive analytics methods and big data.

The operating principle of the TsUE is based on integration various systems value chain management, organizing free and continuous data exchange between them and using predictive analytics methods on parameters such as demand for petroleum products, equipment reliability, petroleum product quality, environmental monitoring, energy efficiency, etc. In real time, 250,000 sensors and dozens of systems transmit information to the central control center from all company assets included in the perimeter of the Gazprom Neft logistics, refining and sales block.

As part of the work of the center, the formation of accurate engineering models of technological installations - digital twins of assets, which will allow us to move to proactive management of the reliability, safety and efficiency of enterprises, continues.

Another important sign that digital transformation has already affected a particular industry: democracy competitive environment, which is achieved by lowering the entry threshold into business and is expressed in an avalanche-like growth in the number of startups. Many startup founders seek out small niches where larger companies don't cover customer needs well, but can still generate significant revenue. They do not necessarily compete with the “dinosaurs” directly, but by their very vibrant existence in their chosen niche they form an environment that creates strong competitive pressure on traditional businesses. In such a conservative industry as oil and gas, startups can find their place by offering companies innovative technologies, IT products, business management solutions.

At the same time, the democratization of business results in a variety of business models being used, and this applies not only to startups, although they undoubtedly set the tone here. Any company, regardless of size or scope of activity, can expand or change its ways of interacting with customers. A striking example of a new approach is platform solutions. Google and Apple were among the first to implement this model, followed by hundreds of consumer platforms. Now the time has come for industrial companies. In Russia, the development of platform production systems is carried out, for example, by Mail.ru Group. The holding has already entered the industrial Internet of things (IIoT) market by launching the Tarantool IIoT platform, which allows you to collect data from sensors at enterprises and send them for analysis to data centers.

Platform production systems allow you to build business management in a new way, increase production efficiency and optimize the entire value chain. At Gazprom Neft, such a platform was the recently opened Performance Management Center in the logistics, refining and sales block (see inset).

At the same time, large industrial companies themselves can take an active part in creating platforms as business models for the interaction of various business representatives - technology creators, service providers. Thus, Gazprom Neft is already an active customer of innovations, simultaneously involving both scientific organizations and equipment manufacturers in their creation. In particular, the company is implementing the project “Creation of a complex of domestic technologies and high-tech equipment for the development of reserves of the Bazhenov formation.” This project can be considered a prototype of a platform model of relationships between all market participants. Various research institutes and industrial companies are invited to participate. And systematic development and testing of new domestic technologies is expected to be carried out on the basis of the Center for the Development of TRIZ Production Technologies, which Gazprom Neft is creating in the Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug together with the administration of the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug - Ugra.

Sales platform

Digital transformation can provide significant competitive advantages for Gazprom Neft’s sales unit. Today the company is creating a digital sales platform. It will allow you to finely and accurately customize the product and service offering for each client in any of the sales channels, quickly create and launch new products and services on the market, provide the consumer with instant access to the required solution - be it a gas station management contract, a fuel supply contract, or an order to deliver an order from an online store to a specific station at a specific time.

In other words, the company will ensure leadership in the end-consumer market, including in the B2B segment, by using accumulated knowledge about its client, organizing effective end-to-end logistics and the ability to seamlessly integrate the capabilities of partners from any other industries into its own client offering. IT solutions in these three areas will form the basis of the digital sales platform architecture. Detailing competitive directions for the formation of specific IT projects is carried out as part of the development of a digital strategy for the regional sales directorate. By the end of the year, the development of the strategy will be completed and the implementation of the technological component of the platform will begin. At the same time, changes are being worked out in the organizational model of the directorate, necessary to form the business component of the digital sales platform.

Company of the future

With the growth of digital density, the key competencies of a business are changing, which ensure its very existence - they allow you to create value for the client and monetize the created value. The emergence of some and the disappearance of other key competencies cannot be called something new: once upon a time, the advent of cars devalued the skills of driving a horse, but created a need for the skills of driving a car. Nowadays, with the advent of the navigator, the skill of navigating a city has become less useful, but the value of the skill of handling digital devices has increased. The same thing happens at the level of organizations and industries. However, it can be very difficult for both people and organizations to give up their polished competencies when they are no longer needed.

Changes in key competencies entail industry restructuring, the emergence of new business models, and organizational changes. Digital transformation of business is the development of the ability to create and develop new competencies that make a business successful in an environment of constant and large-scale changes. Media, retailers, IT companies, banks have encountered the described phenomena in full height. Industry is away from the center of events, but those who feel safe are engaged in self-deception: the first echoes of digital transformation can be heard here too. According to experts, in the digital future for oil and gas companies, competencies related to innovative development, development of new products, development of new markets. While routine functions will increasingly be outsourced to robots, knowledge related to geological exploration, data analysis, reliability management and company efficiency will remain in demand.

Source: popmech

Neural networks, digital twins, artificial intelligence. Industry 4.0 technologies will change the oil industry beyond recognition

Architects of the Digital Age

This is the same “big data”, or Big Data, a flow comparable to the information loading of the largest websites and social networks. The accumulated array of data represents a unique resource that can be used in business management. But traditional methods of information analysis are no longer suitable for this. Working truly effectively with such a volume of data is only possible with the help of Industry 4.0 technologies. In the conditions of a changing economic paradigm, rich production “historical experience” is a serious advantage. Big data is at the heart of artificial intelligence. Its ability to learn, understand reality and predict processes directly depends on the amount of loaded knowledge. At the same time, industrial companies have a powerful engineering school and are actively involved in introducing and improving new technologies. This is another circumstance that makes them key players in the “new economy”.

Finally, domestic industrialists know the price of business efficiency. Russia is a country of long distances. Often, production assets are located at a great distance from consumers. Under these conditions, it is very difficult to quickly respond to market fluctuations. Traditional technologies allow saving no more than a tenth of a percent. Meanwhile, digital solutions today make it possible to reduce costs by up to 10-15% per month. The fact is obvious: in the era of the fourth industrial revolution, the one who learns to most effectively apply new technologies in the context of accumulated experience will be competitive. Petr Kaznacheev, Director of the Center for Resource Economy, RANEPA: “As a first step towards an “integrated” artificial intelligence system in oil and gas, one could consider “smart” management and corporate planning. In this case, we could talk about creating an algorithm for digitizing all key information about the company’s activities - from the field to the gas station. This information could be sent to a single automated center. Based on this information, using artificial intelligence methods, forecasts and recommendations could be made to optimize the company’s work.”

Leader of digital transformation

At the same time, the maximum task is to create a management system for production, logistics, production and sales that would unite “smart” wells, factories and gas stations into a single ecosystem. ideal digital model, at the moment when the consumer presses the lever of the gas nozzle, the company's analysts in the operations center instantly receive information about what brand of gasoline is being filled into the tank, how much oil needs to be extracted, delivered to the plant and processed to satisfy the demand in a particular region. So far, none of the Russian and foreign companies have been able to build such a model. However, Gazprom Neft has advanced the furthest in solving this problem. Its specialists are currently implementing a number of projects, which should ultimately become the basis for creating a unified platform for managing processing, logistics and sales. A platform that no one else in the world has yet.

Digital twins

The basis of the new stage will be the so-called “digital twins” - virtual copies of refinery installations. 3D models reliably describe all processes and relationships occurring in real prototypes. they are based on the work of artificial intelligence based on neural networks. The “digital twin” can suggest optimal operating modes for equipment, predict its failures, and recommend repair times. Among its other advantages is the ability to constantly learn. The neural network itself finds errors, corrects and remembers them, thereby improving its performance and forecast accuracy.

The basis for training the “digital twin” is an array of historical information. Modern oil refining plants are as complex as the human body. Hundreds of thousands of parts, tens of thousands of sensors. Technical documentation for each installation occupies a room the size of an assembly hall. To create a “digital twin”, all this information must first be loaded into a neural network. Then the most difficult stage begins - the stage of training artificial intelligence to understand the installation. it includes readings from sensors and instrumentation collected over the last few years of plant operation. The operator simulates various situations, forces the neural network to answer the question “what will happen if you change one of the operating parameters?” - for example, replacing one of the raw material components or increasing the energy supply of the installation. The neural network analyzes the experience of past years and, using a calculation method, excludes non-optimal modes from the algorithm, and learns to predict the future operation of the installation.

Gazprom Neft has already completely “digitized” two industrial complexes involved in the production of automobile fuel - a hydrotreating unit for catalytic cracking gasoline at the Moscow Oil Refinery and an installation operating at the company’s oil refinery in Omsk. Tests have shown that artificial intelligence is able to simultaneously take into account a huge number of parameters of their “digital twins”, make decisions and notify about possible deviations in work even before the moment when the trouble threatens to develop into a serious problem.

Nikolay Legkodimov, Head of the Advanced Technologies Advisory Group at KPMG in Russia and the CIS:“Solutions that model various components, assemblies and systems have been known and used for a long time, including in the oil and gas industry. We can talk about a qualitative leap only when a sufficient breadth of coverage of these models has been achieved. If we can combine these models with each other, combining them into a whole complex chain, then this will indeed make it possible to solve problems at a completely new level - in particular, to simulate the behavior of the system in critical, unprofitable and simply dangerous operating conditions. For those areas where re-equipment and modernization of equipment is very expensive, this is. will allow preliminary testing of new components."

Performance Management

In the future, the entire value added chain in the logistics, refining and sales block of Gazprom Neft will be united by a single technological platform based on artificial intelligence. The “brain” of this organism will be the Performance Management Center, created a year ago in St. Petersburg. This is where information from “digital twins” will flow, here it will be analyzed and here, based on the data obtained, management decisions will be made.

In the near future, the Center must learn to solve several key problems that affect the efficiency of business management. including forecasting the future 60 days in advance: how the market will behave in two months, how much oil will need to be processed to satisfy the demand for gasoline at the current moment in time, what condition the equipment will be in, whether the installations will be able to cope with the upcoming load and whether they need repair. At the same time, in the next two years, the Center must reach 50% capacity and begin to monitor, analyze and forecast the amount of petroleum product reserves at all oil depots and fueling complexes of the company; automatically monitor more than 90% of production parameters; analyze the reliability of more than 40% of process equipment and develop measures to prevent losses of petroleum products and a decrease in their quality.

Daria Kozlova, senior consultant at VYGON Consulting:"In general, integrated solutions bring a significant economic effect for the industry. For example, according to Accenture estimates, the economic effect from digitalization can amount to more than $1 trillion. Therefore, when it comes to large vertically integrated companies, the implementation of integrated solutions is very justified. But it also justified for small companies, since increased efficiency can free up additional funds for them by reducing costs, increase the efficiency of working capital management, etc.”

Digitalization (in a broad sense) is the process of introducing digital transmission systems (DTS) at the level of primary networks, switching and control facilities that ensure the transmission and distribution of information flows in digital form at the level of secondary networks.

From time to time we all have the need to create a small database with convenient and understandable logic and interface, but there is absolutely no desire to tinker with Access or other similar programs...