Transforming the Future: The Digital Revolution in the Oil and Gas Industry. Oil digital path. Digital transformation leader
Source: popmech
Neural networks, digital twins, artificial intelligence. Industry 4.0 technologies will change the oil industry beyond recognition
Architects of the digital age
Usually the most technologically advanced areas are considered to be information technologies and biomedicine. The attitude towards companies in traditional industries, such as metal rolling or oil production and refining, is quite different. At first glance, they seem conservative, but many experts call them the main architects of the new digital age.
Industrial giants began to automate production processes in the mid-30s of the last century. Over many decades, hardware and software systems have been continuously improved and complicated. Automation of production processes - for example, in oil refining - has moved far ahead. The operation of a modern oil refinery is monitored by hundreds of thousands of sensors and instruments, and fuel supplies are tracked in real time by satellite navigation systems. Every day, the average Russian refinery produces more than 50,000 terabytes of information. For comparison, 3 million books, which are stored in the digital storage of the Russian State Library, occupy hundreds of times less - "only" 162 terabytes.
This is the very "big data", or Big Data - a flow comparable to the information download of the largest sites and social networks. The accumulated array of data is a unique resource that can be used in business management. But traditional methods of information analysis are no longer suitable for this. It is only possible to work effectively with such a volume of data with the help of Industry 4.0 technologies. in the context of a changing economic paradigm, a 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 knowledge loaded. At the same time, industrial companies have a powerful engineering school and are actively involved in the introduction and improvement of 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 great 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 already today allow reducing costs by up to 10-15% per month. The fact is obvious: in the era of the fourth industrial revolution, those who learn how to most effectively apply new technologies in the context of accumulated experience will be competitive. Petr Kaznacheev, Director of the Center for Resource Economics, RANEPA: "as a first step towards an "integral" 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 for optimizing the company's work could be made."
Digital transformation leader
Realizing this trend, the industrial leaders of Russia and the world are restructuring business processes that have been developing for decades, introducing Industry 4.0 technologies based on the Industrial Internet of Things, artificial intelligence and Big Data into production. The most intensive transformation is taking place in the oil and gas industry: the industry is dynamically “digitizing”, investing in projects that seemed like science fiction just yesterday. Plants controlled by artificial intelligence and capable of predicting situations, installations that prompt the operator for the optimal mode of operation - 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 marketing, which would combine smart wells, factories and gas stations into a single ecosystem. ideal digital model, the moment a consumer presses the fuel dispenser lever, the company's analysts in the operations center instantly receive information about what brand of gasoline is filled into the tank, how much oil needs to be extracted, delivered to the plant and processed to meet 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 furthest in solving this problem. Its specialists are now implementing a number of projects, which should ultimately become the basis for creating a single platform for managing processing, logistics and sales. A platform that no one else in the world has yet.
Digital twins
Today, Gazprom Neft's refineries are among the most modern in the industry. However, the fourth industrial revolution opens up qualitatively new opportunities, at the same time presenting new requirements for automation. More precisely, it is not so much about automation, but about the 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 the processes and relationships that occur in real prototypes. they are based on the work of artificial intelligence based on neural networks. The "Digital Twin" can offer optimal modes of equipment operation, predict its failures, and recommend repair terms. Among its other advantages is the ability to constantly learn. The neural network itself finds errors, corrects and remembers them, thereby improving its work and the accuracy of the forecast.
The basis for training the "digital twin" is an array of historical information. Modern oil refineries are as complex as the human body. Hundreds of thousands of parts, tens of thousands of sensors. The 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 teaching artificial intelligence to understand the installation. It includes readings from sensors and instrumentation collected over the last few years of operation of the facility. The operator simulates various situations, makes the neural network answer the question "what will happen if one of the operation parameters is changed?" - for example, to replace one of the components of the raw material or to increase the power supply of the plant. The neural network analyzes the experience of past years and excludes non-optimal modes from the algorithm by calculation, and learns to predict the future operation of the installation.
Gazprom Neft has already fully "digitized" two industrial complexes involved in the production of automotive fuel - a catalytic cracking gasoline hydrotreatment unit at the Moscow Oil Refinery and a unit 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 integrated 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 empirically can subsequently be scaled up to the level of large refineries, which will eventually create an effective digital production management platform.
Nikolay Legkodimov, Head of the Advanced Technologies Advisory Group, 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. One can speak of a qualitative leap only when a sufficient breadth of coverage of these models is achieved. If these models can be combined with each other, to combine them into a whole complex chain, this will indeed allow solving problems at a completely new level - in particular, simulating the behavior of the system in critical, unfavorable and simply dangerous operating conditions.For those areas where re-equipment and modernization of equipment are very expensive, this allows you to pre-test new components."
Performance Management
In the future, the entire value chain in the logistics, refining and marketing 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, established a year ago in St. Petersburg. It is here that information from "digital twins" will flow, here it will be analyzed, and here, based on the data received, management decisions will be made.
Already today, more than 250,000 sensors and dozens of systems transmit information to the Center in real time from all the company's assets included in the perimeter of the Gazprom Neft logistics, processing and marketing block. Every second, 180,000 signals arrive here. It would take a person just to view this information about a week. The Center's digital brain does this instantly: it monitors the quality of products and the quantity of oil products in real time along the entire chain - from the output from the refinery to the end consumer.
The strategic goal of the Center is, using the technologies and opportunities of Industry 4.0, to radically increase the efficiency of the downstream segment. That is, not just managing processes - this can be done within traditional systems, but making these processes the most efficient: using predictive analytics and artificial intelligence at each stage of the business, reduce losses, optimize processes and prevent losses.
In the near future, the Center should learn how to solve several key tasks that affect the efficiency of business management. including predicting the future 60 days ahead: how the market will behave in two months, how much oil will need to be processed to meet the demand for gasoline at the current time, what condition the equipment will be in, whether the plants 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 should reach 50% capacity and begin to monitor, analyze and forecast the amount of oil product stocks at all oil depots and refueling 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 the loss of oil products and the reduction in their quality.
By 2020, Gazprom Neft aims to reach 100% of the performance management center's capabilities. Among the declared indicators are the analysis of the reliability of all equipment, the prevention of losses in terms of quality and quantity of products, and the 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, the economic effect of digitalization can be more than $ 1 trillion. Therefore, when it comes to large vertically integrated companies, the introduction of integrated solutions is quite justified. But it is also justified for small companies, as efficiency gains can free up additional funds for them by reducing costs, increase the efficiency of working capital management, etc. ".
Digitization (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 need to create a small database with convenient and understandable logic and interface, but at the same time there is absolutely no desire to mess around with Access or other similar programs ...
The world energy industry is on the verge of technological and structural reform. According to the World Economic Forum, digitalization of the oil and gas industry alone could generate an additional $1.6 trillion in revenue by 2026. However, this technological transition can be a very painful transformation for many old industrial enterprises.
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, including artificial intelligence (artificial intelligence, AI), intelligent automation (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 interference in human genes to the fourth industrial revolution. Accenture believes that the expansion of IE solutions will increase labor efficiency and could increase the productivity of national economies by 40% by 2035 in several countries.
Should you spend money on new technologies?
While the financial sector, real estate and healthcare are rapidly transforming, leading in terms of investment in IE systems, the oil and gas industry has not yet received significant benefits from the new digital order. The oil industry has just gone through its most difficult period in 30 years. The fall in oil prices since 2014, the layoff of 350,000 employees worldwide, and the fall in investment in production are a major crisis that the oil and gas industry has faced in recent years. The result was attempts to optimize the business, the beginning of using the potential of new technologies to improve 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 affect your business?" 65% were in favor of cost reduction, 45% - process optimization, 44% - business modernization, 42% - time savings, 35% - winning the competition.
But so far, oil companies are seriously lagging behind the changes taking place in other industries at a tremendous speed. According to the latest polls, four out of five professionals in the oil and gas industry are "delighted" with the ongoing changes, 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 started, and some even have no intention of integrating innovative IE system solutions into their existing business model.
The digitalization of the oil and gas industry is aimed primarily at the ability to quickly make decisions that are balanced by risk assessment, as well as to increase the productivity and value of the company. BP CEO Robert Dudley, speaking about digital transformation, notes the importance of making quick 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 as bright innovators in certain areas.
According to the head of the upstream company Bernard Loney, big data (big data) will lead to a revolution in the oil industry.
"Accept the new era, do not wait for it to be imposed on us",
calls the top manager.
During 2017, BP acquired Beyond Limits, an artificial intelligence and cognitive computing start-up that is adapting NASA's upstream technology for deep space exploration to the sector.
Chevron is actively developing seismic data visualization and 3D reservoir modeling GPUs. The main goal is to determine the most suitable places for drilling.
Shell develops seismic machine learning algorithms 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 decide is how wasteful it can be, creating and implementing miracles from the arsenal of the fourth industrial revolution.
For example, Eni in Italy had to cut capital expenditures by 20% due to huge spending on the already award-winning HPC3 hybrid high-performance computer launched in early 2017, designed for use in the hydrocarbon exploration and production segment. But experts note that IE elements can be installed on top of already existing legacy systems and use data that is already generated by the equipment. 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 mega-projects underway are behind schedule or over budget.
According to surveys, two technology areas from the IE systems arsenal can bring the greatest impact to the oil and gas industry: predictive analytics and intelligent automation systems.
Deep learning technologies are important for the accurate analysis of failures in industrial plants and can find their application in the capital-intensive oil and gas industry. Intelligent automation systems allow, through data integration, to switch to automatic execution of functions traditionally performed by personnel. Experts note that by 2020 a personnel crisis will come in the oil and gas industries: 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 management and infrastructure facilities, field development, geophysical services, pipelines, processing.
Russian way
In November 2017, Gazprom approved a target program for the development of a single information space until 2022. The company has set itself the task of introducing automated solutions at all levels of management, based on current trends in the transition to a digital economy.
Gazprom has declared three principles on which its policy in this area is based: innovation, integration and import substitution. We use advanced IT solutions that provide maximum integration of information 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 and control systems have been introduced, which made it possible to automate many important business processes. A data processing center was built with strict information security requirements.
Gazprom now has a corporate data warehouse with the main indicators of the efficiency of production processes used in making key management decisions. It is planned to comprehensively automate production accounting and planning, create a virtual unified data warehouse that will receive information from facilities in real time, as well as introduce tools for monitoring, modeling and predicting the technical condition of 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 the widespread use of digital technologies and tools for proactive management of production facilities and processes along the entire value chain to maximize business profitability. With the help of powerful computing resources and a software platform for processing large amounts of data, it is planned to create digital models of existing production facilities (“digital twins”).
Gazprom Neft also sees great potential for digitalisation. The most interesting direction is the changes affecting business management, business processes, restructuring the organization model and doing business in the company. According to Gazprom Neft, digital transformation involves a symbiosis of large-scale technological and organizational changes aimed at radically improving business efficiency through its full digitization at all stages of value creation. According to the head of the oil company Alexander Dyukov, the technologies can be used along the entire value chain, from geological exploration to the sale of fuel at gas stations, which will improve work efficiency.
Opportunities for localization
The main prospects for digitalization in Russia are related to the energy sector. There is potential for localization here. Thus, according to Simon Huffeteau, 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 takes an active part in the business digitalization process, collaborating with key market players. Rosatom Corporation became one of the main partners. Dassault Systèmes actively cooperates with the corporation's subsidiary, the ASE group of companies.
“We started interaction within the framework of internal processes for the design and construction of nuclear reactors. Over time, they 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, which allows you to implement all capital construction projects in terms of organizing technical information, optimizing the sequence of work, and designing civil engineering facilities. We are helping ASE develop this technology, but we have other plans for cooperation,"
Juffeto said.
In the oil and gas sector, Dassault Systèmes works with equipment manufacturers, engineering firms that design and maintain facilities, and operators who operate facilities. The proposed solutions help design and build infrastructure facilities, manage capital construction projects, and optimize processes at operating enterprises.
Dassault Systèmes is interested in alternative energy projects 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 power generation is needed. Alternative energy can help the economic development of distant regions, as well as create competitive advantages for the Russian economy in the world market. A good example of cooperation is the RUSAL and RusHydro project in Krasnoyarsk, where a hydroelectric power plant, an environmentally friendly source of energy, is used to produce aluminum. Another factor is that there are very large cities in Russia, the development and growth of which create great difficulties for public utilities. This is where Smart Grid technology would help to create long-term and environmentally friendly urban development. There are many projects and different opportunities, but in all these projects there is a task - managing complexity. How to deal with the increasing complexity of projects? In all these areas, the latest technology can help, and working in 3D plays a very important role here,” says Simon Juffeto.
Neural networks, digital twins, artificial intelligence. Industry 4.0 technologies will change the oil industry beyond recognition
Architects of the digital age
Usually the most technologically advanced areas are considered to be information technologies and biomedicine. The attitude towards companies in traditional industries, such as metal rolling or oil production and refining, is quite different. At first glance, they seem conservative, but many experts call them the main architects of the new digital age.
Industrial giants began to automate production processes in the mid-30s of the last century. Over many decades, hardware and software systems have been continuously improved and complicated. Automation of production processes - for example, in oil refining - has moved far ahead. The operation of a modern oil refinery is monitored by hundreds of thousands of sensors and instruments, and fuel supplies are tracked in real time by satellite navigation systems. Every day, the average Russian refinery produces more than 50,000 terabytes of information. For comparison, 3 million books that are stored in the digital storage of the Russian State Library occupy hundreds of times less - "only" 162 terabytes.
This is the very “big data”, or Big Data, a flow comparable to the information load of the largest sites and social networks. The accumulated array of data is a unique resource that can be used in business management. But traditional methods of information analysis are no longer suitable for this. It is only possible to work effectively with such a volume of data with the help of Industry 4.0 technologies. In the context of a changing economic paradigm, a 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 knowledge loaded. At the same time, industrial companies have a powerful engineering school and are actively involved in the introduction and improvement of new technologies. This is another circumstance that makes them key players in the "new economy".
Interesting on the web
Finally, domestic industrialists know the price of business efficiency. Russia is a country of great 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 already today allow reducing costs by up to 10-15% per month. The fact is obvious: in the era of the fourth industrial revolution, those who learn how to most effectively apply new technologies in the context of accumulated experience will be competitive.
Petr Kaznacheev, Director of the Center for Resource Economics, RANEPA: “As a first step towards an “integral” 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 the 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 for optimizing the company's work could be made.
Digital transformation leader
Realizing this trend, the industrial leaders of Russia and the world are restructuring business processes that have been developing for decades, introducing Industry 4.0 technologies based on the Industrial Internet of Things, artificial intelligence and Big Data into production. The most intensive transformation is taking place in the oil and gas industry: the industry is dynamically “digitizing”, investing in projects that seemed like science fiction just yesterday. Plants controlled by artificial intelligence and able to predict situations, installations that prompt the operator for the best mode of operation - all this is already becoming a reality today.
At the same time, the maximum task is to create a system for managing production, logistics, production and sales, which would unite smart wells, factories and gas stations into a single ecosystem. In an ideal digital model, the moment a consumer presses the fuel dispenser, the company's analysts in the operations center are instantly informed 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 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 farthest in solving this problem. Its specialists are now implementing a number of projects, which should ultimately become the basis for creating a single platform for managing processing, logistics and sales. A platform that no one else in the world has yet.
Digital twins
Today, Gazprom Neft's refineries are among the most modern in the industry. However, the fourth industrial revolution opens up qualitatively new opportunities, at the same time presenting new requirements for automation. More precisely, it is not so much about automation, but about the almost complete digitization of production.
The basis of the new stage will be the so-called "digital twins" - virtual copies of refinery units. 3D models reliably describe all the processes and relationships that occur in real prototypes. They are based on the work of artificial intelligence based on neural networks. The "Digital Twin" can offer optimal modes of equipment operation, predict its failures, and recommend repair terms. Among its other advantages is the ability to constantly learn. The neural network itself finds errors, corrects and remembers them, thereby improving its work and the accuracy of the forecast.
The basis for training the "digital twin" is an array of historical information. Modern oil refineries are as complex as the human body. Hundreds of thousands of parts, tens of thousands of sensors. The 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 teaching 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, makes the neural network answer the question “what will happen if one of the operation parameters is changed?” - for example, to replace one of the components of the raw material or to increase the power supply of the installation. The neural network analyzes the experience of past years and excludes non-optimal modes from the algorithm by calculation, and learns to predict the future operation of the installation.
Interesting on the web
Gazprom Neft has already fully “digitized” two industrial complexes involved in the production of automotive fuel — a catalytic cracking gasoline hydrotreatment unit at the Moscow Oil Refinery and a unit 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 integrated 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 empirically can subsequently be scaled up to the level of large refineries, which will eventually create an effective digital production management platform.
Nikolay Legkodimov, Head of the Advanced Technologies Advisory Group, 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. One can speak of a qualitative leap only when a sufficient breadth of coverage of these models has been achieved. If these models can be combined with each other, combined into a whole complex chain, then this will indeed allow solving problems at a completely new level - in particular, simulating the behavior of the system in critical, unfavorable and simply dangerous operating conditions. For those areas where retooling and upgrading equipment is very expensive, this will allow pre-testing of new components.”
Performance Management
In the future, the entire value chain in the logistics, refining and marketing 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, established a year ago in St. Petersburg. It is here that information from the “digital twins” will flow, here it will be analyzed, and here, based on the data received, management decisions will be made.
Already today, more than 250,000 sensors and dozens of systems transmit information to the Center in real time from all the company's assets included in the perimeter of the Gazprom Neft logistics, processing and marketing block. Every second, 180,000 signals arrive here. It would take a person just to view this information about a week. The Center's digital brain does this instantly: it monitors the quality of products and the quantity of oil products in real time along the entire chain - from the refinery outlet to the end consumer.
The strategic goal of the Center is, using the technologies and opportunities of Industry 4.0, to radically increase the efficiency of the downstream segment. That is, it’s not just about managing processes – this can also be done within traditional systems, but to make these processes the most efficient: using predictive analytics and artificial intelligence at every stage of the business, reduce losses, optimize processes and prevent losses.
In the near future, the Center should learn how to solve several key tasks that affect the efficiency of business management. This includes predicting the future 60 days ahead: how the market will behave in two months, how much oil will need to be processed to meet the demand for gasoline at the current time, what condition the equipment will be in, whether the plants will be able to cope with the upcoming load and whether them repair. At the same time, in the next two years, the Center should reach 50% capacity and begin to monitor, analyze and forecast the amount of oil product stocks at all oil depots and refueling 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 the loss of oil products and the reduction in their quality.
By 2020, Gazprom Neft aims to reach 100% of the performance management center's capabilities. Among the declared indicators are the analysis of the reliability of all equipment, the prevention of losses in terms of quality and quantity of products, and the 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, the economic effect of digitalization could be more than $1 trillion. Therefore, when it comes to large vertically integrated companies, the introduction of integrated solutions is highly justified. But it is also justified for small companies, as efficiency improvements can free up additional funds for them by reducing costs, increase the efficiency of working capital management, etc. ”.
Interesting on the web
Konstantin Kravchenko, Head of Information Technology, Automation and Telecommunications Department, Gazprom Neft PJSC
Now the digital era in the oil and gas industry - is already a reality. Companies around the world have moved from words to digital technologies: Shell and Total use robots, Chevron and Shell - drones, Statoil - 3D visualization, Chevron detects leaks in pipelines using video analytics, BP is implementing a massive application-related project Industrial Internet of Things on mining platforms. Almost all players in the global oil and gas industry are already using artificial intelligence and the possibilities of virtual and augmented reality. Even technology such as blockchain has not gone unnoticed. This year, BP joined the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance, whose activities are aimed, among other things, at the distribution of smart contracts in corporations.
Gazprom Neft does not stand aside from the unfolding digitalization race. During the year, almost all production units and corporate functions of the company launched pilot projects or launched large-scale initiatives based on digital technologies.
At the same time, it should be noted that digitalization leads to radical changes in entire industries. Thus, the spread of Internet telephony, instant messengers and virtual operators has forced telecommunications companies to completely change their business model. The emergence of electronic and unmanned vehicles, as well as car sharing services, has changed the face of the transport industry. These innovations, along with the development of shale resources, the increasing use of renewable energy sources, the activity of start-ups offering refueling the car outside gas stations, have also affected the oil and gas sector. But digitalization brings not only upheavals - it hides survival opportunities for traditional industry players.
You just need to be able to use these opportunities correctly. And from the technical side, we are ready: a significant amount of production data has been accumulated, computing capacities have been created for their processing; the cost of introducing innovations is reduced, and the experience of their successful application is expanding. But digitalization is not equal to technology, it also involves a radical change in operating and business models. This is its fundamental difference from traditional automation. New technologies do not work without changing business approaches, and here the digital technology platform plays a key role. It is she who will become a tool for managing disparate processes and functions of companies, and in the future, the basis of the industry ecosystem.
There is a process of formation of end-to-end value chains, which are managed from multifunctional centers. Gazprom Neft already has a drilling support center (in the exploration and production block), an efficiency improvement center in oil refining and logistics, a production optimization center in offshore projects, and a project management center in capital construction. In the future, we are considering the creation of flat structures managed from a single center and uniting an ecosystem of partners.
On this path, we still have to solve many problems. At the company level, it is necessary to create a new corporate culture, a management and decision-making system, and reconsider the role of information technology and the CIO. But there are tasks that must be solved at the industry level - standardization, changes in legislation and the creation of a common technological platform.
I emphasize that without such a platform, effective progress along the path of digitalization is impossible. Representatives of the largest technology companies and business consultants speak about this, this is also spelled out in the Digital Economy of the Russian Federation program.
Now there are about 300 industrial Internet of Things platforms on the market, but these are mainly Western solutions. Their use in the era of transition to the cloud creates critical risks for our industry. In addition, existing platforms solve only a part of the tasks of digitalization, not fully meeting the needs of tomorrow.
The main question is: where is the player or team that will create a promising Russian cloud platform for digital production? Obviously, such a large-scale task is beyond the power of one company.
When we talk about neural networks and machine learning, we first of all imagine digital assistants in smartphones, working with images or artificial intelligence that writes music. In fact, the technologies of the Industry 4.0 concept, which include neural networks, are used, among other things, for completely different things. N+1 Together with Gazprom Neft, we have created a test that will tell you in an interactive way about the use of modern technologies in the oil industry. Dare!