Sudden Changes

The present world is very different from what it was just two months ago. It also looks like that the situation is not going to get better fast and quick.

Social distancing, closed offices has led to new work patterns and methods. Virtual meetings, webinars flourishing and digitalization tools seems to permanently change a lot of perceptions in business mentality.

The oil and gas industry has taken a big hit, from both the COVID-19 and the oil volume/price war at the cost of large lay-offs, production shut-in, slashed CapEx and OpEx budgets – so where is this leading us?

Change is the only constant.

The Oil and Gas industry is changing dramatically, where complete management levels are annihilated in large established companies and R&D spending is out of the question. At the same time access to sites has been heavily restricted and travel is almost impossible.

Certain ways of interacting, for instance video meetings, and the use of digital services, are some of things we are most likely going to continue to be using in a larger extent so it is better to get used to this. The challenge of not being allowed to operational sites as a third party might be tricky and is a clear message that more remote services and connectivity are a must to be in business.

This does not prohibit all business taking place, it actually also creates new opportunities and new business solutions. Small nimble companies probably have a better starting position, but no one should feel safe. Staying dynamic is key in these challenging times.

2020 is Digital.

With the exodus of people from the industry and many probably not turning back it will be critical to find ways to ensure continued operations as well as how innovative technology and business solutions can continue to make an impact and probably at a faster pace and larger scale, without compromising the safety aspects. So in an environment when technology development and implementation has an even more challenging framework, we will have to accelerate this. Sounds like a very tough challenge, but talking and listening to a variety of industry people I do think we have the capability along with much of the infrastructure and mindset to go this way.

Collaboration might find new forms and constellations; we do need collective efforts on both sustained technology development but so too for disruptive technologies. Small tech startups might be able to solve some parts of needs and challenges in terms of technology and/or business, but this might need the effort of being bundled with other bits and pieces to solve the puzzle and make a good value proposition and enable a return on investment that is attractive. Accelerators and joint field trials might be part of the answer.

Secondly, available technology that is used in piloting or on a limited scale which has rendered good results and value should be considered in a quicker scaleup scenario. Fundamental improvements to business drivers are probably the ones to be evaluated. Sharing of data, in terms of results should be one target to aim for.

With the advances in artificial intelligence and the areas of machine learning and deep learning, there are examples and pilots indicating the value. What I see and hear many times, which is also published in many industry reports is that the data amount is ever-increasing from thousands if not even millions of sensors and a majority of time is spent on cleaning the data as only a fraction is useful. Some data is made to use right away, but is too much data from arbitrary sensors that not the smartest algorithm in the world can make use of? Is big data hurt by a lot of bad data?

Shaping the future.

What we have done at ROCSOLE is to utilize data from our own sensors that are collecting relevant data directly from the process streams for which we can provide the real-time monitoring and data analytics. No more bad data. We can provide data to unlock the complexity of flows and fluids with emulsion layers, and not just be relying on empirical methods and best practices.

The sensors and tomography technology we have brought in an industrial scale to the production and process side of the oil & gas industry enables new capabilities. Reliable and robust even under severe operating conditions we collect quality data for fluid measurements and able improve the real-time monitoring, but this also serves us to create even better data analytics tools for the industry. This will be a source for the industry to get to a new level of understanding how to optimize sub-processes to reduce operational costs in a safe manner and improve overall efficiency.

Still physical installation work is required - we have come a long way with our existing online and virtual training and we are already performing remotely assisted installation and startup on a variety of projects in several countries. Based on our capabilities and experience we are enhancing this further.

Last week was supposed to be the yearly happening in Houston around OTC, which along with so many other conferences had to be cancelled – still we got a bit of the feeling by being awarded the OTC SPOTLIGHT ON NEW TECHNOLOGY for our tank scanning technology and solution (LITI). This is based on our tomography platform and own robust sensor technology. The Spotlight award we see as a sign from the industry recognizing that we have something valuable to offer, with our innovation now being in use with many oil and gas operators in a variety of applications. It is a milestone achievement for our group of people on our way to scale-up with high intensity.

As final remarks:

We are ready for any discussions and efforts to increase the impact of the digital era.

We stay committed to our objectives to make the industry a better and safer place to be.

Digitalization is an integral part of this.

/Mika Tienhaara, CEO ROCSOLE