Workshop in Kuwait Lifts the Bar in Digital Transformation for O&G

Cloud platforms, real-time monitoring, and gamification of workflows are not new to the oil and gas sector. A growing number of organizations are adopting digital transformation (DT), seeking innovative strategies, safer operations, and business optimization. In line with the exponentially increasing pace of technology advancement, pressures of change are mounting, and experience shows that not all transitions are successful or straightforward. DT for the upstream and downstream processes of oil and gas is available and ready to be implemented with step and disruptive changes dramatically uplifting the traditional way of conducting business, boosting efficiencies, and empowering cost optimization strategies. To analyze the current status of DT strategies and the pace of its implementation in the oil sector with a special emphasis on the Middle East, SPE held an Applied Technology Workshop titled, “Transforming Oil and Gas Toward Digital Intelligence” in late April in Mangaf,•Kuwait. The workshop attracted 138 attendees, and was held under the patron-age of Deputy CEO (Drilling and Technology) of Kuwait Oil Company (KOC), Nayef Al-Anezi, and chaired by Jamal Al-Humoud, manager of research and technology of KOC and cochaired by Maria Angela Capello, executive advisor in the North Kuwait Directorate of KOC. The ATW also included the SPE course “Digital Oil Field Building Blocks.” The state-of-the-art as derived from DT journeys highlighted how decades-long operating companies have a real opportunity to transform their operating workflows to become energy digital leaders. The organizing committee included representatives of Emerson, Accenture, GOFSCO, Schlumberger, Halliburton, Weatherford, Baker Hughes, Microsoft, IBM, Deloitte, WorleyParsons, Huawei, KUFPEC, Kuwait University, and Australian College of Kuwait.• Al-Anezi opened the event highlighting the importance of DT and technology adoption in aging reservoirs. Al-Humoud shared the step changes with which KOC entered the DT era, which included three digital oil fields pilot projects, applying the most advanced technologies to remotely monitor and control oil fields at West Kuwait, North Kuwait, and South and East Kuwait (Burgan fields). “We need to step up to embrace DT, to expedite our success, to optimize our costs and to enable the excellence in our studies and operations workflows,” he said. “Kuwait is pioneering in many fronts of DT, benefitting the oil sector of the state of Kuwait.” The workshop included an executive panel and four technical sessions: Disruptive Technologies, Creating Value Though Integration, Embracing the Digital Future with Right Enablers, and The Next Digital Era. Digital Transformation Discussion Bart Cornelissen, managing partner of Deloitte Middle East Energy, Resources and Industrials, opened the executive panel, stating, “The oil and gas industry needs to re-imagine how work is conducted across the entire value chain for a successful digital revolution to take place.”