Digital transformation in il and Gas

The Oil and Gas industry uses artificial intelligence to optimize and streamline its operations. 

Artificial intelligence has been a driving force in the course of Industry 4.0. Industries have embraced digital transformation through AI to increase efficiency and resilience. Oil and gas is a lucrative industry and hence faces many security breaches and operational downtimes. According to a Businesswire report, AI in the oil and gas market valued at USD2 billion in 2019, is expected to reach USD3.81 billion by 2025. The oil and gas industry is not always stable since prices fluctuate. Hence, there should be methods to utilize their resources and digitize the operations to achieve maximum business growth. The Covid-19 pandemic has also contributed to the industry’s need to embrace digitization to ensure maximum agility and efficiency.

The oil and gas industry will use machine learning and data analytics to optimize data and detect threats. The adoption of AI enables the offshore oil and gas industry to access a large amount of complex data and use it for the maximum utilization of its infrastructures.

Detecting Threats and Ensuring Cybersecurity

A study by Siemens and Ponemon Institute on cybersecurity in the energy utilities say that only 42% of the respondents rated their cyber-readiness as high, and only 31% believed they were ready to contain or respond to a breach. Cybersecurity is an important area to focus on while digitizing and automating, oil and gas industries. In order to achieve digital transformation, the industry enhances its operation to cloud and IoT devices. A large amount of crucial and complex data are analyzed through big data analytics. While this has immense benefits, this digital transformation space is also prone to cyberattacks.

Another survey by Ponemon Institute and Siemens on cybersecurity of US oil and gas industries revealed that 59% of respondents believed there is a greater risk on OT than IT environment, and 68% of respondents said security analytics is essential to achieve a strong security posture.

Intelligent threat detection strategies and using predictive maintenance can reduce the risks of cyberattacks. There should be clear visibility of IT and OT networks in the industry to identify security breaches efficiently. Machine learning and artificial intelligence are important to reduce cybersecurity breaches and integrate IT and OT networks through a digital ecosystem.

Better and Cost-Effective Maintenance 

Artificial intelligence, machine learning, and big data analytics are all significant contributors to sustainable and cost-effective maintenance of the oil and gas industries. Continuous monitoring of operation and predictive analytics will reduce bottlenecks in the workflow of the industry.

According to an IBM report, “Using AI with machine learning and different techniques of supervised and unsupervised learning is significantly improving insight and warning time, allowing for remedial actions to avoid or reduce non-productive time.” AI-driven technologies can fast-track automation. AI-enabled operations will ensure maximum productivity with minimum cost. The oil and gas industries have always worked on reducing carbon footprints and emissions. Using sustainable AI. the industry can now preach to walk on a greener pathway without disrupting the natural ecosystem.

Looking Forward to a Productive Future

AI can yield much larger benefits to the oil and gas industry. AI collects, analyses, and predicts insights from the data clouds to ensure improved efficiency and operational productivity. Voice-assisted chatbots are a great add-on to the field operation in the oil and gas industry. Autonomous AI-driven robots can takeover explorations and reduce costs. Maximum ROI and cost-effective operation strategies are a boon for the labor-intensive industry that deals with complex data structures. Digital transformation through AI is necessary for the industry to keep up with the volatile business environment.