Digital Energy at the OTC
This post is both a continuation of the theme I started in the IT Maturity in E&P post and some observations from this week’s Offshore Technology Conference (OTC) here in Houston. My goal was simple. I wanted to know what the industry vendors were offering regarding “digital energy”. This phrase is synonymous with other phrases like “digital oil field” and “intelligent oil field”, as just two examples. The idea is the same for all of these phrases. They refer to the more aggressive usage of all digital technologies in the energy industry. I like “digital energy” mainly because it is a more inclusive phrase so it’s the one I’ll use from now on.
First, a little information on the OTC. It is a very large show (approximately 60,000 attendees over 4 days) which primarily focuses on all aspects of oil exploration and production in the Gulf of Mexico, North Sea and Arctic locations. Information technology is not a primary focus but is definitely represented. That means that many of the vendors with a story to tell 
regarding digital energy aren’t spending much effort talking about it here in presentations. You can hear more about their plans if you talk to them at their booths on the exhibit floor. Most of the focus in the booths on all things “digital” revolves around control systems and techniques for day to day operation of an offshore rig. Companies like Emerson, Honeywell and Yokogawa are some of the main players here.
The concept of digital energy can be subdivided into improved exploration and drilling (subsurface) technology, improved process control of individual production facilities and improved orchestration of multiple production facilities. With the exception of the subsurface domain, the others are very similar to other process manufacturing domains. I believe the photo of the offshore platform complex provides some useful insight. This platform is divided into smaller, connected platforms. One for drilling and others for production (the flare stack is just another process step in production). Both the production operation on individual platforms and the orchestration of production from multiple platforms are less evolved subjects in the E&P world. While both domains have existed from the beginning of the oil industry, it has just been in the last decade or so that those subjects have gained serious attention. In both areas, E&P can gain much from a closer examination of the process industry.
Companies like Schlumberger and Halliburton are addressing these areas and had something to talk about at the OTC. In my opinion, both are moving in the right direction but are several years away from a complete vision. Unfortunately, due to schedule congestion, I was unable to walk the exhibit floors as thoroughly as I would have liked. There may have been others there with a story to tell in digital energy. If anyone feels that I left out some 
vendor that should have been included, please post a comment with their name and a URL.
At the bottom of this post is a graphic showing various types of offshore platforms and some typical seabed equipment. This is actually a poster and clicking on the it will take you to their website for a copy of your own. This graphic is here for those not familiar with the subject of offshore drilling. It provides a useful overview of the complexity of operations that must be managed. Remember that in this diagram the sea floor is well lit and fairly shallow. In real life the sea floor is pitch black and several thousand feet down. The work is primarily done by robots. Fortunately, the digital energy domains I focus on reside on or near the surface and in land based control rooms. The operators in the North Sea have been developers and early adopters of shore-based control rooms. A good example of them is Statoil out of Norway.
In conclusion, it’s safe to say that at the OTC digital energy meant mature process control of offshore platforms and a maturing vision for everything else. I will be interested to see what changes by next year.
That’s it for this post. Thanks for stopping by.
