Ten digital steps to a net zero future

Gary Thomson, Vice President of Sales, Endava explains how digital acceleration can bring you closer to net zero in ten steps

As even a cursory look at the agenda for Future Oil and Gas 2023 will demonstrate, Net Zero is both a priority and a problem for this industry. There is no simple route to a decarbonised business model for an extractive sector. But an industry-wide programme of digital acceleration can build a critical mass of sustainable practices that will drive emissions down.

When we talk about digital acceleration, we’re describing an iterative, continuous process of taking on new technologies that further your strategic aims.

Digital technologies are force multipliers for all sorts of efforts to mitigate the industry’s environmental impacts. At the upstream stage, tech frameworks like data analytics and cloud computing can make exploration and production greener.

The industry’s willingness to modernise its systems will be a defining aspect of its transition towards Net Zero. Let’s go through ten key steps for how you can make your own digital acceleration journey a success.

1 Define challenges

Nothing worth doing is easy, but the climb ahead for the oil and gas industry is particularly steep. To reach Net Zero, the sector must be replace many timetested processes with more sustainable substitutes that might not instantly bed in.

Oil and gas companies will also have to add new technological layers on top of these workstreams, like carbon capture and renewable generation. There’s no way around this; customers, governments, and the planet all demand it.

2 Draft the strategy

Taken on its own, digital acceleration is a challenging journey that requires a cleareyed strategy. But using that journey as a means to a larger end introduces a new dimension of complexity.

Each organisation will build its own long-term strategy, consisting of its goals for reducing emissions and how the technology it adopts will support that mission. Targets and timescales must be set, roadmaps drawn up and visions communicated to chary stakeholders.

3 Define what success looks like

What percentage reduction in total Scope One emissions, over five years, would constitute a meaningful reduction for a supermajor? What average flaring intensity should a state-owned producer aim for by 2035? These are the kind of key performance indicators (KPIs) that oil and gas companies will already be charting in their sustainability journeys.

But let’s peel back a layer and think about the metrics for tracking the success of the digitalisation strategies designed to unlock these sustainability wins.

Good strategies aren’t interchangeable; what is crucial information for one organisation might seem beside the point for another. But speaking broadly, every company will want to track metrics around process efficiency, data quality, analytics maturity, automation and cybersecurity.

4 Assess your technology infrastructure

Digital acceleration is impossible without a robust technology infrastructure to build on. Your network, compute resources, data platform and edge capabilities must be capable of scaling to incorporate new products and platforms.

For most energy players, this will look like a hybrid cloud setup that incorporates on-premise data centres, commercial cloud and edge devices.

The only way to really know which technologies you can feasibly integrate is to carry out an assessment of your integral infrastructure. Establishing the health of your systems, their level of modernity, their security and their scalability will reveal how ready you are to proceed with your digital acceleration project.

5 Drill for data

Armed with a strategy and (hopefully) an IT infrastructure that’s up to scratch, the task of digitalising the upstream process can begin in earnest.

Making exploration and production processes greener depends largely on two things: how much data you can collect and how you analyse it.

In the first instance, adding IoT sensors and drones at various points in the upstream process will give you so much more to work with. You’ll now be able to start monitoring your equipment’s performance and energy efficiency in real-time.