It is not a huge stretch to say that almost any industrial activity or even a private activity in the entire world is impossible without oil and gas. These resources are not only used in heat and power space but also in everyday items like Manufacturing, Apparel and Transportation. Oil & Gas is acting as a lubricant to smoothen the operation in several industries.

However, Oil & Gas industry in itself has undergone most difficult phases in past compared to other industries. The economic downturn, price fluctuations and untamed competition have caused deepest concerns to the business models of the companies. We will discuss the role of data analytics in Oil and Gas industry in this article.

Use of Analytics

This 100 year old industry has been adopting analytics in their DNA since last 30 years. Even though, finding and producing these is technically very challenging and economically risky. This requires processing of large amount of data and the firms need to integrate and interpret this data to drive faster and more accurate decisions.

This makes big data, an important aspect in the oil and gas industry. Using Big Data companies have achieved safer means of exploring and drilling oil resource through real time data acquisition. New and advanced models have been designed based on the large and real time data to improve safety and ensure best in class maintenance programs.

The advanced analytics using this data i.e. by putting all the numbers together can be used for monitoring the vehicle fleet location, for evacuation of workers in the presence of Hydrogen sulphide or to use text analytics to reduce the non-productive time and analyze seismic data. Seismic monitors generate large amounts of data during oil and gas explorations, which in turn helps in discovery of new sources. Soil and weather data can be analyzed to predict the operational success of drilling and helps to make more informed decisions about the drilling sites, thus having a huge impact on cost and revenue.

Oilfield managers need to analyze well data, seismic data, industry news and potentially social media to evaluate potential oilfields. They can also utilize that information to identify optimum oil drilling locations and bid on oil leases. They can also be used to analyze geospatial data and other oil and gas reports in order to bid on new oil prospects. Oil companies need to integrate to mechanical models using the real-data extracted. This enables them to predict the future availability of the oil resources and its usage data predictions.

Many a new analytics software helps to get a better understanding of the earth to develop safer and more sustainable drilling practices. Last but not least and also a very important aspect of this industry is the impending security threat or cyber-attack in order to guard their personnel and machinery safe. Predictive analytics helps us to be wary, by predicting the patterns that can help detect these threats in advance using real-time machine learning and anomaly detection techniques and reduce the probability of mishaps.

What lies ahead

Companies are likely to shift their business strategy from exploration to exploiting known reserves which can be achieved by investing in proper infrastructure. The key lies in the ability to drive operation excellence to save margins and ensure sufficient capital for reinvestment necessary for the production.