Industrial Internet to Help Upstream Sector

There has been a growing interest among oil and gas companies in adopting the Industrial Internet to improve sustainability and market competitiveness, said a study.

According to data and analytics company GlobalData the upstream sector is witnessing comparatively more implementations of the Industrial Internet compared to other oil and gas sectors. This is driven by the need to reduce operational risks and maximizing returns from their assets through digitization.

The adoption of the Industrial Internet would enable companies in digitalizing oilfield operations and creating digital twins to reduce risks and optimize performance, said the report.

Industrial Internet has the potential to transform traditional processes and workflows and boost the technological capabilities of oil and gas firms.

This could help them achieve two primary objectives: firstly, companies would be able to overcome operational challenges while venturing into new frontiers in search of hydrocarbon resources; and secondly, Industrial Internet adoption will improve productivity and efficiency, thereby strengthening market competitiveness in a challenging environment.

Ravindra Puranik, Oil & Gas Analyst at GlobalData, said: “In general, adoption of the Industrial Internet would make organizations more dynamic and adaptable to external factors. This concept is expected to play a central role in simulation and modelling of projects against different market scenarios, optimizing inventory levels, demand forecasting, decision support, and logistics optimization, and setting up long-term objectives for an organization.”

Adoption of digital technologies has surged of late, largely as a reaction to the crash in crude oil prices. However, companies have been quite methodical in their approach to enable this transformation and ensuring maximum possible value can be derived through Industrial Internet implementations.