Oil and gas companies in the region have been slow to adopt new information and communication technology which could both help to protect systems from cyber attack and maximise production from maturing fields, according to industry experts.
"We either have to go digital or perish," Hatem Nasr, a consultant for the state-run energy firm Kuwait Oil Company (KOC), said at an oil and gas conference in Abu Dhabi said yesterday.
Digital oilfield systems, which allow for the measurement and control of operations in real time, can help to achieve greater efficiencies and cost savings by harnessing people, information and processes. Production data from fields, for example, can be matched with demand to maximise earnings. The concept is gaining traction across the industry as the benefits begin to outweigh the upfront investment costs.
In the UAE, the Abu Dhabi Company for Onshore Oil Operations (Adco), is looking at integrating the technology.
“We are actively involved in digital oilfields, but it is taking a slow pace due to security [concerns] and operational philosophy,” said Fuad Al Sakkaf, team leader in the IT division of Adco.
Across the Gulf, with major oil fields maturing and no significant new field discoveries recently, increasing oil output from existing fields in brownfield projects is a priority.
“We are not finding new oil, we are not finding new gas, so the question is how do we get more oil from existing assets?” asked Mr Nasr.
“Today we have a lot of wells that shut down for days and weeks and we don’t even know … If we don’t get the data, it is impossible to forecast or do anything smart about it.”
Energy firms also need to be able to collect the data in real time and process it to forecast potential problems.
China’s Huawei, which helped organise the event, is keen to implement this technology across the Middle East and already has a number of ICT projects ongoing with state-run Saudi Aramco and Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc) that it hopes will lead towards the implementation of digital oilfield technology by both national oil companies.
“If we look at digital oilfield technology itself, we need to install a lot of sensors to connect different data from the well[s] … and transfer the data … to the data centre,” said said Asfar Zaidi, the principal consultant for industry solutions at Huawei Enterprise Middle East. “You need to have the application to analyse and process [the] data and to provide real time information to the manager.”
IT systems are also in real danger from viruses and cyber attacks, which could potentially shut down operations, according to industry experts.
The state-owned oil firm Saudi Aramco suffered a computer virus attack in August 2012 that affected 30,000 workstations, which the firm said did not affect its energy production. State-owned Qatargas was also a victim of a virus that affected personal computers in the same month. The Stuxnet worm in 2010 also disrupted Iran’s nuclear programme.
“We need to look into the options where we can integrate the legacy protocols, the legacy applications, the legacy devices to this new technology,” said Mr Zaidi.
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