While globally we remain on course for a future powered by renewable energy, oil and gas remain essential bridging fuels to a sustainable future. Extracting these reserves in the most efficient way is at the heart of a new tool powered by artificial intelligence (AI).
It’s estimated that just over half of the oil and gas reserves on Norway’s continental shelf remain untapped, with many other reserves across the world equally untouched.
While renewables may be providing more and more of our energy, we are still in the midst of an energy transition. These reserves have a huge role to play as we continue to transition our energy infrastructure away from coal.
The way we extract this oil and gas is crucial. Scientists must first locate the reserves, before assessing whether the energy is technically recoverable, and can be done efficiently and effectively.
However, to evaluate Norway’s remaining reservoirs alone, geoscientists are faced with the onerous task of assessing more than 2.5 million pages of public and OMV geological and seismic reports.
It’s a huge, time-consuming undertaking, with the clock already ticking on efforts to limit global warming.
To speed things up, we need to remove the data burden from geoscientists so that rather than crunching numbers, they can focus on the bigger picture.
The Norwegian AI Companion (NAIC) has been designed to do just this.
“It’s about going faster when digging into data,” says Francis Chevalier, Head of Exploration at OMV, “and delivering results in a format that you can useimmediately.”
Transforming the way we explore for oil and gas
AI has shifted from experimentation to implementation. It’s starting to reshape how we work, how tasks are carried out, and even the questions we ask.
The NAIC has the power to transform exploration by turning knowledge into actionable intelligence. Using generative AI, which creates new ideas by learning patterns from existing datasets, NAIC has been trained to trawl this vast trove of information and assess the depth, structure and suitability of underground reservoirs.
It is designed to extract technical information and provide quick summaries, while digging deeper into data, questioning how we do things and guiding where and how we drill. And all in a fraction of the time it would take humans to complete the task.
In short, it’s a gamechanger.
Finding hidden connections
The implications of AI, now that it has come of age, were a hot topic at the recent annual meeting of world leaders in Davos.
Cisco President Jeetu Patel was one of the many who pointed out that tasks once considered too tedious to take on - and which could take humans thousands of hours to complete – can now be carried out in minutes by AI.
In the energy sector, by dramatically shortening how long it takes to mine datasets, AI frees up teams of highly-trained geoscientists, allowing them to spend more time on analyzing data, developing ideas and exploring the viability and sustainability of projects.
It’s also discovering hidden insights and making connections that are beyond the human brain, that can speed up project execution.
“AI can help to make connections where the human brain doesn’t see them,” says Chevalier.
A human-AI partnership that amplifies workforce expertise
With its perceived impact on jobs and unemployment, AI has received a mixed press in recent months. But delegates at Davos were also keen to stress the positive impact it can have by supporting people rather than replacing them.
IBM’s Chief Commercial Officer, Rob Thomas, pointed out that AI has reached the stage where you can: “truly start to automate tasks and business processes.” And Ron Goldstein, Chief Operating Officer at BlackRock said that more and more clients view AI as a means of business expansion, not workforce reduction.
Chevalier agrees. “We’re harnessing AI as a tool designed to work with people, not replace them. We still need experienced people to understand the results, dig deeper into what they mean and then apply them to real-world projects.”
“This isn’t about saving resources, it’s about developing the science.”
AI as a catalyst for decarbonization
The NAIC also has wider applications as a tool to further OMV’s and our partners ambitions to decarbonize.
As part of our strategy to become a net-zero business by 2050, we’re growing the gas share in our portfolio, and at the same time developing a portfolio of products that supports a low carbon future.
The analysis and insights that the NAIC provides will help us understand which depleted oil and gas fields are suitable for Carbon Capture and Storage (CSS). Through CCS projects, we intend to offset absolute emissions from both our own operations and third parties.
The NAIC can also identify geothermal reserves, pinpointing the best potential sites, supporting our plans to deliver ~1TWg of geothermal energy by 2030.
“We’ve developed a product that is set to play an important role on many levels as the energy transition progresses," adds Chevalier.
Ensuring a steady energy supply while supporting the transition to cleaner, more secure forms of energy is no easy feat. It calls for local knowledge, expert insight, committed decision making, and fast action. With the power of AI to support our skilled teams, OMV is ensuring we support people and communities in the present day, while we build a sustainable future.