Promise of IoT and AI in the oil sector very big – UAE Minister for AI

Giving a keynote address, the minister commented that all sectors are changing and all processes being disrupted through artificial intelligence and data. “This disruption is returning higher yields, increasing efficiency, and improving safety and security. We can use data and AI to drive faster and more accurate decisions.”

“We are at the beginning of the industrial use of IoT and AI in the oil sector, and the promise is very big for companies or governments using these technologies. While oil prices have dropped since 2014, that doesn’t mean that margins in production have to be as low as they are today.”

“We have seen innovations like hydraulic fracking and directional drilling, these innovations were very specific cases of technologies that were able to make extracting oil more efficient. The whole process, the whole operational side of this sector can be improved, this is where I hope AI, big data and IoT can play a role. In the next few years, we’re going to see more than a trillion connected devices in industrial IoT across the world. These devices will allow us to take better decisions, to control our manufacturing and production in a much more efficient manner, not on one specific domain, but on every domain. We can use AI, big data and IoT in predictive maintenance in oilfields, for example, to ensure that maintenance is more efficient and is done in a timely manner. We can also use it to improve the utilisation of assets in the field, in drilling to more accurately pinpoint where to drill and reduce the amount of time and number of people we use. With AI and sensor technology we can ensure better efficiency in surveying for oil and gas and ensuring you focus on the optimal fields.”

“We can also use AI and other technologies like VR to improve simulation of how people going into the field perceive the future of oil and gas and to attract people into the industry by putting them in the shoes of engineers or scientists.”

“There are estimates to suggest that the impact of AI on the oil and gas sector is going to be around US$2.85bn by 2020. That is just the start and the impact is going to be much greater in the years to come because efficiency savings, higher productivity and higher yield are going to have a higher return and more impact as the years go by.”

“Using the IOT, the one trillion connected devices that are going to be in industrial use is going to open a lot of promise. We can use IOT to control fields, to get better analytics of what is happening and better forecasts for the future to ensure that every single second spent producing, storing and transporting oil and gas is the most efficient. We can also use cloud technology to store this immense amount of data. Traditionally, we used AI to tell us historical facts. But today, through cloud technology, storage of data and analytics we are able to forecast in a much better way than before.”

“We can use blockchain to ensure every single barrel of oil is authenticated, that it is followed from the production line to delivery. If a barrel of oil disappears we can trace it back and find what happened to it. We are able to end black marketeering through blockchain technology.

“Intelligent robotics has just started. We can see a future where robots are smarter and more capable. We will see in the future fully automated fields where there are human engineers and scientists onshore witnessing operations in the field and ensuring that the level of production is optimal and everything is going according to plan. We are also going to see a much better use of energy to power in these offshore sites. We will see unmanned devices doing inspections and surveying to ensure that human labour does not have to go to remote areas and perform inefficient tasks. Autonomous shipping of oil will be coming in the near future, which will ensure the shipping of every barrel is more efficient, and we will see oil being transported by autonomous trucks.”