The oil and gas indus­try is no stranger to dis­rup­tion and dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion, which SAP cov­ered in a vir­tu­al event that explored the lat­est trends and tech­nol­o­gy inno­va­tions in this space. 

The indus­try forum cov­ered three major topics:

• Cloud-based plat­forms for dig­i­tal transformation
• End-to-end mar­ket stan­dard processes
• Dig­i­tal­ized pro­duc­tion and processes

A Cloud Con­sor­tium for SAP Oil and Gas Customers

As a found­ing mem­ber of SAP’s upstream cloud con­sor­tium, Chevron Cor­po­ra­tion works with peer orga­ni­za­tions to deter­mine the most effi­cient soft­ware foot­print. The goal of the con­sor­tium is to oper­ate and inno­vate more effec­tive­ly by joint­ly devel­op­ing mar­ket stan­dard, cloud-based indus­try soft­ware as a ser­vice solu­tions to man­age end-to-end work­flows and process­es. Intel­li­gent tech­nolo­gies and cloud-based plat­forms are at the core of Chevron’s dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion to become more efficient. 

“In the cur­rent mar­ket we’re in, we want to posi­tion our busi­ness, and each and every busi­ness with­in that, to win in any envi­ron­ment,” said Jim Green, gen­er­al man­ag­er of IT ser­vice deliv­ery at Chevron. ​“We need to under­stand the com­pet­i­tive land­scape and what we need to do to improve to main­tain that com­pet­i­tive posi­tion.” Data sci­ence, ana­lyt­ics, cloud, and the Inter­net of Things (IoT) are key dif­fer­en­tia­tors for Chevron in their dig­i­tal transformation. 

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A Can­did and Trans­par­ent Approach to Adopt­ing Oil and Gas Solutions

“On the busi­ness side, we looked at our oper­a­tions and iden­ti­fied sev­er­al areas where we could make the most impact with these tech­nolo­gies across the val­ue chain,” Green said. ​“That includes day-to-day oper­a­tions such as turn­arounds, pro­duc­tion opti­miza­tion, and maintenance.”

Accord­ing to Green, it’s impor­tant for oth­ers in the oil and gas indus­try to be can­did and trans­par­ent from a capa­bil­i­ty per­spec­tive about the solu­tions they are deploy­ing. ​“We can find ways to do this effi­cient­ly if we lever­age our col­lec­tive knowl­edge,” he said.

Shell’s Path to Intel­li­gent ERP and Flow­ing Data

While many peo­ple think of Shell as an oil and gas com­pa­ny, the com­pa­ny sees itself as an ener­gy busi­ness striv­ing to expand its hori­zons through inno­va­tions to meet the ener­gy needs of the future. 

Shell CIO Jay Crotts notes the com­pa­ny has a long-term vision to meet the ener­gy demands of the plan­et in a car­bon-respon­si­ble way, dri­ven by inno­va­tion lever­ag­ing dig­i­tal tech­nolo­gies like intel­li­gent ERP. ​“Data, I think, is the new oil,” Crotts said. ​“The abil­i­ty to bring data togeth­er gives us insight allow­ing us to solve prob­lems we’ve nev­er been able to solve before.” 

Shell uses mul­ti­ple SAP prod­ucts end-to-end to help its data flow nat­u­ral­ly and con­sis­tent­ly. Advances in automa­tion allow Shell to oper­ate more effi­cient­ly and safe­ly while increas­ing its production. 

BP Seek­ing an Upstream Indus­try Stan­dard on the Cloud

For upstream con­sor­tium mem­ber BP, its top pri­or­i­ties are remov­ing com­plex­i­ty from its land­scape, low­er­ing the total cost of own­er­ship (TCO) of its SAP solu­tions, and step­ping into a dig­i­tal age with an indus­try stan­dard on the cloud. 

“For us, it’s impor­tant that as an indus­try, we define the right process­es and stan­dards for oil and gas,” said Dan Smith, direc­tor of BP’s upstream SAP ser­vice port­fo­lio. ​“We want to col­lab­o­rate with oth­er oper­a­tors and indus­try play­ers on those def­i­n­i­tions and trans­late those to SAP to cre­ate a solu­tion we can all sub­scribe to.” 

Automa­tion for Agili­ty at Shell Aviation

As oil and gas com­pa­nies work to dig­i­tal­ize pro­duc­tion and ser­vices, they can use their SAP sys­tems to see end-to-end com­mod­i­ty man­age­ment and retail process­es to opti­mize their hydro­car­bon sup­ply chain. This helps reduce risks and costs, allow­ing oil and gas com­pa­nies to increase their rev­enue and profit.

Shell Avi­a­tion deliv­ers fuel and lubri­cant ser­vices to air­line cus­tomers. At its peak oper­a­tions, it fuels an air­craft every 14 sec­onds. The com­pa­ny saw an oppor­tu­ni­ty to work with SAP to build a mobile cloud-based appli­ca­tion that could auto­mate the tick­et­ing process for the air­line oper­a­tors and achieve the agili­ty, flex­i­bil­i­ty, and real-time data required in its ERP envi­ron­ment. Paul Oliv­er, IT man­ag­er at Shell, not­ed that the ben­e­fits of imple­men­ta­tion includ­ed reduced costs, greater oper­a­tional effi­cien­cy, and a quick­er turn­around for their customers.

The cloud can be a great accel­er­a­tor that allows cus­tomers to com­bine expe­ri­ence data (X‑data) from Qualtrics with oper­a­tional data (O‑data) from SAP sys­tems to sup­port launch­ing new busi­ness mod­els, deliv­er­ing excep­tion­al expe­ri­ences, and more.

Watch SAP’s oil and gas indus­try forum on demand. You can also read the research we did with SAP cus­tomers in the oil and gas indus­try in 2020, The State of the Oil and Gas Indus­try.