ESG (environmental, social, and governance considerations), artificial intelligence, and geopolitical jockeying top the list of changes affecting the oilfield, according to a recent report by GlobalData, a leading data and analytics firm.
Increasingly, GlobalData and other industry observers lump the oil and gas industry in with technology firms. That’s because oil and gas became a hotbed of technology and innovation beginning with the shale revolution of the 2010s decade.
Integrity Wireline ESG Components
ESG is a Bigger Factor Than Ever
Describing ESG and other trends as make-or-break “themes” for 2023, GlobalData stated that successful companies will have these themes high up on their agendas. Suneet Muru, a “thematic analyst” at GlobalData, remarked: “With so many challenges looming, decision-making has become harder than ever before. Companies that understand themes become success stories in their industries.”
Data management has of course been a huge trend in the oilfield, over many years in fact. Now it seems that the ESG trend is converging with the data management trend to create a whole new twist for oil companies.
Data-Centrism
Carl D’Halluin, CTO for Datadobi
How so? Here is how Carl D’Halluin, CTO for Datadobi, explains things: “In 2023, organizations will be forced to look for new approaches to manage unstructured data growth. Many have already noticed that the pace of unstructured data growth is snowballing exponentially faster than it has in the past. This leads to increased costs, as companies have to buy more storage, and the introduction of risk, as the organization has less knowledge about the data as it ages in its network. Organizations need new solutions to minimize the financial impact and risk their business faces.”
Now let us link that thought to this point raised by Steve Leeper, vice president of product marketing at Datadobi:
Oilfield Trends Meet Best Practices
“Businesses are going to have to prioritize environmental, social, and governance (ESG) policies in 2023 to gain a competitive advantage,” Leeper writes. “A recent PwC report found that more than 80 percent of individuals are more likely to buy from or work for an organization that stands for ESG best practices.
“Unstructured data plays a pivotal role in the success of an organization’s ESG policies, Leeper added. “A holistic approach to reducing carbon footprint should bring unstructured data management into the conversation. When done with the right solutions, unstructured data management can enable organizations to move away from legacy models where data is stored in a digital ‘landfill.’ In these environments, data takes up money, space, and precious resources but gives very little in return.
“Organizations should be able to monitor their key ESG indicators and take actions on unstructured data to achieve their targets by moving data to the cloud or to less polluting storage, deleting redundant, obsolete, or trivial (ROT) or orphaned data, enabling consolidation, reuse, and earlier shutdown of hardware. By doing so, IT leaders get a win-win of an effective approach to unstructured data management that also delivers on ESG objectives.”