BAKU, Azerbaijan, September 16. Artificial intelligence (AI) will boost the speed and substantially decrease the costs of hydrocarbons exploration in Azerbaijan, Anton Aristov, Managing Director & Partner of Boston Consulting Group (BCG) in Baku, said in an exclusive interview with Trend.
It is like transitioning from "black and white movies to digital cinema," he said, discussing the potential for applying new large language models to traditional exploration processes.
BCG has been in AI space for quite some time, Aristov continued. "For example, five years ago we pioneered AI-based predictive maintenance system for an offshore platform on Caspian Sea for one of our clients. Back then this system already delivered extremely strong results: it prevented annual loss of production by some 1-2 percent, equivalent to dozens of millions of dollars".
"Another example can be drawn from a project in the Middle East, it was a terrain classification model which allowed to reduce preparation time for onshore seismic acquisition by x200. To put this in perspective, for an area of 10,000 square kilometers, this technology would replace 10 months of work with just 2 days," he said.
Aristov pointed out that AI, when used to speed up the process of gathering and subsequently analyzing data to identify new oil and gas fields, can fast-pace new discoveries.
"To do that attracting talent is critical. Given that AI is a trend, it can help attract top talent from the market, including even university students. Students tend to impress with AI-based solutions for oil and gas industry in hackathons, despite their limited industry experience," he added, noting that "from this angle, Azerbaijan is well positioned, - he said, to pioneer the application of booming AI technology in the regions. The country has best-in-class industry experts, resources and tasks, and young generation interested to work in the Oil & Gas industry".
Paul Genberg, BCGX Partner, said that "AI is going to be a really good tool for solving routine tasks, for making things a lot faster. What is important is that humans won't need to do these routine tasks anymore. But instead, humans can then spend more time thinking about more complex, more intellectually challenging problems".
Genberg talked about how AI can be used in oil and gas, especially for geoscientists. He believes that by using AI and better data sharing, we can make the process of finding oil more efficient and collaborative, which could lead to more exploration.
Genberg previously served as the CEO of STUDIO.X at Shell, focusing on innovative approaches to enhance their work processes. He said that Studio.X, a platform created in partnership with BCG, allowed Shell to enjoy access to expertise they might not have in-house. Genberg elaborated that an ecosystem of solutions for hydrocarbon exploration comprises of three vital components:
- An innovative AI/ML crowdsourcing platform, allowing data-scientists across the world to work on the most difficult exploration problems.
- A global hub connecting geoscientists with flexible on-demand projects, again, allowing geoscientists across the globe (including Azerbaijan) work on some of the problems.
- An energy transition-focused startup incubator.
"All that breaks through the mode of working, allowing to engage the best talents across the globe to work part-time on the project. In total, this ecosystem engages up to 20,000 individuals worldwide. Of course, it was done not overnight. It took about 1.5 years from an idea to launch as a partnership with BCG. Now it’s been about 3 years since the launch and it has grown considerably in that time, shaping global community of innovators in O&G. It proved commercially successful with significant positive return on investments," Genberg said.
Leonid Zhukov, Director of BCG Global AI Institute, spoke about the positive impact of AI in general and Chat GPT in particular. He mentioned that there will be significant changes in the way we live and work due to AI. It's important to be prepared for these changes and embrace them, as resisting them doesn't make sense. While it may seem intimidating, the best approach is to learn about AI, embrace it, and understand how to use it because it will undoubtedly be very helpful in the future.
He said that AI, such as Chat GPT, opens opportunities for people without a technical background. In the past, interacting with computers and programming required a strong education in computer science. However, with tools like Chat GPT, it becomes possible to use your own language to communicate with computers. You don't need to be a programmer to instruct a computer, and this creates numerous opportunities for individuals without a technical background.
"While it might be premature to predict the complete transformation of any profession, we can already observe how various engineers are benefiting significantly from harnessing AI to automate routine tasks like image classification. Additionally, they leverage AI's predictive capabilities based on patterns, such as interpreting vibration signals in rotating equipment. Engineers are also gaining valuable insights from multidisciplinary data, as seen in the health index analysis of a platform. Moreover, AI is proving instrumental in design generation and optimization, as exemplified by its application in spare parts creation," he explained.
According to Zhukov, to fully capitalize on these advantages, it is essential to comprehend the concept of AI and GenAI, allowing professionals to tackle relevant tasks with efficiency using training datasets and effective prompts. Building one's own AI-based tools now requires Python knowledge, which is fast becoming a core skill taught at universities.
"Overall, while the complete impact of AI on various professions is yet to unfold, we are witnessing tangible benefits in engineering fields where AI is empowering professionals to streamline processes, enhance predictive capabilities, and drive innovative solutions," he concluded.