BAKU, Azerbaijan, January 23. In the oil and gas sector, it is necessary to automate all processes related to the extraction, processing, delivery, and sale of oil and petroleum products, CEO of the international DIS Group company Pavel Likhnitsky told Trend.
According to him, the more routine work is done by robots, the lower the chances of failure due to the human factor.
"Oil transportation is often complex and multimodal. To speed up this process, and control movement, and shipment, digital logistics platforms are being introduced today. They can not only select a carrier and determine the route but also monitor the location of literally every tank with oil using trackers (special beacons that transmit geolocation data)," said Likhnitsky.
He noted that the automation of production also leads to other areas such as document management, and the preparation of reports.
However, the CEO believes that the abovementioned is not possible without working with data on production volumes, processing, and transportation of products, as well as equipment wear.
He noted that in international practice, there is a case where an oil company, after analyzing the data, was able to reduce the time and cost of geological exploration by 30 percent and accelerate the production of the first oil from wells by 40 percent.
"It is especially important considering the growth of global demand for hydrocarbons and for Azerbaijani oil in particular. The other company used artificial intelligence to optimize the operation of the equipment. As a result, electricity consumption decreased by 35 percent, and the inter-repair period increased to 1,500 days," Likhnitsky noted.
He also said that it is necessary to implement digital technologies not only in the oil and gas sector and related industries but also in other sectors of the economy.
"In our experience, I can say that almost all sectors of the economy need to be automated, but in some of them the processes are faster. The banking industry and telecom are traditionally on the list of leaders, and there are similar cases in Azerbaijan. Oil companies, as a rule, begin digital transformation a little later, but at the same time they rely on the experience already accumulated in other areas and on best practices, due to which they make less trial and error," the CEO of the DIS Group said.