Data-Driven Energy Transition 'Event Review'

Sword Group’s CDO Jared Owen moderated a panel at OGV Energy’s Data-Driven Energy Transition event at TECA Aberdeen last month alongside a selection of peers from the Digital sector, armed with only a box of Lego, to discuss the importance of foundational data and governance when considering a shift towards becoming a true Data-Driven Organisation.

“One of the fun parts about Lego is - you can throw all your bricks together in a giant tub - and then start to build something by searching through a sea of bricks - and trying out new patterns and build new models you didn’t think about before.

Those of us that deal with data know that as much as 80% of the process - is cleaning up the data - and doing exploratory analysis. The data we use comes in many forms - from unstructured to structured and to Realtime, but it only really becomes valuable when we give it purpose.

For our energy transition - it’s about learning from what we have done well - and what we should avoid, generating actionable insights along the way – this can help maximise the life of our oil and gas assets and transition best practice to renewables such as wind, CCS and Hydrogen.

But….what if we don’t trust the data, what if it is not what we thought it was?...”

In our industry we deal with our legacy data and leverage the latest technology and innovation techniques in order enable business decisions and use data as a trusted asset. We have Vintage formats, industry-specific standards - and unreadable quality information which has hampered the take-up of technology that has long played an important part in other industries. Tackling the legacy data problem must be done in some form, to leverage the Machine-Learning, AI, Cognitive Search and other technologies on the market.  

In order for our energy industry to tackle the challenges we face, it is vital that we understand what “good” data looks like to a new digital generation. Does it need to be perfect? We need to attract a new generation of digital skills to the Energy Industry, if we’re to extract the insight and value we need to drive data-based decision making in real time. We can we learn from other industries how we attract the Data Science, Engineering, Visualisation and Analytics skills to help us derive value at scale. It is vital we understand the place traditional data custodians, data managers, document controllers and IM specialists play in this shift towards the new generation of digital skills.

Organisations are starting to understand what digital transformation specifically means to them. 2022 is going to be all about building on strong data foundations and truly embedding digital into the business. There are a number of industry efforts to future proof our data foundations for Industry 4.0 and to shift to more open-source technology stacks. Our industry focus should be on identifying the path of least resistance. If we are to achieve data-driven outcomes, then we need to make sure that data is placed at the heart of our operational and project thinking.

Read the latest issue of the OGV Energy magazine HERE