n an exclusive roundtable discussion, senior executives with four energy tech companies discuss how the downturn has accelerated the need to adopt new technologies and how artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning and analytics are shaping the future of the industry.

“The pandemic has changed the mindset of the executives, and right now everyone understands there is no way to run business without digitalization. More and more executives are considering digital transformation as the number one step,” said Michael Maltsev, CEO and president of RigER.

“What I’ve been hearing since 2004 is the importance of digitizing the oil field, and it’s just a never-ending story,” added Owen Plowman, vice president of business development with Actenum Corp. “Because of the downturn, executives are really starting to examine areas in their organizations where they had not really thought about efficiency gains before.”

“What’s really powerful with the combination of [oil and gas] operations and AI is the abundance of scientific data,” he said. “There is an incredible demand for people that really understand the scientific method.”

Ambyint COO David Zahn said 2020 saw a strong focus on new technologies that drive value and, consequently, there was a strong acceptance in edge computing among oil producers.

“We did a survey of over 30 operators a year and a half ago to find out what their edge computing strategy was, and it was really quite nascent … there weren’t any well-defined use cases beyond basic data analytics,” he said. “We believe that 2021 will see edge computing come more to the floor. Last year was focused on new technologies that will help drive value, and also there are specific use cases that edge computing can help with.”