How Schlumberger intends to foster the oil industry information revolution

The digital oil company is becoming a reality and Schlumberger Information Solutions (SIS) intends to be a major partner in the transformation process. Andrew McBarnet talked to Satish Pai, president of SIS, about the shape of things to come. It has taken a while to happen but Satish Pai, president of newly formed Schlumberger Information Solutions, believes that 2001 was the year that iBusiness (as in information) went mainstream. 'In 2000 we had the height of the dot.com mania. But once it died down, a kind of Darwinian evolution has taken place. The projects and the companies that made sense have survived. More than that, they have been embraced into the mainstream.' He cites the example of companies like Shell and BP which are now talking seriously about being the digital oil companies of the future. Having carried out hundreds of project assessments, he says that these companies have selected the few viable offerings that really promise genuine gains and cost savings, and are implementing them across their enterprises. In Pai's view, SIS has already been a beneficiary of the iTransformation process now underway in the oil and gas industry. He says the setting up of SIS last May was a response to a need felt by oil company managements for integrated information solutions. The stated objective of SIS at the time of its launch was the delivery of solutions 'to enable real-time reservoir management and business optimization across the oil and gas information spectrum.' This is in tune with SISís view of an oil and gas industry characterised by worldwide downsizing and ageing of the oilfield workforce, making efficiency and productivity improvements imperative. A recent paper published by SIS on its vision made the point that oil and gas companies 'must be able to cost-effectively discover and develop new reservoirs while improving recovery factors for existing reservoirs from the traditional average of 35% to 60% or higher.' It went on to say that the prize is huge: 'each 1% increase in oil recovery equals one year's consumption at current demand.' The solution lies in multidisciplinary teams blurring professional and corporate boundaries. 'Technology and enhanced global connectivity are helping to dismantle corporate and geographic barriers - today's teams are often distributed: instead using integrated, multidisciplinary interpretation environments.'It leads SIS to conclude that 'the next frontier is the evolution of traditional business models to embrace intercompany collaboration.'