Digital Innovations in Oil and Gas with Geoffrey Cann

With Apple's new Vision Pro hitting the news, and changing the perception of computing to include a spatial dimension, it's worth reflecting on where and how this clever new technology could be used in oil and gas. Apple's latest product, spatial computing, is long on nifty and clever, but short on a must have new feature worth paying the price of a high end Mac Studio with a two hour battery life...

"You better better know how to go with the flow." In this episode, I'm in conversation with Rodrigo Liang , the co-founder and CEO of SambaNova Systems . Generative AI solutions have taken the world by storm and will speed up industry by 10x. "What's necessary for us to train these models, we need very, very large data sets. And well guess what? These cloud services and these large hyper scalars h...

Russia's recent claims about hacking a Canadian gas pipeline must be taken with deadly seriousness, and not just by pipeline companies, but Canadians at large. A  document leak  allegedly caused by a  21 year old cyber transport professional  working inside the US security services contained a story that a shadowy Russian cyber team had successfully  hacked into the operations of a Canadian gas pi...

The energy industry is very accustomed to seeking permission to do things. It is the norm in industrialized societies to set out the acceptable parameters for investment actions that can impact others, and to have project proponents follow a set of established regulatory processes. These processes take time, but they could be trusted to yield a predictable outcome for project investors and propone...

Russian cyber hackers claimed to have penetrated the operations of a Canadian gas pipeline and caused some disruption. For those of us living some distance from the equator, mostly northerners, but also a few hardy souls in the south, interruptions in energy supply are rare, short lived, weather related, and almost always about electrical power. My friends in Houston, energy capital of the US, tel...

"Wow!", exclaimed Kelly, the site supervisor at the large petrochemical plant. "Are you telling me that I can  take my iPhone onto the site ? It's safe now? What can I do with it?" Yes, Kelly, you can, IF  you have the right phone  AND  the right case. As they are in our personal lives, smart phones are indispensable Swiss Army Knives of digital utility, and they will be highly welcome on oil and...

"The people that design software, are unfortunately often a long ways away from the people that are out in the field using it." In this episode, I'm in conversation with Shaun Syvertsen, the CEO of ConvergentIS. He has built a company around the opportunity to make a widely used technology (SAP) super easy to use–so easy in fact that users don't need training, or very little. It all stems from the...

As far back as 2004, I explored the possibility of deploying cellular phones within an oil refining complex. The idea of persistent and safe communications with supervisors and lead hands by phone or text message during the work day was intuitively attractive, and we imagineered many a positive use case. This was in the era of the BlackBerry mobile phone, long before Apple created the smart phone...

Heavy industry has long known that  intoxication  and some kinds of work simply don't mix.  Digital technologies  are helping overcome the risk of hard-to-detect intoxicants on the job site. Worker safety is a VERY BIG DEAL in oil and gas. Moving equipment, pressurized vessels, high voltage, dangerous gases, hot surfaces, sharp objects, dark and wet conditions, drops from height, slippery surfaces...

A quick trial of ChatGPT reveals its considerable  strengths  and its worrisome  weaknesses in generating energy talking points. One of my many contacts asked me a rather simple question earlier this week: Why does Greenpeace not like LNG? My contact is from  Germany , and presumably has lots of family members and friends there who have been living through Germany's recent natural gas energy angst...

"Hydraulic fracture is not just about breaking new rock, it's about fundamentally rejuvenating the existing natural fractures and bedding planes that are in the rock fabric itself." In this episode, I'm in conversation with  Andrew McMurray , the CEO and Co-Founder of ShearFrac. Andrew and his team are using cloud capabilities from AWS to deliver complex calculations to frack teams that improve th...

I've written hundreds of articles and podcast episodes about the  liquefied natural gas (LNG) industry, and I'm still learning stuff I didn't know. At an LNG conference recently, I heard speakers share perspectives on a range of topics that warranted a reminder of the nuances of this fascinating industry. LNG is a wondrous fuel with loads of potential for humanity, but it does have its quirks. The...

In this episode, I'm in conversation with Mike Procee, who at the time of recording was the Manager of Enterprise Innovation, Enablement, and Culture at TC Energy, a large oil and gas utility. Mike's background in entrepreneurship and engineering came together at TC who wanted to accelerate their ability to deal with energy transition and digitalization. The company created an innovation hub that...

A large integrated  oil and gas company  has invited me to address their global center for  data excellence . That such an organizational creation is necessary is both telling for some and enlightening for others. Data has been central to my work on  digital innovations  in oil and gas from the very beginning because digital innovation is almost always about capturing value from a reliable data as...

"It's extremely frustrating to have to make decisions on our multibillion dollar assets, with only a piece of paper in your hand, and a radio on the other side of your hip." In this episode, I'm in conversation with Andrea Hine, who is a Product Owner within the Connected Worker Program at Suncor Energy. Working with Otterbox, Andrea and her team have developed the world's first iPhone UL safety c...

As we work through energy transition, market forces are poised to create asset discontinuities. They are already wreaking havoc with the oil supply chain. Today's news from the shipping industry brings energy transition into sharp relief.  An industry monitor noted a  collapse in the order books for very large crude carriers  (VLCCs, ships that carry two million barrels or more of crude oil). You...

A banking collapse was not likely on the long list of worries that plague the digital entrepreneur. What are the kinds of risks that digital startups face in oil and gas? March 15 stands in infamy as the day that Julius Caesar was stabbed to death at a meeting of the Roman Senate. The conspirators, led by Brutus and Cassius, were ratted out by a seer, who ominously warned Caesar that harm would co...

The biggest new supply of energy after renewables will not come from a new oil and gas field, but from virtualized energy. A few years ago, we bought a mobile battery booster pack (itself includes a lead acid battery) for just such emergencies, but we had never plugged in it, it too was dead, and worst of all, beyond recovery. We called around only to discover that there's no publicly accessible m...

New sophisticated artificial intelligence tools are coming to oil and gas. There's plenty of upside, but lots of worries too. Language processing has been one of those things that humans have claimed to be uniquely of our species. Sure, other creatures are known to communicate with each other using sound—whales sing, dolphins chirp, and dogs bark—but only humans have created symbols to abstractly...

"You've got huge amounts of data, and siloed, across many different teams and many deep technical disciplines. And that makes it really hard to get the full picture. And without the full picture, it's really hard to optimize something." In this episode, I'm in conversation with Riley O'Donnell, who is the CEO and co-founder of Endla. The potential to optimize a gigantic industry of unimaginably va...

With payments technology innovating at a rapid clip, are energy companies ready to overhaul their snail-like order to cash processes? In the digital world, payments technology is evolving very rapidly. Micro payments, automated payments, direct deposits, touchless payments, 100% cashless businesses, crypto exchange, non-bank banks, novel debit and credit payment solutions, loyalty points for goods...

"Many people think of information as being data. But information is not necessarily data that they then can be analyzed and turned into analytics." In this episode, I'm in conversation with Chip Moldenhauer who is the Founder and CEO of Arbo, an energy data analytics firm. Compliance with energy regulations is a minimum requirement for any new energy investment. However, the regulations are not co...

For the first time in your life, the relationships you have with your energy suppliers are contestable. But why are fossil fuel companies not in the contest?  Businesses are in continuous contests for the consumer wallet. I'm presently scheming on a house renovation program and I've invited four renovation contractors to the contest. My relationship with a renovation contractor is contestable at t...

"There has been no device historically that can detect cannabis impairment in real time. Cannabis works very differently in the body than does alcohol. So you can measure the amount of alcohol in the body and derive the experienced impairment from that number. The same is not true of cannabis." In this episode, I'm in conversation with Ken Fichtler, the founder and CEO of Gaize. Cannabis is now le...

This week concludes a series I started last week on the trends to watch in 2023.  As a reminder, at the start of every year, I take a step back from the daily news feeds about energy to dwell instead on the many longer-stride trends that are impacting oil and gas. There are many ways to frame such analysis, and the framework I'm using goes by the name  STEEPLE . The letters form a mnemonic, which...