Energy leaders need to strive towards higher levels of efficiency…to lower the overall carbon intensity: Rahul Jain

We are seeing the energy industry embracing energy transformation—even leading it with innovative technologies in CCS, geothermal and hydrogen production.

The World Energy Council’s energy trilemma of security, sustainability, and affordability of energy will have a cascading impact across the globe. Countries must balance the three pillars of this trilemma to suit their unique needs.

The service sector will play a key role by providing operators with the proper framework and building on the strategies of technology and culture.

We will continue to see focused technology innovations in artificial intelligence, machine learning, and data analytics. Physically informed neural networks are in the early stage of development, but these are already getting significant traction in the industry and academia.

The culture of collaboration built through partnerships, consortiums, and the support of government programs will encourage innovation by creating an open partner ecosystem.

How should energy leaders prioritize while trying to strike the right balance of the three pillars of the Energy Trilemma – security, affordability, and sustainability?

Managing uncertainty will win the decade.

Energy leaders need to strive towards higher levels of efficiency in existing production to lower the overall carbon intensity of their activities while using the capital generated to help finance their investments in lower carbon energy sources. The world still needs oil and gas, and change does not happen overnight. Prioritization must be to reduce the carbon footprint of our existing hydrocarbon requirement through efficient operations.

A simple example is to reduce the amount of fluid injected to recover each barrel of oil. This is where CMG’s powerful simulation tools allow companies to run thousands of experiments to discover the most efficient field implementation. Driving down the cost of each barrel and driving up efficiency results in a net benefit to the overall energy, and thus carbon, equation. We’re proud to provide the industry with such capabilities and will continue to drive efficiencies through this rapidly changing landscape.

What are the new emerging energy technology innovations? What new investments are needed?

The energy industry has been capitalizing on pioneering science and engineering, including advanced physics, mathematics, chemistry, and high-performance computing, for decades to solve complex risks of the global oil reservoirs.

The energy industry today is limiting its potential by engaging in siloed decision-making. To accelerate digitalization, the industry must break down the silos, derive insights from data, share decision-making, and fast-track technology adoption.

Integrated decision-making is not unique to the energy industry; it was evident in my previous career in travel technology. It has been at the forefront in the past few months as holiday travel was upended by weather and airline disruptions. For airlines, sorting out the crew, the aircraft, and the passengers must be done simultaneously to recover schedules quickly and efficiently. In reality, this is a problem with almost infinite variables and is incredibly difficult to solve. As a result, the problems are solved independently of one another and, as is evident to anyone who tried to travel over the holidays, are inefficient, costly, and time-consuming.

Therefore, the benefit of removing silos to optimize decision-making is evident at the senior executive level. The uncertainty of the subsurface needs to be adequately captured and built into the multi-million/billion-dollar investments in surface infrastructure. This will provide resilience and optimal capital and operational spending, reducing wasted expenditure, forced retrofitting, and inflexible design. Although we can see, touch, and measure the equipment on the surface and put it into the ground, our reservoirs are highly uncertain.

The appropriate simulation will allow for more optimal decision-making and reduce the risk of surprises while simultaneously increasing the optimum oil recovery making the system supremely efficient. CMG provides the ability to manage such complex and wide-ranging optimization problems in a timeframe that can impact the decision-making process.

You mentioned a framework built on a culture of collaboration. How is CMG driving the change through collaboration?

For over 40 years, CMG has brought industry-first technologies to the market through extensive research and collaboration.

A prime example – is our recent collaboration with ten global operators and Kongsberg Digital to develop leading CCS simulation software for CO2 injection into depleted oil and gas reservoirs and saline aquifers. This groundbreaking JIP was undertaken to transform CCS project design and operations and reduce these projects’ overall risk and cost. I am sure others in the industry will be inspired and lead similar collaborative efforts in the future in different areas of the energy value chain.

How does CMG plan to be the catalyst for energy transition, especially with its forthcoming center in India?

CMG’s relationship with Indian organizations spans decades. Now, with the opening of our Collaboration Centre (C3) in Bengaluru, we are eager to be part of India’s energy future and energy transition journey through digital transformation. Our new Centre will also be a catalyst in enabling CMG’s collaboration with leading oil and gas producers through innovation, consulting, and customer support to maximize the self-sufficiency of India’s energy system and work to implement the required decarbonization solutions. C3 will be a hub for knowledge development in the true spirit of “Make in India.”

The CMG Collaboration Centre (C3) launch is very close to my heart. I look forward to providing impactful opportunities to the talented workforce and taking advantage of their strength to deliver immense value to India’s energy industry.