The oil and gas industry is one of the largest and most influential branches in the current world economy. It supports over a million jobs globally, stimulates manufacturing in oil drilling 
countries, and is projected to increase GDP across multiple oil producing nations, including the U.S., the UAE, Iran, China, and more. But despite its powerful presence, the industry is still susceptible to catastrophic breakdowns and misinterpretations.
SparkCognition has the answer oil and gas needs. From monitoring and interpreting mass amounts of data to predicting failures on high-cost assets, here are some of the ways SparkCognition and oil and gas are working together to better the future.
Providing Predictions That Will Save Your Asset
Given the amount of expensive equipment on an oil facility, even two days of downtime can equal millions of dollars in lost revenue. But with the amount of data provided by these pieces of equipment, it is possible to predict failures on assets before they cost the company dearly. Predictive maintenance implements machine learning to detect patterns and anomalies, and flags potential failures in just a few hours. From there, maintenance can take over and fix the problem long before the asset is beyond repair.
Laying the Foundation for Automation
Automating processes on drilling rigs or production facilities is still on the horizon, but it holds great promise. In order to achieve automation, operators must use machine learning to address three steps: guard against cyberthreats, monitor and maximize operations through prescriptive maintenance, and optimize drilling or production by monitoring the entire environment conditions both at surface and downhole. In essence, this means the oil and gas facility will have to be optimized fully before automation can take place, otherwise the processes would be operating on a shaky foundation. Once complete, the asset will be set for automation.
Securing Oil and Gas Facilities From the Inside Out
Before the Internet of Things (IoT), oil rigs operated with closed-loop systems that weren’t connected to external communications. While this prevented outsiders from breaching the network, it also made maintenance inefficient and needlessly complicated. To cure this, IoT solutions were implemented on numerous rigs, saving time and resources, but exposing the network to cybercriminals. This is where SparkCognition’s AI-based cybersecurity solution, DeepArmor®️, comes in. By continually searching data for potential threats, our endpoint protection software is able to keep the rigs safe from outside influence while still allowing the most efficient processes to be run internally.
With every advancement in technology comes a touch of the unknown. But without those who dared to push the boundaries, we would still walk to work or search the library instead of the internet. In terms of oil and gas, SparkCognition is making headway into a new era of technological solutions to change the face of the industry.
