All missives from OPTIMIZE24

With OPTIMIZE24, organised by AspenTech, drawing to a close last week, the Oilholic marked a fascinating and engaging week with a number of pieces for Forbes as well as daily blog posts. 

Here are the Forbes pieces:

• AspenTech ‘Uniquely Positioned’ As An Optimization Enabler For Global Industries, Says CEO, April 30, 2024.
• Net Zero Goals Intertwine With A Viable Circular Economy, Says Sustainability Tech Expert, May 6, 2024.

And here are all the blog entries for OPTIMIZE24:

• 'Crude' carnage, a crazy April & arriving in H-Town, April 29, 2024.
• Kick-off at OPTIMIZE24 & delving into 'bio-optimization', April 30, 2024.
• 'Partnering for the future' at OPTIMIZE24, May 1, 2024. 

That's a wrap. More musings to follow soon. Keep reading, keep it here, keep it 'crude'! 

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© Gaurav Sharma 2024.

Kick-off at OPTIMIZE24 & delving into 'bio-optimization'

The Oilholic has just concluded his first insightful day at OPTIMIZE24, the thought leadership event for specialist industrial software provider AspenTech. 

The first day of the event's main program saw  attendees from over 50 countries, 20 industries and 100 AspenTech partners who included a veritable who's-who of the energy, manufacturing and industrial complex such as Aramco, Eni, Dow, ExxoMobil, Tennet, Chevron, YPF, OMV and Sabic to name a few. 

Leading technology companies, seen regularly at energy events these days, were also in town including Amazon Web Services and Microsoft who partner on the data side with AspenTech. 

Proceedings were kicked-off by AspenTech CEO Antonio Pietri who summed up the company's ambitions of being a dependable business partner for those looking to improve throughput, firm up their bottomline, improve margins and lower their carbon footprint - all of which are connected. 

Pietri also expressed his enthusiasm for industrial AI as a tool for achieving energy efficiencies, albeit with "guardrails" in place and via a pragmatic approach, in tandem with IIoT and predictive analytics. Ahead of his keynote, the AspenTech also boss kindly spared the time to sit down with the Oilhoic once again, as he has kindly done several times in the past. The resulting and wide-ranging Forbes interview is published here. 

Pietri's keynote set the tone for the sessions that followed. This blogger chose to listen in to how energy majors were attempting to streamline exploration and production, reduce capex and opex, improve health and safety, advance operational excellence and enable the energy transition. 

Many at the venue were happily prepared to give the Oilholic demos and details of upstream and downstream pilot projects to this effect, as well as their existing deployments. 

One key and very interesting theme that made this blogger think was the ongoing re-tuning of the refining complex, which is seeing many European refiners, who once deployed AspenTech solutions to improve efficiencies for the traditional cracking of hydrocarbons, turn to the company's bespoke digital solutions and deploy them produce sustainable bio-fuels. If its a buzzword you seek dear readers - then call it 'bio-optimization'.

Taking in all of its clients global refining optimisation and bio-fuels initiatives, AspenTech claims to have cut 16MT of CO2 emissions in step with $59 billion worth of improved profitability! And on that mammoth refined, or shall we say bio-refined note, its time to bid goodbye for now. We're only just getting started here, so more to follow tomorrow. Keep reading, keep it here, keep it 'crude'! 

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© Gaurav Sharma 2024. Photo I: OPTIMIZE24 logo. Photo II: Antonio Pietri, CEO of AspenTech, speaks at OPTIMIZE24, his company's thought leadership conference in Houston, Texas, US on April 30, 2024. © Gaurav Sharma 2024.

'Crude' carnage, a crazy April & arriving in H-Town

The crazy trading month of April is drawing to a close and the Oilholic is writing this missive on a sunny Houston afternoon, having arrived in H-town for industrial software firm AspenTech's thought leadership event - OPTIMIZE24. More on that later, and over the next couple of days. 

But first, let's sum up April's 'crude' carnage. The Brent front-month contract has broken its $85 per barrel support level. This wasn't looking likely at the start of the month when prices were lurking well above the level and even overshot to $92 in the wake of the Iran-Israel skirmish. Yet, as the second month of the second quarter of the oil trading year nears its conclusion, the price is barely holding above $83. Why? Well in this blogger's humble opinion that's certainly not because the risk has gone away. The residual risk still persists. 

However, with the Iran-Israel tensions having eased and oil sliding from $90+ highs, as trading stumbles into May with (thankfully) no regional damage to energy infrastructure - concerns over demand have resurfaced in a market struggling for direction. On one hand there are still lingering doubts about the performance of China's economy (yes there are) and the general direction of travel for the global economy, while on the other is an overriding sentiment that OPEC will hold firm on its price supportive actions. It what's your truly told Reuters the other day.  

Yes, Beijing is indeed importing record amounts of crude oil. But its importation uptick is nothing like it was pre-Covid. And quite a few of the barrels it is importing are being used to boost its strategic reserves. Furthermore, you can count an economy to have motored on in any given fiscal year if its data was consistently pointing to an upswing in economic sentiment, which it clearly isn't in China's case. Hence the doubts. 

As for OPEC, this blogger keeps hearing suggestions from some that the producers' group has lost control of the crude market. This is bonkers. In fact, the Oilholic doubts OPEC is anywhere even remotely near losing control. 

It appears to be actively positioning for a Brent price that is at least 15-20% higher than pre-Covid levels of around $75, seen at the start of January 2020. That'd be around a $80-$90 - a level that's not too high for buyers, not too low for it and well short of three-figures. It's why a market seeking direction is witnessing the current oscillation, while OPEC is left with plenty of spare capacity.

Away from crude chatter, and on to the happy matter of OPTIMIZE24, an event where the great and the good of the technical and engineering side of energy, industrial, chemical and manufacturing worlds are gathering this week at the behest of AspenTech. This blogger looks forward examining, discussing and learning about the challenges and solutions for the approaching low carbon horizon, and of course joining the dots between improved throughput and meeting emissions targets. 

The event's slogan "Partnering for the future" has a nice ring to it. Let's see how it sings over the next couple of days. More from H-Town soon. Keep reading, keep it here, keep it 'crude'! 

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© Gaurav Sharma 2024. Photo I: View of  George R. Brown Convention Center and Discovery Green, Downtown Houston, Texas, US, on Apr 29, 2024. Photo II: Gaurav Sharma at AspenTech's OPTIMIZE24 thought leadership conference, Houston, Texas, US., Apr 2024. © Gaurav Sharma 2024.

Revisiting 'EcoStruxure' At Schneider Electric's Innovation Summit

Earlier this month the Oilholic had the pleasure of attending a Schneider Electric event after a gap of nearly six years - the company's Innovation Summit in Paris, France. 

A lot has happened since this blogger last attended a Schneider event. The inimitable Jean-Pascal Tricoire has moved on from being CEO to the Chairman of the company, with former AVEVA boss Peter Herweck now in the boss' chair. 

But one constant has been the company's relentless development and marketing of its Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) architecture - EcoStruxure - conceived to deliver "smart" automation and digitization solutions within the energy sphere for a plethora of industrial, manufacturing and processing clients. 

So it was a pleasure to receive two use case demonstrations of how the product suite is being applied and has evolved since the turn of the decade. For this blogger, the company's EcoStruxure Automation Expert, a software-centric industrial automation system, and EcoStruxure Hybrid Distributed Control System  (formerly branded as PlantStruxure PES), a single automation system to engineer, operate, and maintain a plant's entire infrastructure, stood out amidst a sea of solutions and myriad use cases. 

These were use cases for a "sustainable, productive and market-agile" future that the company envisions for the wider industrial and manufacturing complex, according to CEO Herweck, who in his keynote, noted that: "Being more electrical, being more digital, means being more efficient."

And "Digital + Electric = A Sustainable Future" was the simple equation put forward by Herweck for a world facing the complex issue of managing carbon emissions. 

Here's a Forbes report summing up Herweck's comments in Paris. It was also revealed at the Innovation Summit that Schneider Electric was driving up its R&D spend from 5.4% to around 8% of headline revenue. The company is also practicing what it preaches by converting key facilities into the very sort of "smart factories" it is recommending to the world, something the Oilholic intends to revisit later down the year.  

Elsewhere, your truly also got to grips with a number of fascinating home energy management software solutions and applications alongside battery inverters (used as a way to control flow of electricity in residential properties) and allied smart home concepts. 

Commercial power management software and hardware, grid operations software, artificial intelligence (AI) powered monitoring systems, datacenter cooling systems, and electric vehicle (EV) charging infrastructure displays and demos at the exhibition floor completed an interesting and informative visit. 

Or a glimpse of a digitized and electrified horizon, as the company's C-Suites and public relations executives will tell you! And on that note, its time to say goodbye. More musings to follow soon. Keep reading, keep it here, keep it 'crude'! 

Additional note 25.04.24: Here's yours truly's recently published interview with Barbara Frei, Executive Vice President, Industrial Automation at Schneider Electric following a meeting in Paris. 

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© Gaurav Sharma 2024. Photo I: A Schneider Electric EcoStruxure display at the company's Innovation Summit in Paris, France. Photo II: Schneider Electric CEO Peter Herweck delivering his keynote. Photo III: Sustainability message dominated proceedings, Apr 3-4, 2024. © Gaurav Sharma 2024.

Chat on software-led sustainability with AVEVA's CEO

Earlier this month, The Oilholic had the pleasure of visiting industrial software firm AVEVA's London office for a long overdue meeting with its Chief Executive Officer Caspar Herzberg.

Theme(s) of the riveting discussion, which extended way beyond the time allocated, touched on the proliferation of AI, IIoT, digital twin tech, big data and predictive analytics in the energy industry. 

All have been exponentially deployed in recent years by major energy operators conscious of their carbon footprint. Many have done so in partnership with AVEVA and the pace of adoption is only going to accelerate. 

The top 20 oil and gas companies by market capitalisation have all pledged to achieve net zero by 2050, as well as eliminate routine gas flaring by 2030, and are incrementally turning to tech solutions that AVEVA and its competitors are happy to provide. 

Herzberg told The Oilholic: "The energy majors have rapidly come around to the viewpoint that optimisation enabled by software serves the purpose(s) of improving their throughput and operating margins, reducing downtime as well as lowering their carbon footprint. 

"I also think most energy majors are now subject to significant societal pressure to lower their carbon footprint. This pressure is only going to increase. And every summer it will be ever more pressing, especially in liberal democracies where citizens are free to express their opinion and see climate change as a key concern."

It is here that the true potential of "connected solutions" may indeed be realized by the energy sector (and beyond) driven by continually improving corporate efficiencies and returns in tandem. "I would say that connected software makes things that are already possible, quicker, and frees people up to deal with more pressing issues in the value chain, rather than routine, but time-consuming tasks."

"Ultimately, AI, IIoT, digital twins, big data and analytics are all purposeful tools but at their inner core is data centricity – essentially, talking hold of data and getting value out of it."

The possibilities are infinite for the energy firms both large and small, Herzberg said. AI driven carbon capture, physics-based simulation, predictive asset optimization, streamlining processes for a green hydrogen future, making the power grid more resilient and reducing refinery or plant downtime are just some of the use cases, the AVEVA boss noted, while personally and very kindly showing yours truly a simulation on an absolutely ginormous screen. 

Away from exclusive snippets for this blog, do read The Oilholic's interview with Herzberg for Forbes here. It offers a much wider perspective on AVEVA and Herzberg's strategy for the business in the energy sector and beyond, and the company's very vocal stance on improving process efficiencies in the wider industrial world's march to a low-to-zero carbon future. Well, that's all for the moment folks, more musings to follow soon. Keep reading, keep it here, keep it 'crude'! 

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© Gaurav Sharma 2024. Photo: Gaurav Sharma with Caspar Herzberg, Chief Executive Officer of AVEVA. © AVEVA, March 2024. 

The challenge of producing more industrially with less

Last week The Oilholic had a hectic, but fruitful and amazing trip to AVEVA World 2023 in San Francisco. Much of the discussion at the event was about one profound question - how to do more with less for the energy and industrials complex, and finding answers via the deployment of technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), industrial internet of things (IIoT), digital twins and enhanced data analytics. 

From the standpoint of the hosts - industrial software solutions and consulting firm AVEVA - the pathway forward is all about creating a connected industrial ecosystem. One that offers a gateway to an unlimited world of data analytics, including third party analytics, with everything focused on one key priority - how to efficiently, safely and diligently improve throughput whilst using less energy and resources.

AVEVA's corporate take goes along the lines of "working to build a new industrial ecosystem, defined by agility, resilience and sustainability. By connecting [clients'] teams with trusted information and insights, powered by the cloud, and finding new ways to deliver life’s essentials – while driving responsible use of the world’s resources."

You deploy solutions to do that, and by default you lower your carbon footprint - a mantra this blogger saw repeated often by the company executives from the exhibition floor to the main auditorium, from keynotes to panel discussions, and much else in between. 

While AVEVA's age-old business mainstay may well have been in the oil and gas business, today it provides software solutions for most segments of the global commerce and industry all of which are under pressure to lower their carbon footprint. In keeping with this, the event had several breakout streams and content on a range of subjects. 

These included sessions for process industries (chemicals, pulp and paper, manufacturing, etc.), infrastructure, power and utilities, and of course oil, gas and energy. Each of these touched on advanced solutions and practices for improving efficiencies and finding that low to zero carbon horizon. And if numbers are your thing, we're talking more than a dozen industry tracks, keynotes, and an immersive expo.

There was also plenty of chatter on deriving multifaceted value from AI, and viewing it as an ally or enabler rather than a threat. Both AVEVA and its customers, including the likes of Mitsubishi Power, Yinson and Henkel, appeared to be pretty candid about the constructive deployment of AI. Read more about it in The Oilholic's latest Forbes post here. 

In summation, to quote AVEVA CEO Caspar Herzberg (pictured here at an analysts' briefing on October 25, seated third from left): "The true benefits go beyond the numbers: connected digital insight and technologies enable you to turn volatility into commercial opportunity by transforming industrial production into digital insights, so you can boost efficiency, resilience, and sustainable impact, and realize your boldest aspirations."

Part of being bold or having bold aspirations - especially for the energy, oil and gas sector - is embracing the technological solutions of our age provided by the likes of AVEVA, and of course, its peers. Going by the interest AVEVA's software products suite generated in San Francisco and the number of energy players in town, The Oilholic reckons that the message is cutting through big time. Well that's all for now folks. Keep reading, keep it here, keep it 'crude'!

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© Gaurav Sharma 2023. Photo 1: AVEVA logo at the AVEVA World 2023 Conference, Moscone Center, San Francisco, US. Photo 2: AVEVA World 2023 Expo Floor. Photo 3: AVEVA CEO Caspar Herzberg (third from left) speaking at an analysts' briefing at AVEVA World 2023. © Gaurav Sharma October 24-25, 2023. 

Two tech-heavy 'crude' days at Ignite 2019

The Oilholic has spent the last two days in Oslo, Norway attending energy software firm Cognite's annual Ignite 2019 conference at the City's H3 Arena. 

Founded by entrepreneur John Markus Lervik, this energy software start-up majority-owned by Norwegian investment firm Aker, has been making waves in the oil and gas industry as a provider of advanced data and digitization services. 

The firm's industry solutions and analytics bank on operations and equipment sensors that help boost efficiency, throughput and reduce costs by several multiples – something oil and gas players can easily relate to especially in the current volatile oil price climate and pressure for lower breakevens. 

Within just over three years (and counting) of its founding, Cognite has bagged nearly 30 customers including big names such as OMV, Aker BP and Lundin Petroleum. Ignite 2019 was the company's attempt at showcasing what it can offer and trigger debates and dialogues about process efficiencies and optimisation.

Inevitably, in the age of advanced analytics and artificial intelligence, much of the discourse centred on 'Big Data for 'Big Oil'. The conference was supported by companies such as Cognizant, Google, Framo, Siemens, National Instruments and Aker BP to name a few. Nikolai Astrup, Minister of Digitalization of Norway, started proceedings declaring "data is gold."

The minister went on to note: "If we refine, manage and share data appropriately it will lay the foundation for better and more effective public services, new industry successes and create jobs. 

"The Norwegian government has just launched an ambitious digitalization strategy, making us a pioneer in creating good public services for citizens, businesses and the voluntary sector."

A packed agenda saw several speakers outline the kind of efficiencies their digitisation efforts are bringing about and the results they have yielded. For instance, here is the Oilholic's report for Forbes on how Austria's OMV has managed to lower its production costs from $15 per barrel down to $7 per barrel.

While the job of impressing the sector and bagging clients is well underway, and Cognite's product suite is helping the company to grow profitably, further capital for expansion will be needed. To that end, this blogger sat down with Lervik to discuss his future plans, including those for a possible initial public offering. Here's this blogger's full interview for Forbes in which Lervik also discusses Cognite’s expansion to Asia and North America. 

Following an evening of networking over some fun music and drinks on day one, day two brought more efficiencies discussions to the fore, not necessarily digressing from the oil and gas industry theme but including renewables and low carbon as vital topics.

As were the subjects of advanced data analytics and cloud computing, with Darryl Willis, VP Oil, Gas & Energy at Google Cloud, telling Ignite 2019 delegates that every industry, including energy, will be grappling with data as the new common denominator. "Data science to real time monitoring aided by cloud computing and data analytics would only be to the industry advantage."

Plenty more articles coming up from the deliberations for Forbes, Rigzone and Energy Post over the next few weeks, but that's all from Ignite 2019 on that note. After a few more meetings in Oslo, it'll be time for the big bus home. Keep reading, keep it 'crude'!

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© Gaurav Sharma 2019. Photo 1: Oslofjord Ferry Pier, Oslo, Norway. Photo 2: Nikolai Astrup, Minister of Digitalization of Norway speaks at Ignite 2019 at the H3 Arena in Oslo, Norway. Photos 3&4: Glimpses of networking floor at Ignite 2019 © Gaurav Sharma, June 2019.

Meeting & greeting Emerson's inimitable boss

Before the Oilholic called time on CERAWeek 2019, this blogger had the absolute pleasure of meeting and greeting David Farr, the inimitable Chief Executive and Chairman of energy industry vendor Emerson Electric (NYSE:EMR) on the sidelines of the event on March 13. 

Farr, who has been Emerson's boss since 2000, has overseen the company's market valuation double under his stewardship. In a wide-ranging discussion, the industry captain touched on Emerson's performance, the Industry 4.0 challenge, change management, and more. 

No conversation would have been complete without touching on the portfolio shake-up that Farr has brought about at Emerson, and the unsuccessful bid for Rockwell Automation that did not turn out to be so bad in the end!

Ultimately, it all bottles down to corporate agility, and Farr said Emerson's two broad business streams - Automation and Commercial and Residential solutions - encompassing a diverse range of brands and businesses is working out pretty well. 

Interested in more? Read the Oilholic's full interview with Farr for Forbes here.

That's all for the moment folks! Keep reading, keep it crude!

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© Gaurav Sharma 2019. Photo: David Farr (left) with Gaurav Sharma on March 13, 2019 at CERAWeek in Houston, Texas, USA. 

Crude 'smart' tech & 'Silicon Bayou'

Days IV and V of CERAWeek 2019 have zipped by with an emphasis on power markets and technology. Since it was all about electricity and technology; here's a photo of ABB's Formula E car on display here in Houston, and yes the Swiss automation and robotics giant's YuMi robot was here too.

Day IV of #CERAWeek2019 is pretty #power & #electricity heavy, so here's a glimpse of an electric Formula E car courtesy @ABBgroupnews pic.twitter.com/a53wu9FV4h

— Gaurav Sharma (@The_Oilholic) March 14, 2019

And here is the Oilholic's full report for Forbes on how technology is making rigs 'smarter'. Its not just the greenfield sites we see this at play in, as a number of brownfield sites are being retrofitted as well to optimise performance and efficiencies. 

Finally, as is customary at CERAWeek, the Mayor of Houston Sylvester Turner turned up, and this year he reminded delegates that H-Town has sufficiently diversified to have the spheres of education, medicine and information technology sit happily alongside the City's energy sector.

In fact, the IT industry here is growing at such a rapid place that you can call it 'Silicon Bayou' and promote #SiliconBayou, he added. The Oilholic promptly did so. And that's all from CERAWeek 2019 and Houston. Keep reading, keep it crude!

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© Gaurav Sharma 2019. 

Mixing it with the ‘crude’ technologists at HUG

As the oil price hit a four-year high, the Oilholic found himself in Madrid, Spain, mixing it with the technologists driving process optimisation, Artificial Intelligence, Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) and all the rest of it in the oil and gas industry, at the Honeywell Users' Group conference.

The event was the annual jamboree of global software-industrial giant's automation outfit – Honeywell Process Solution (HPS). The 2018 round, held in Madrid, Spain, carried additional significance for more than one reason. It was the event's 30th edition, and while the first one back in 1989 would have been as much about software as it would have been about nuts, bolts and consoles, the latest instalment turned out to be anything but. 

Additionally, it was also recently appointed HPS President John Rudolph's (above left) first meaningful interaction with analysts and media outside of the Americas, having taken over in May from Vimal Kapur, who led the outfit in the oil and gas downturn of 2015, as a bit of an optimisation and efficiencies evangelist in trying times. 

And Rudolph told this blogger the efficiency and throughput gains made by HPS clients under his predecessor (who has moved on internally within Honeywell), are only going to be notched up further. "That applies equally to upgrades of legacy estate, as well as starting from scratch with clients' new builds. Efficiency is a one way street. If you are impacting efficiencies, you are also impacting waste; opportunities are a lot greater than we imagine."

The new HPS boss added the company is just starting out with its connected plant solution (more info here), which as the name suggests, is its plant operating platform predicated on big data and IIoT. That's so true, because as recently as 2010, gatherings of this nature were as much about software as they were about hardware. Now software dominates, to quote Jason Urso, HPS' Chief Technology Officer (below right). 

"We've effectively decoupled software from hardware," Urso added. That means the TDC 3000 – that old industry work-horse of a plant control system Honeywell introduced in the 1990s – can now have its digital twin for oil and gas customers hosted on Honeywell servers with no need for additional physical equipment, enabling applications, controls, displays, upgrades and performance monitoring via digital avenues. 

"The world we are heading for is about software driven automation with infinite industry and outcome focussed upgrades. The TDC 3000 is no exception," Urso told the Oilholic. 

Improved plant control, means digital is proliferating to enhance productivity, in some cases "by as much as 10 times" mitigating unplanned downtime and equipment underutilisation. All sorts of kit, sensors and drones are turning data into knowledge that business analysts can interpret to bring about further improvements.

The most visible example of this was offered at HUG by Honeywell's drone (see below) – a star attraction of the conference's exhibition floor (minus its rotors for health and safety reasons of course). 

The drone is being deployed by oil and gas downstream, midstream players, and utilities to inspect anything ranging from power-lines to pipelines. Not only does it carry out safety inspections and monitoring, the drone also gathers performance data, as programmed by the site manager for fixed inspection distances. 

Additionally, the related sphere of health, safety and training – a billion dollar business by Rudolph's own admission – is benefitting from digital as well via augmented reality and intelligent wearables.

Basically, Honeywell and its peers are bringing immersive competency to industry training via virtual reality into the process, making trainees partake in a procedure virtually before actually doing it, and digitising instruction manuals via "active worker assist solutions" embedded into wearable equipment. Sum it all up, and you can get an idea of the kind process efficiencies we are talking about, not just in the oil and gas sector, but the wider manufacturing complex to be honest. 

Invariably, the key issue of industrial cybersecurity matters, especially as research suggests attacks are on the rise. So Honeywell also used the opportune moment of HUG to announce the launch of its new industrial cybersecurity consulting service, an area of its business where it has been investing millions of dollars to service clients. Here is the Oilholic's full report on the launch for Forbes should it interest you.

Away from HUG, and back to oil futures, the market is turning bullish. In fact, too bullish for this blogger's liking! Brent is currently lurking either side of $85 per barrel. There is, at least in this blogger's eyes, a very real danger of the market overshooting. 

If, as many are only too keen to predict, the oil price hits three figures, then there is a real risk of the level being unsustainable given the hit it would have on global demand. Here's the Oilholic's take from HUG on TRT World. But that's about it from Madrid folks, it's time for the big flying bus home! Keeping reading, keep it 'crude'!

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© Gaurav Sharma 2018. Photo 1: John Rudolph, President of Honeywell Process Solutions (HPS) addresses HUG 2018, in Madrid, Spain. Photo 2: Jason Urso, CTO of HPS. Photo 3: Honeywell's Industrial Drone on display at HUG 2018. © Gaurav Sharma 2018.