The trend in many mature basins, just like the UK and Norwegian continental shelves, has been one of steady divestment by the supermajors and a new generation of smaller oil and gas operators.
Perspectives
Sharing our insights and experience to accelerate digitalisation in oil and gas
Our long track record in oil and gas, coupled with our broad client base, has afforded us great opportunities to learn where the low hanging fruit resides as well as how to deliver longer-term sustainable impact. Our Perspectives share what we have learnt to help others benefit.
Electric cars

When you say you own an electric car everyone’s first question is about that magic word “Range” – “How far can it go on a charge?”. Having owned an electric car for over six years now I can tell you that range is much less important than the ability to recharge at your destination. Let me explain why.
Safety Barriers

At Eigen, we build and deploy live data models as part of a digital
twin for oil and gas facilities. One of the challenges in doing this
is how to combine the physical and the abstract into a working
data model. And a great example of this is the bow tie – a diagram
showing all the protective measures against hazardous events and
their potential consequences.
Knowledge Graphs

The automobile and industrial designer Freeman Thomas said “We were promised a simpler life, and technology has only complicated our lives.” In complex domains, like oil and gas, technology may well have simplified some things but it has certainly complicated others, particularly where data is concerned.
Digital twin

We formed Eigen almost fifteen years ago, although the
original founding team had all been working in oil and gas for
the previous decade. As individuals, then later as Eigen, we
worked with bp to deploy its breakthrough Field of the Future
programme in Azerbaijan, and have since been part of many oil
and gas operators’ digital transformation journeys.
Digital twin

There’s a lot of hype about digital twins in oil and gas. Much is well-founded, since the integration of the underlying technologies that make digital twins possible have potential to accelerate much needed digital transformation in the sector. But you can’t believe everything you read.
Digital twin

The concept of digital twin has a futuristic quality at a time when robotics and artificial intelligence also are coming of age. But whilst there’s no disputing the transformative impact of digital twins, in industries as wide-ranging as construction, marine, agriculture and oil and gas, what makes up a digital twin is technology of now.
Decision making

One of the problems of asset-heavy industries, including Oil & Gas and Petrochemical operations, is decision-making for maximum impact, under resource constraint conditions. These industries typically manage an array of highly interconnected assets and relationships which bear on the impact of the decision.
Digital twin

In this blog series we’re looking at how you turn a bowtie diagram into an online Digital Twin showing live barrier health information. The previous part looked at the level of detail required to make a working data model in practice. In this instalment we’re looking at the challenge of assessing the health of protective functions not directly related to the physical SECEs (Safety and Environmentally Critical Equipment).
Complex Subsea Hydraulic System

Imagine the situation: Hydraulic fluid pressure is dropping fast; supply tank levels are also dropping. You are pretty sure there is a big leak in the system, but you have no idea where it is. Pretty soon the operation will be compromised: The pressure will be below the minimum required and you may be forced to shut down the field. It is a scary picture.
What makes a good datamodel?

There is a lot of buzz nowadays about “Digital Twins”, and every Digitalisation Director out there is thinking they need to have a Digital Twin of their assets. It makes sense: If you have a digital representation of your assets; you can simulate, test scenarios, plan operations and visualise data within the context afforded by the twin, without having to visit or “be present” in the real asset, especially if these assets are remote.
Uncategorized

As the COVID-19 pandemic hit us round about March 2020 and the Oil prices crashed, all of us working for the Oil & Gas industry panicked and prepared for the worse. In previous market downturns, budgets had been slashed and projects cancelled, but this time something quite different happened, at least in the Digitalisation space.
Open Source

I’ve been using Apple products since 2007. Every smart phone I’ve had has been an iPhone but yesterday I ordered a new Android phone. I’m so fed up with shelling out around £1000 every couple of years but I’ve been trapped because all my music is in iTunes, all my family have iPhones and we run Macs*. Man, I hate being locked in! I wouldn’t mind if it was still value for money, but it’s not – I feel like I’m being taken for a ride now.
Perspective

In November (this month as I write this) we have not long closed out possible two of the best custom software projects we have done. Sure there were bugs in the testing and there will be more found by the users I’m sure, but what made them so good? We hit the schedule to within a week on both of them and there were no scope changes over the entire project, so we hit the budget as well. This is particularly impressive for one of them because it was a completely new piece of software, written from scratch; taken from powerpoint to in production in 5 months.
Decision Bridge Technology

Back in July I asked myself the question “Why are we still in business after 11 years?”. A small specialist company in a big competitive industry. We’ve been through 3 downturns now and we continue to develop longstanding relationships with some of the most innovative operators in the business. Clearly we are doing something right but what is it?
Decision Bridge Technology

Did you ever learn to play “Sweet child of mine” on the guitar? Like almost every other teenager who had a guitar I learned the opening riff to “Sweet child of mine” and I remember playing it in a guitar shop when I was testing out an amp, only to have one of the staff point to a sign on the wall that said anyone playing “sweet child of mine” would be thrown out the shop and told never to return!
Is your Oil field being exploited at its best?

In our previous blog, the discussion was centred on assessing how well an asset is exploited, as a key concern for the field manager and the asset team. The Integrated Choke Model (ICM) was proposed as a model to identify opportunities for improving the free cash flow as the fundamental objective during periods when the oil price is low.
Is your Oil field being exploited at its best?

A typical question for a Petroleum Field Manager is how well the asset is being exploited and if this exploitation is efficient and generates enough value for Operator and Partners. This article explores some answers based on our understanding of the challenges that appear throughout the life of the field, and to how to be prepared to transform them into opportunities.
What makes a good datamodel?

Trying to model humans is probably the easiest way I know to break an inflexible model. Why? Because humans are recursive – that means they keep repeating the same thing and also they keep changing the rules! Humans start off as a child and become parents, they form relationships with each other, they marry each other and they can now change gender. If you designed your database schema in the 1500’s you would have had to rebuild it several times since!
Data Myths

Ok, so this one isn’t entirely a myth, there are AI based tools that do make you more efficient.
Like the time one of my kids asked me what kind of plant this was when we were out on a walk; a quick snap using the Picture. This app and a few seconds later we knew it was a “Common milkwort”! Brilliant! (Though whether we’ll ever remember that for next time is a different matter).
Like the time one of my kids asked me what kind of plant this was when we were out on a walk; a quick snap using the Picture. This app and a few seconds later we knew it was a “Common milkwort”! Brilliant! (Though whether we’ll ever remember that for next time is a different matter).
Is your Oil field being exploited at its best?

We have all been there… it’s another downturn! There is pressure from management to demonstrate that our mature oil field is profitable.
We need to take action to maximise free cash flow to ensure the profitability of our operation and that means maximising production, minimising water and sand, while making sure well integrity is preserved. On top of that we also have to deal with foaming, scaling or emulsions, while optimising the use of expensive chemicals.
We need to take action to maximise free cash flow to ensure the profitability of our operation and that means maximising production, minimising water and sand, while making sure well integrity is preserved. On top of that we also have to deal with foaming, scaling or emulsions, while optimising the use of expensive chemicals.
Data Myths

Getting new digital functionality working is complicated, especially when it involves integrating to existing systems from different vendors. The idea of copying all this data into a single ‘data lake’ is very attractive; everything will be in one place, your architecture drawings looks really clean, you don’t need to worry about how to connect to legacy systems or overloading them, the performance should be blisteringly fast. A modern one-stop-shop for all future development. I know this because this was my dream when we started Eigen 12 years ago! We were trying to build the one unifying data model that would enable all our functionality dreams. But here’s what we’ve found over the last 12 years.
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