ConocoPhillips—an oil and natural gas company, has just announced the advancement of PLOT (a custom-built Plunger Lift Optimization Tool) into phase II of testing, which has already increased production by as much as 30 percent for over 4,500 natural gas wells. PLOT technology increases the amount and frequency of data collected from natural gas wells.
In order to cope with the enormous amount of data being collected, ConocoPhillips and many other vendors in the oil and gas sector have begun seeking assistance from Big Data Centers, which store and analyze both structured and unstructured data to provide a faster consolidated view of organization-wide information. Additionally, big data analytics improving operational performance and maximizing profitability. In fact, many vendors within the Oil and Gas Industry are rapidly adopting big data centers which is creating a surge in demand. This is playing a huge factor in whopping CAGR of 57.08 percent that the Global Big Data Market in the Oil and Gas Sector is expected to post for the 2012-2016 period.
Big Data is becoming a must-have for vendors because of the many benefits associated with using the technology. Below are just some of the big data initiatives that oil and gas companies have undertaken.
Big database solutions are applicable across the oil and gas industry because they automate the decision-making process, which eliminates the process delays in human decision making, and helps organizations improve decision making and their market response. Additionally, organizations gain competitive advantage through big data solutions because they transform the raw marketing and customer data into useful information. Understanding and leveraging the data in upstream oil and gas enables companies to remain competitive during exploration, planning and field development. While in downstream oil and gas, the data is used for maximizing production, enhancing maintenance, and improving planning and forecasting results.
For oil and gas companies, staying ahead of the competition is vital to success. Several enterprises are desperate for quick, real-time, and seamless access to structured and unstructured data for exploration and development. This will help enterprises in developing geophysical interpretation, understanding the context of seismic surveys and developing competitive intelligence information available for supporting decision-making processes. Integrating seismic data with unstructured information helps enterprises support data quality, data accessibility, and real-time decision making processes. The easy accessibility of data is helping oil and gas enterprises in achieving their corporate goals.
Improving production efficiency and profitability is a reward in itself which is why so many companies are utilizing the benefits of big data. As technologies advance and new products become available, there are a world of possibilities for putting bid data to use. Though many companies are still using conventional databases for data because of industry barriers such as lack of awareness and talented professionals, the industry is still expected to grow by US$ 1.67 billion during the forecast period. With all this being considered, it’s safe to say that if and when the oil and gas companies who are reluctant to use big data finally make the switch, they will merely be contributing to an already highly established market.
For more information, view our 2012-2016 Global Big Data Market in the Oil and Gas Sector report.
