Digital Innovations in Oil and Gas with Geoffrey Cann

"For emissions in the sector that we studied, the 80/20 rule really applied, because it was 80% of the emissions coming from 20% of the facilities...For those 20% it was generally not the case that there wasn't an easy fix—better maintenance programs, or just even having an operator drive by and unstick a valve."

In this episode, I'm in conversation with Austin Mitchell, the CEO and co-founder of Synota, on the topic of energy finance transformation. One of the legacy challenges of energy finance is the separation of energy transactions (the movement, measurement, custody transfer, and ownership of energy products — electrons and molecules) from the financial transactions of energy products (purchase and sale agreements, contracts, settlements, and accounting).

"We've designed a physical system that's really incredible [at moving energy around], but as I spent time in industry, what became really apparent to me is that we are way less efficient at moving money back up the value chain."

Modern digital tools can fundamentally overhaul this long-standing structure by enabling real time settlement of transactions, and releasing billions of dollars in credit, interest payments, financing charges and resourcing associated with energy finance. 

"In that entire value chain everybody's extending credit to everybody. If credit's not being extended, then you're the entity having to borrow the cash to pay the person who won't give you credit. So there's credit, there's collateral, and there are departments at every energy company to manage that."

Austin Mitchell is the Co-founder and CEO of Synota and has spent his career in the energy industry. He started in academia where his research informed energy and environmental policy at state and federal levels. Austin's energy expertise includes markets, utilities and regulation, business strategy, and risk management. He is passionate about solving the global problems of energy equity and access.

"We arrive at conservative estimates of 10% of the cost of the average business and residential bill is directly tied to that financial inefficiency. It's everything from the payment processors, to the bad debt. And all of the back office processes and resources dedicated to managing the existing system."

Austin holds a degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Dayton, and a PhD in Engineering & Public Policy from Carnegie Mellon University.

Austin is a proud father of two kids, loves to be active, and gives back to his community.

• LinkedIn profiles (personal, business): 
• Personal: https://www.linkedin.com/in/austinmitchell3/
• Business: https://www.linkedin.com/company/synota/
• Twitter handles:
• @aisaacsmitchell
• @synota_
• Website: 
•  http://www.synota.io/

Hydrogen is suddenly the sexiest commodity on earth, with even staid German statesmen visiting Canada of all places to ask for a piece of the action.

For regular readers of this podcast, you'll know that I'm an advocate for energy in general, and a pragmatist or realist when it comes to energy planning and delivery. I don't pick sides as I believe we need all of all when it comes to meeting the planet's energy needs affordably, sustainably and securely. But I also believe we need to be clear-eyed about our energy policies and choices.

Hydrogen has a lot of appeal, but it's not a short term answer to any problem I'm aware of. It's a long term play, and to make it work, it needs the sustained collaboration of a variety of market participants. Investor beware.

The front line worker in oil and gas has been overlooked in the drive to bring digital innovation to the industry. 

The career success for this group of employees is likely linked to how well they stay abreast of important developments in the industry, from the impacts of new regulations dealing with climate change to the changing energy demand and supply patterns driven by the war in Europe. To a degree they are paid to stay on top of things, and may have a small expense allowance to spend on maintaining personal awareness.

But this is not the world of the front line worker.

By definition, the FLW works in the field, usually far from a large office and rarely, if ever, are there large numbers of FLWs in a big city. They may have visited the home office during their first few weeks of initial training, but since there are so many field workers, it's generally more cost effective to send the occasional trainer to the field, rather than fly the field to the training center.

We need to fix that.

To help bridge the gap between the front line worker and the world of digital, I've recorded a new short video training course on digital's impact on the oil and gas industry, specifically for the front line worker.

• It's intentionally short, at just 50 minutes long, in 7 short videos, in keeping with the minimal amount of time that front line workers have available in their day.
• It's available on all browsers for mobile phones, tablets and laptops.
• It features a handful of short quizzes that help reinforce the content.
• It includes specific examples for oil and gas to underscore practicality.
• It directly addresses some of the misperceptions of digital and presents the reality.
• Students can take the course based on their own capacity and availability.

The course is housed on Udemy, a leading platform for on-line learning.

Look for it here.

"We estimate that potentially 25 to 30% of the overall effort on  smaller brownfield projects is in just trying to find reliable records that can be edited and updated to address whatever project you're trying to do."

In this episode, I'm in conversation with Scott Mussbacher, who is the Systems Integration Business Unit Manager at Vista Projects, an engineering, procurement and construction company  based in Calgary. Construction engineering is critical to the  oil and gas industry because the industry is capital intense–pipelines, refineries, tanks, processing plants all need complex engineering to make them functional, safe, and cost effective. Scott is helping to reimagine the interface between the build phase of an engineering project and the operate phase – how does the information generated in build play a role in operations. 

"When a regulator visits, they give you a couple of weeks notice. And it's typically a big scramble to try to find the documentation, the maintenance records, the data sheets, and all the information about some asset in their sights."

Scott Mussbacher leads Vista's System Integration team, and works closely with Vista's Process Engineering and Project Management teams. Scott has a Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering and a Master of Science in Chemical Engineering – both from the University of Alberta, and is a member of the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of Alberta (APEGA).

Scott is an expert in process engineering, project management and data-centric project execution. As the System Integration Manager, Scott leverages his expertise to guide the team through the development of digital twins for multiple clients in diverse industries. With his unique background, he brings a holistic approach to digital twins to enhance value from initial project conception through to operations and maintenance.

"An engineer does not want to be trying to find where their issues are, find where there's concerns. They want to be focused on innovative ways to solve those problems. And so you're really taking out some of the worst part of our job as engineers trying to find problems, and really focusing on the value added tasks for the project."

Scott has contributed to many client's research and development programs by leveraging his graduate school education and experience in process engineering and management. Scott has also presented his research and expertise at multiple conferences and exhibitions.

Scott appeared on an earlier episode of Digital Innovations in Oil and Gas, and you might want to take in the previous episode. 

https://digitaloilgas.libsyn.com/187-interview-with-scott-mussbacher-of-vista-projects

• LinkedIn profiles (personal, business): 
• Personal: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scott-mussbacher-4350b31a
• Business: https://www.linkedin.com/company/vista-projects/
• Twitter handles:
• @vistaprojects
• Facebook pages:
• https://www.facebook.com/VistaProjectsLtd
• Website: 
• http://www.vistaprojects.com 

Incoming waves of new digital innovations promise to transform a hidden but important business model embedded throughout oil and gas—the ERP platform.

You might not know this, but many years ago, when I was on my way to becoming a partner with Deloitte, I studied how to implement enterprise resource planning (ERP) technologies, specifically PeopleSoft. I took a number of courses at their offices in Walnut Creek California on the Finance modules. But in the oil and gas world, SAP became the dominant solution, Oracle purchased PeopleSoft, and my short-lived career as an ERP implementation consultant came to an abrupt end. And so, I replaced it with a different career which was as an ERP strategist.

SAP has now developed a foundation, or platform, on which companies can operate entirely new business models for the use of SAP ERP technologies. It's unimaginatively called Business Technology Platform, or BTP (SAP is not prone to dynamic over the top branding, and BMW was already taken).

The way that companies have historically deployed their ERP systems is now a tired business model that looks profoundly ill-suited to our more kinetic and dynamic business landscape. It is time pay the debt that the model represents, and overhaul the ERP business model for the future.

Is Canada really a plausible supplier of liquefied natural gas (LNG) to European markets? I spent four years working on the Australian LNG export businesses, and wrote 200+ articles about the global LNG trade, how it works, what's needed for success, and how to be competitive. An LNG supply window has just opened but how well is Canada equipped to supply?

The enthusiasm for Canada to step up and become a viable and globally relevant LNG supplier to one of the world's most important markets is laudable. But the country must be absolutely clear eyed and sober about our true competitiveness and how we are going to improve. It will take something Canada is just not good at, which is to move quickly and decisively. And now the world is watching.

"We don't lead with Blockchain, we lead with the value."

In this episode, I'm in conversation with Victor Wong, who is the Chief Product Officer and Founder of BlockApps, on the problem of seismic entitlement management for upstream oil and gas companies. Seismic data is long life, frequently changes hands, very high value, multi-format, and gains in value as interpretation technology advances. The administration of the rules of use and access, called entitlements, are contracted between companies, but administering those contracts is very hard because of the nature of seismic data. Blockchain technology presents a very attractive solution, reducing process times to seconds (vs months and years for the status quo).

"You can think of it as like a registry that you can trust. And because it exists on the blockchain, it's kind of neutral. It's not held by one party, and it's not owned by anyone."

Victor Wong is a serial entrepreneur and recognized thought-leader in the blockchain space. In his current role as Chief Product Officer & Founder at BlockApps, Victor has helped define the STRATO architecture to solve key blockchain issues of permissioning, data privacy, and enterprise-level performance.

"The best thing that a startup has, in their complex world, is speed of execution. That's your one advantage, because there are always going to be bigger companies, there are always going to be people that have more resources, but the bigger you are, the slower you make decisions."

• LinkedIn profiles (personal, business): 
• Personal: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vic4wong/
• Business: https://www.linkedin.com/company/blockapps/
• Twitter handles:
• @blockapps
• Website: 
•  https://blockapps.net/

Gasoline prices have been off the charts volatile for the past several weeks. Excess volatility will be an unpleasant feature for western markets for just 20 more years.

Gosh, but gasoline prices are elevated. Like record-setting elevated.

Car owners grumble about the high cost of fuel, yet people are furiously driving around, rental cars are scarce, new car lots are sparse, and used cars are in short supply. I have yet to even meet anyone in my circle who has put their F150 up for sale.

And so, I see three questions worth pondering:

1. Why did prices rise so quickly?
2. When will prices come down?
3. Is price volatility the new normal?

"You can't really connect the dots moving forward, but you can connect them backwards once you make sense of it."

In this episode, I'm in conversation with Christian Retek who is the Chief Revenue Officer at Flutura. The topic is 'process engineer meets data science'. You can substitute any engineering discipline for process engineering, and the concepts in this episode still hold—how do you introduce data science ideas and solutions into highly risk-averse, change-hesitant industries like oil and gas?

"I describe processing engineering as the understanding and application of the fundamental principles and laws of nature that allow humans to transform raw material and energy into products that are useful to society."

Christian Retek is currently serving as the Chief Revenue Officer at Flutura and is a specialist in designing scalable, replicable sales processes for digital innovations across Education, Defense, Construction & Oil & Gas. Flutura helps refineries, gas processing & chemical manufacturing plants successfully automate the prediction of equipment failures, process upsets and swings in quality using their aggregate plant data & camera footage. 

"Our goal here is to enable people with the insights that they can make, so they get to be the heroes."

• LinkedIn profiles (personal, business): 
• Personal: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christianretek/
• Business: https://www.linkedin.com/company/flutura/
• Twitter handles:
• @revenuedrivers
• @fluturads
• Website: 
•  http://www.flutura.com/
• http://www.reliability.flutura.com/

"For anyone to succeed in this space, they have to really think about the design for the real world: how it's going day in and day out, how it will survive, and how it will be maintained."

In this episode, I'm in conversation with Lenny Shaver, who is Director of Strategic Marketing at Advanced Energy, in the critical sensing and control product group. Sensor technology, the source of data for digital business, is rapidly evolving. New use cases are appearing that improve safety and enhance process integrity and reliability. We'll talk more about where this technology is headed.

"Something that actually is the most exciting is to get Operations' feedback when we deploy this, because for anyone to succeed in this space, they have to really think about the design for the real world: how it's going day in and day out, how will it survive, and how not to be a maintenance nightmare for the operations crew."

Mr. Shaver has been with Advanced Energy (AE) in a variety of engineering, product development, product management and strategic roles for more than 25 years.  Today Mr. Shaver is the Director, Strategic Marketing for AE's Critical Sensing and Control business unit. AE offers innovative sensing technologies and software used by industrial plants to improve process control and to automatically detect deviations. Taking advantage of AE's broad experience, he works to guide developments that enable users to deploy sensors with real-world payback.

"You do need to find a champion at the site who really is willing to stick their neck out a little bit, and try something new or get it approved."

• LinkedIn profiles (personal, business):
  • Personal: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lenny-shaver-10a3781/
  • Business: https://www.linkedin.com/company/10545
• Twitter handles:
  • @AdvEnergy
  • @
• Facebook pages:
  • https://www.facebook.com/advenergyinc
• Website:
  • https://www.advancedenergy.com/