Industry is facing pressure on several fronts, with oil prices falling by about 70% since mid-2014 hitting production profits and reduced capital spend.
Meanwhile, the global focus on environmental impacts of CO2 emissions is forcing industry to implement new technologies that operate more efficiency and reduce carbon footprints.
Siemens vice president oil and gas strategy and technology Thomas Sparks told Energy News on the sidelines of APPEA 2017 in Perth, shortly after addressing the conference on "The digital future of oil and gas" that while sharing between companies was an issue, internal sharing was also a major stumbling block.
While other sectors have already embraced digital technology, "the need has come for the oil and gas industry to change, because of this lower-for-longer oil price environment".
"The industry has really understood that we have to find new ways to doing business, we have to bring in the young people, move to digitisation and work with universities," he said.
"It cannot just be done by one company [like Siemens], it is the way of collaboration. We have to break down the silos in the EPCs [engineering, procurement, and construction], OEMs [original equipment manufacturers], the services companies and the government. All these parties need to come together."
It all comes down to the way companies are set up.
He cited an integrated company, such as BP, as a good example where it is easier to apply digitisation across the whole organisation, transforming it into a digital company that is capable of easily sharing information where it can be useful.
Other companies are siloed in their thinking and the way their processes are, so the company itself needs to change the way it operates, he said.
"I have a lot of companies in the Middle East applying our technologies in order to increase the calibration, like [one piece of] software which collects all the information from various systems and organisations into one single KPI dashboard system," he said.
"I'm working with an NOC [national oil company] right now that puts up this whole ‘dashboarding' centre where they are putting up all their silo departments so they can look at it all on their screens in the one room, so that if something happens they can start calibrating.
"So companies really need to tear down their internal silos."
He also cited one NOC, described as "one of the world's largest producers", that has connected almost all of its systems and equipment to one database.
Sparks also cited "horizontal" industrial companies and original equipment manufacturers are global pioneers in the field of industrial digitisation, setting new standards with proven results across multiple industries.
These same companies also have decades of experience in the oil and gas industry and could be the catalyst for change in a sector renowned for being a slow adopter of new technologies.
"These ‘digital OEMs' understand the entire life cycle of oil and gas assets and have the necessary OEM equipment know-how," Sparks said.
"This know-how, combined with their extensive analytics expertise, allows them to turn data into proven customer value every day."
Life-cycle software solutions, digital enabled integrated operational solutions, digital platforms, and advanced data analytic solutions that Woodside Petroleum has already implemented, are helping oilers harness their data to increase productivity, generate energy savings, optimise scheduling and increase plant security.
This also helps them to better comply with health, safety and environment requirements and improve the value of their capital expenditure, he said.
