Information technology could play significant role in producing oil and gas

Pulling crude and natural gas out of the earth requires bits and brawn, but it is increasingly requiring bytes as well.

“The energy industry is seeing significant challenges in terms of capacity,” said Kumar Bashyam, chairman and chief executive officer of SGT Global, a Houston-based information technology consulting company. “With $80 oil and demand for oil from India and China, the industry has challenges finding oil and distributing oil.”
It’s not necessarily a question of there being enough oil to find, he said, but a question of the talent to address the challenges of finding increasingly hard-to-produce oil and gas. The industry has seen experienced people depart and has not accrued enough new talent, he explained.

That is why he said he believes information technology’s role in oil and gas production can be quite significant in at least two ways.

The first way is in knowledge, specifically capturing, retaining and passing along knowledge from experienced workers to the new talent entering the industry.

The second way is in helping boost productivity with management tools.

A possible third role for IT, he said, relates back to the shortfall of new talent in that IT can offer access to a global pool of talent. Rather than looking for new talent locally, he said, companies can look globally because today’s communications technology allows for instantaneous communication and data sharing around the globe.

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