The OMG/Enterprise Data Management Association combination to form an aggregation of standards for the digital twin, VR/AR, software quality and AI.
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Oil IT Journal Interview – John Bottega CEO of the EDM Association
Oil IT Journal editor Neil McNaughton held a phone interview with the head of the newly combined EDM Association and the Object Management Group. Bottega traces the history of the EDMA and pitches the Association’s services at the oil and gas vertical.
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In this edition of Oil IT Journal
Editor Neil McNaughton finds inspiration in this issue of Oil IT Journal. A ‘state of the industry’ view expressed at the 2025 EAGE Annual Conference. Artificial intelligence, a ‘breakthrough’ or a ‘glorified magic 8 ball?’ And when is ‘AI’ really AI and when is it reheated RPA? And does it matter? More on quantum computing and portfolio analysis, tracking the driller’s eye and chatting with Le Chat. But where’s Wally, sorry, I mean Waldo – no … where’s OSDU?
While his position may be a bit extreme, none of the panelists at
the EAGE Annual Conference and Exhibition disagreed openly with
Kristian Johansen (TGS CEO) who opined that, ‘The energy
transition has failed completely – it is going to take much longer’.
The buzz from the EAGE held last June in Toulouse France was a
combination of schadenfreude at the failing transition, concern
over the $70/barrel oil price and optimism that this would soon rise as
demand increased. We will see. Meanwhile as the world economy teeters
on the brink of sanctions what can we do here at Oil IT Journal but …
carry on regardless. So here goes for a quick summary of our reporting
in this, our 283rd edition.
AI continues to excite industry. TotalEnergies reports breathlessly on the ‘20,000 AI models’ currently in production. The OMG
(now swallowed-up by the EDM Association) has rolled out a strategic
playbook and AI Agent Capabilities Periodic Table. But not all agree – Gartner, Salesforce and especially Emily Bender are more nuanced on the AI ‘successes’. A PIDX
webinar covering AI and the supply chain illustrated the overlap (in
both reality and from the marketing department) of AI as per machine
learning and ‘AI’ as per robotic process automation. If the latter is
working why fix it? The answer probably is if you are selling RPA into
a world addicted to machine learning models you may need to revisit
your sales pitch. Conversely, pity the folks who have had ML embedded
in their software tools for years who also need to tread carefully so
as not to insult the buyers.
We have over the years reported on quantum computing. I would like
to add ‘in oil and gas’ although to date, there is not much to report.
Not least because a workable quantum computer is still on the drawing
board. So it behooves us to report on a QC/algorithmic breakthrough
from TotalEnergies which is set to change how energy companies
optimize their portfolios. Well, that’s the idea. I always thought that
portfolios were optimized by the CEO smooching with the local politicos
but what do I know…
A report from the IOGP investigates the use of eye tracking
technology to study a driller’s interaction with computer displays and
the environment. Interestingly, drillers appear to be more interested
in the numerical values displayed on screen than the fancy graphics.
Which reminds me of Patrick Leach’s great book about oil and gas
economics ‘Just give me the number’ that we reviewed many years ago.
In its Q2 quarterly results SLB enumerates a number of
digital successes around AI, data and various applications. One might
have expected some mention of OSDU, the open subsurface data universe,
that SLB has sworn allegiance to, at least in private. But no, SLB,
like Halliburton, studiously avoids any mention of the ‘collaboration-enabling’ OSDU in its official releases.
SLB has also teamed with France’s AI champion Mistral.ai as indeed has TotalEnergies.
These days software and services providers (and indeed oil companies)
tend to be what the Scots call ‘mealy mouthed’ when it comes to fossil
energy. Instead of oil and gas, releases speak of ‘energy’ and the
transition. Researchers work on designing batteries and optimizing wind
turbine placement rather than oil and gas wells. We had an amusing
conversation with Mistral’s Le Chat which kind of let the cat (ha ha)
out of the bag before getting suspicious and displaying an suspicious
degree of ‘woke’.
We were lucky enough to get a review copy of Esri’s booklet on
GeoAI. As I said above, it’s tricky for companies that already do AI to
market their wares as something new. Esri has had various bits and
pieces of AI under the hood for years. So a rehash of marketing
material is kind of natural. But what I would like to see debated is
why the geospatial coordinates should be handled any differently from
all the other inputs to an AI model. Why not just chuck everything and
see what comes out?
We have a really big section on cyber security in this issue with
plenty of warnings and advice for the oil and gas vertical, from
insider risks, to the dangers of cloud-attached energy assets.
Protection is available in the form of a plethora of associations and
standards. By the time a CIO has aligned with all the standards a
thousand script kiddies and other bad actors have downloaded as many
rootkits, malwares and what have you. This is looking like a losing
battle!
In our Standards stuff section we report on the usual standards bulimics the IOGP, the OGC
and others. One standard that was new to us is the Model Context
Protocol, a means of tying various LLMs and other AI models together in
an ‘agentic’ framework. Interoperability at last? Maybe too soon to
tell. A paper in Nature of all places investigates data lineage
tracking by combining ‘semantic technologies’ with logical principles.
Talk about the standards moral high ground! Maybe time for OSDU to retool? Another ‘we do AI already’ in our Software short takes rubric from Wolfram/Mathematica.
Agentics, maps, geodetics and a vibe code generator for Wolfram, it’s
all there! Finally in our exclusive interview with John Bottega, CEO of
the EDM Association we get the inside track of the acquisition, or was it a merger, with the OMG. Enjoy. Well, ‘enjoy’ if you subscribe.
Book Review – GeoAI: Artificial Intelligence in GIS
New Esri publication provides several use cases for AI and geographic information systems (ArcGIS). But is this new? Or is GeoAI what used to be called Geoprocessing?
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EAGE 2025 Toulouse, France
Oil IT Journal reports from the EU Association of Geoscientists and Engineers main annual conference. At the Plenary sessions we heard that ‘the energy transition has failed completely’ (TGS), that GenAI, data and algorithms from other industries will allow us to operate with fewer people (ExxonMobil) and that streamer seismics no longer popular; nodes are better and cheaper. Modest enthusiasm was expressed for the hoped-for ‘return to exploration’. Regarding AI, some are ‘deeply impatient’, others are still waiting for the revolution. ChatGPT is seeing ‘superfast’ adoption. Cost structure of CCS is questioned. GenAI front end to Petrel impresses. More on AI, digital transformation and even OSDU!
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Equinor and open source software
Open source software a ‘strategic direction’ for Norwegian oil and gas major.
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AI!, AI!, AI! …
Oil IT Journal concatenates some recent announcements around artificial intelligence. On the pro side we have a Baringa report on an AI-powered revolution in energy. TotalEnergies’ 20,000 AI models and MLOps. The OMG’s Agentic AI periodic table. On the maybe not side, half of AI projects for the chop (Gartner), AI agents fail 70% of the time (CMU), Emily Bender (U. Washington) LLMs are ‘born shitty’!
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Quarterly financials from SLB highlight digital technologies!
Lumi to roll out atop Mistral Compute. Shell deploys Petrel AI-powered modeling. Collaboration with Cactus Drilling on autonomous drilling. But no OSDU!
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Software hardware short takes
Wireless Links’ Piccolo Mini equipment tracker. Kitware ParaView 6.0 and VTK 9.5. Wolfram/Mathematica 14.3. Getech Unconventionals Analyst 3.3. NV5 Geospatial’s GeoAgent. Cognite’s Data Workflows. Spotfire 14.5. New KFX version from DNV. Eliis’ PaleoScan 2025.1. SLB’s Sequestri CCS solutions. EZ Ops customer advisory board. OnGeo Intelligence pay-as-you-go satellite imagery. Applied Petroleum Technology’s Girasol. Digi International Axess app and VPN Service. Google releases AlphaEarth Foundation models. GeoAssist autonomous agent for geoscience.
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TotalEnergies and Mistral join forces
AI to be used to develop new energies and reduce environmental footprint. Oil IT Journal asks Le Chat, Mistral’s LLM powered chatbot, if that is really everything or if there is some ‘dual use’ here.
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Folks, facts, orgs …
People: AAPG, Alice Technologies, Aveva, CII, ESIP, FOSA, Getech, Hexagon, IOTech, MorganFranklin Cyber, NODIR, NSTA, OSDU Forum, Perma-Pipe, Seeq, SEG. Announcements: Trillion Parameter Consortium, ISG Provider Lens on oil and gas AI, OpenText on rise of cloud repatriation.
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Sales, partnerships
AGR sale to OKEA. Cleopatra and Management Controls team. Geospace Pioneer nodes for Dawson Geophysical. Dell HPC for NERSC. Expro serves NEP CCS joint venture. Northern Endurance Partnership contract to Expro. Cerebre digital backbone for ExxonMobil. Fugro partners with DTACT and Ubotica on data fusion. Petrobras awards reservoir monitoring to Geospace. Chevron, Halliburton team on closed-loop completions. Petronas selects Landmark subsurface solutions. Repsol awards Halliburton N Sea well lifecycle contract. Kongsberg, Solstad and others team on remote dynamic positioning. Noble awards Kongsberg framework agreement. Petrobras awards data management contract to Katalyst. Oil Brokerage and Sparta team . Oilfield Service Professionals and Odfjell announce partnership. Rowland.ai serves American Association of Professional Landmen. Yokogawa formalizes Shell Global Solutions agreement. SLB teams with Cactus Drilling. AIQ’s ENERGYai for SLB.
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2025 International Rock Imaging Summit
Introducing the International Image Interoperability Framework. CoreLab’s AI for petrophysics. Digital rock data management. LTrace’s GeoSlicer.
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Portfolio optimization on NISQ
TotalEnergies researchers claim breakthrough in quantum algorithmics.
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PIDX on AI in Action
Petroleum Industry Data Exchange hears from DKI on Australia’s Safe Load program and AI in the supply chain and WonderBotz on the marriage of AI and robotic process automation.
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Cyber security round-up
NordStellar: Ransomware up. Pakistan Petroleum hit. Rockwell on risks. CyCognito on IoT/cloud vulnerabilities. Insider threats and the browser, the kill switch, CERT’s Insider incident data exchange. Oracle on Zero Trust. Optia/Patero and post quantum cyber sec. ISA – ML for real time threat detection. Exxon, Chevron on ISA 62443 and supply chain security. NIST and IoT device characterization. ISAsecure on site assessment. DNV on new EU regs. Linux Foundation and the EU Cyber Resilience Act. NIST report on cyber and the digital twin. Open source cyber risk. Data destruction advice. Cyber hard problems. ISA -‘Back off ChatGPT!’
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Regulatory round-up
Norway: Sharing ensemble data on production. UK: NSTA fines Chrysaor, warns operators ‘decommission now!’ UKCS Production Efficiency dashboard. US: Railroad Commission fines operator. PHMSA downplays Biden-era enviro legislation, hikes safety regs.
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Standards stuff
CII presents findings of RT 410 best practices review. Nature paper addresses data silos, tying PROV, the W3C provenance ontology to ISO BFO – the basic formal ontology. IOGP publishes well control incidents classification, land survey model user guide, geodetic data guidance. OGC API for connected systems. PIDX deploys DocStudio for standards submission and review, published explainer on emissions data exchange. XBRL blog: AI on company financials making expensive mistakes. Microsoft deploys Model Context Protocol for agentic AI across its portfolio. SEG clarifies SEG-Y Rev 2.1. EU Trusted Data Framework. EU Data Act now in force.
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Eyeballing the driller
IOGP uses eye tracking to study ‘human factors’ in drilling. Drillers appear to prefer numbers on screen to graphics which may be a safety issue.
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Emerging technology and workplace safety
Lloyd’s Register Foundation reviews the safety implications of smartphones, VR, wearables and algorithmic worker management. ‘Smarter Regulation Sandbox’ announced.
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