Hong-Ngan Hua’s NTNU Master Thesis investigates OSDU, the open software data universe with a survey of OSDU stakeholders. The results are devastating. The 90 page case study of OSDU found vendors and operators trapped in ‘strategic deadlock’, stalling progress. IT vendors struggle to find business opportunities, interoperability tests have failed, objectives are unclear and everyone has a different understanding of what OSDU is, where it is, and what it’s supposed to do. A data ‘platform’ is about more than technology, and requires extensive institutional and organizational change. Here OSDU does not make the grade.
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FormationEval — Open benchmark for petroleum geoscience LLMs
Open multiple-choice question benchmark for evaluating language models on petroleum geoscience and subsurface disciplines. LLMs from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Meta compared.
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From OSDU deadlock to Microsoft ADME
Oil IT Journal editor Neil McNaughton argues that OSDU, the open subsurface data universe, is unlikely to satisfy any but its major operators’ backers. Costs in the multi-million dollar range, a receding timeline for a ‘reference implementation’ (2028?) and benefits ‘very hard to quantify’. Software vendors are being cut out of the equation with the goal of ‘new apps’ working atop the data platform. Its ‘success’, such as it is, can be explained by ‘capture’ of the project by cloud software providers – in particular, Microsoft with the Azure Data Manager for Energy. At which point, it does not really matter what code base forms the heart of the solution. In this future, all upstream IT will be running on ADME.
We first heard Hua Hong-Hang at last year’s ECIM
conference where she reported on her MSc Thesis, an in depth survey of
OSDU, the open subsurface data universe, based on extensive interviews
of OSDU participants and a literature review. Hua found OSDU to be
stalled by ‘strategic deadlock’ between operators and vendors.
Since ECIM, Hua has kindly translated her thesis into English and
provided us with a review copy which she has allowed us to host on
oilit.com. You can read and download the whole thing here.
You can also read our analysis of this important study in this issue of
Oil IT Journal. Briefly, Hua’s investigation has shown that IT vendors
struggle to find business opportunities, interoperability tests have
failed, objectives are unclear and everyone has a different
understanding of what OSDU is, where it is, and what it’s supposed to
do. A data ‘platform’ is about more than technology, and requires
extensive institutional and organizational change. OSDU does not make
the grade.
My attendance at the 2026 EAGE Digital conference allowed more
triangulation of the OSDU story. Just FYI, the official position is
that 2026 will see a ‘finalized first version of the data standard’,
followed in 2027 with a ‘sustained’ OSDU operating model and in 2028 by
an ‘evergreen’ OSDU standard, reference implementation and
certification. That is just 10 years since Shell first handed over
their ‘SDU’ code base to The Open Group OSDU Forum.
As is often the case at conferences, the interesting stuff came in
the Q&A sessions which I would invite you to read in our report
from EAGE Digital in this issue. But as a teaser, here are a few
snippets from the various Q&As. OSDU is fragmented, every company
has its own implementation. Quantifying the benefits of a move to OSDU
is a ‘very hard question’. OSDU is struggling with spaghetti code and a
general lack of direction although one ‘medium term goal’ from the
operators is for new apps running directly on OSDU. No wonder that
software vendors are upset! Oh and BTW, the cost of running an OSDU
instance in is in the ‘tens of millions of dollars range’.
But how can it be that some claim to be ‘running on OSDU’ already if
the whole thing seems to be so shaky? Chevron and TotalEnergies both
reported successful deployments of OSDU. Although Chevron gave the game
away with two key questions: ‘Are you committed to OSDU?’ and ‘Are you
on Azure?’ This is the major gotcha in how OSDU has morphed from a
touchy-feely open-source-ish project into, da-da!, Microsoft Azure Data Management for Energy, ‘ADME’. So has Microsoft ‘captured’ OSDU?
I don’t think so, there has been talk of late of Microsoft abusing
its dominant position in cloud computing. The EU is getting exercised
about this and is facing a probe by the UK regulator over competition
in software. But I do not believe that Microsoft has really captured
OSDU. There was no need. OSDU has been thrust upon Microsoft by a few
enthusiastic major operators. They used to say (a long time ago) that
nobody ever got fired for buying IBM. In the same vein, the top tiers
of some EU majors’ management and CIOs seem to think that nobody will
ever get fired for buying Microsoft. This maybe true. But for small and
mid size operators with a more or less normal mix of software buying
into Azure just to run a their portfolio of software from different
vendors maybe a step too far.
EAGE Digital 2026, Stavanger
AI-assisted software development: ‘Talk to AI – and write code 1,000x better!’ Strategic position of OSDU. OSDU agents to replace apps? Is ADME still OSDU? BP: Palantir good, (GE?) bad! Delft’s ‘Open-DARTS-MCP’ agentic reservoir simulation. The ‘triple crown’ (Chevron, SLB, Microsoft). From ‘cloud first’ to ‘cloud only’. Panel debates shadow IT. Digital geoscience at crossroads. Open geology forecast.
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Software, hardware short takes …
Badleys’ TrapTester T7.4. ChcNav RS7 handheld LiDAR. Emerson DeltaV LTS V16, new app for DeltaV SCADA. NV5 Geospatial’s GeoAgent. Geosoftware 2026.0 release of HampsonRussell, Jason, and PowerLog. Getech Globe 2026. Isatis.neo 2025.3. New brand for Petrosys Group. Snowflake Energy Solutions for the AI Data Cloud. Wolfram’s Instant Supercompute.
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Rice/Ken Kennedy Energy HPC & AI Conference, Houston
TACC: AI a bubble? Sure, for hardware costs ! U. Texas: Seismic inversion with a Boltzmann machine and quantum computing. Viridien: Can HPC survive in a world of AI? Shell: Cloud not cheaper, but you can do more! Chevron: Now all cloud-native.
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Folks, facts, orgs ...
S&P Global cancels Bill Gates. Moves and promotions from Geophysical Insights, Halliburton, Hexagon, IOGP, OMG, Texas Railroad Commission, Shell, SPE/Drillbotics.
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Done deals
Altea acquires Team Energy. Cactus Wellhead takes majority share of Baker Hughes’ unit. Baker Hughes sells Precision Sensors & Instrumentation business to Crane Company. Encore Oilfield Services bags Custom Compression Systems. Geolog acquires Quad. Hexagon acquires IconPro, names ‘Octave’ spinoff. New Era Energy & Digital rebuffs Fuzzy Panda. Prometheus Group acquires Actenum. Technical Toolboxes has bought HUVR. Trainor Apave buys OComp.
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IOGP Geomatics Day
BP on offshore drilling hazard site surveys. Fugro/Chevron on offshore positioning. BP and EIVA on GIGS and geodetic integrity of survey software. Equinor on OSDU and GIS (sans GCZ!)
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UK offshore regulator publishes data and digital strategy
NSTA’s Digital energy platform spans UK National Data Repository, the Energy Portal and Open Data website.
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LANL leverages oil and gas refinery know-how to build 3D model of accelerator
LiDAR point cloud scan captures complex as-built geometry of accelerator prior to major upgrade.
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Standards stuff
CEN/CENELEC 2026 ‘shaping EU standardization’. Construction Industry Institute launches CII-GPT. DNV-ST-B203 ‘accelerates’ 3D printing in energy. Energistics’ ‘data work order object’. USPI NL: FL3DMS V1.3. IOGP reports on human performance, robotic tank inspection. XBRL modernized for AI. Open Group ‘ODFX’ for digital transformation.
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Geospatial workflows for oil and gas
NV5 Geospatial webinar demonstrates multiple oilfield uses of satellite-based imagery: from well pad identification with deep learning, methane plume detection to injection monitoring through ground deformation.
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Cyber Security round-up
CyCognito on security risks of MCP and web application firewall protection. Cyble’s Cloud Security Challenges for 2026. CyberOwl reports Iranian phishing campaign. Critical vulnerability in SAP NetWeaver. Significant security vulnerabilities in Schneider Electric’s Vijeo Designer and Easergy Studio. DNV’s Cyber Regulation Compass. Dragos’ 2025 OT Cybersecurity Action Guide for Europe. Armexa adds provides OT cybersecurity services to Emerson’s DeltaV. EU Cybersecurity Competence Centre issues Cyber 09 AI call. Google warns of adversarial use of AI. ISA’s seven point guide to securing digital twins. ISO/IEC cyber guidance. AkerBP, DNV Cyber on OT barrier management. Siemens’ zero trust security for industrial networks. SEI Software Acquisition Go Bag
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2025 Matlab Expo
WWT International uses MATLAB’s analytic and cloud services to compute dogleg severity and optimize placement of NRP, its non-rotating protector. Azure Logic app communicates results back to customer. MathWorks integrates Copilot AI with Matlab/Simulink.
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‘Emerging’ digital innovation, a ‘defining force’ for the oilfield
Rystad comes late in the day to the digital oilfield trope with some improbable boosterism and forecasts of ‘massive savings’ from ‘unstandardized and difficult to measure … digitalization’.
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