At the 2025 ECIM data management conference in Haugesund, Norway, Oil IT Journal editor attends a hands-on exercise in running OSDU the Open Software Data Universe. The ‘multi-billion dollar’ open source project gets a cheap-and-cheerful presentation. Logging into the development environment was big fail for many. Once in, the experience involved scrolling through Python scripts waiting for stuff to complete. The ‘technical’ part was described appropriately, as ‘marketecture’ a mix of marketing and architecture.
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3D Geomodelling
Curlew, an open source structural modeling package for AI. BRGM Pokimon adds tacit knowledge to classical geomodels with a ‘formal ontology’. Geosiris’ GeoEMod extends Pokimon with GeoSciML and ResqML.
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Editorial
Oil IT Journal editor Neil McNaughton looks back over 2025. OSDU is taking shape but not as originally intended. Is the cloud really the future or is it a shibboleth? The semantic web rises from its ashes. ChatGPT hallucinates less. And the energy transition fails.
Looking back over 2025 upstream IT, our subject of predilection
could be categorized as navel gazing. This is not surprising in that
with oil at around $60 there is probably not much money around for
grandiose projects. Yes I am thinking about OSDU, the open software
data universe, recently described as a ‘multi-billion dollar’
initiative. No, not real money, just a lot of folks’ time and lashings
of ‘Snibbo. OSDU is taking shape in that major oil
companies working to move their data to one of the cloud service
providers now call the result of their efforts ‘OSDU’. Of course,
instead of ‘open’ this is really ‘lock-in’. Previously the risk was of
lock-in to one of the major vendor platforms. Now there are two tiers
to the lock in, with the CSP acting as a gateway to whatever
combination of vendor software is now running in the CSP’s cloud.
Does OSDU make ‘interoperability’ any easier? I suggest that the
answer to this can be found in our report from the excellent ECIM data
conference in this issue, where we hear how Halliburton and SLB tried
to ‘interoperate’ on OSDU and found that OSDU’s ‘flexible’ schema made
for ‘data gaps and misalignment’. Your mileage may vary but it is not
likely to be better! At ECIM we also learned that ‘neither Halliburton
nor SLB are going to rewrite apps to run directly on OSDU’. Which was
after all one of the original hopes for the initiative!
Of course all of these considerations assume that the future is the
cloud. I cannot speak for the IT departments of oil and gas majors but
I do have my own opinion. When I was searching for an old email in
Microsoft Outlook, my PC (to my mind an unbelievably powerful machine
with gigs of memory and a large SSD disk) trundled on for some time
until Outlook told me ‘We can’t find it … do you want to look on your
computer?’ What?!!?? Of course I want to look on my f-ing computer
where else? Users of Outlook and Office365 have been unwittingly
‘migrated’ to a ‘cloud first’ paradigm. For Redmond, the endgame is a
back-to-the-futuristic scenario where our PCs are terminals to data in
the cloud. The assumption is that fiber communications are ubiquitous,
fast and always-on. Again, your mileage may differ. You may not event
want Microsoft as the custodian of your data.
I have been writing Oil IT Journal now for some thirty years or so.
I have probably seen too much. Younger folks than me come into IT with
a fresh look at things which is commendable. In which context a
shout-out to a young panelist at ECIM, Hua Hong-Ngan who’s NTNU PhD
Thesis was titled ‘Strategic deadlock in platform ecosystems: A case
study of the OSDU data platform’. Hong-Ngan questions several
shibboleths of data management, notably the wisdom or otherwise of
‘breaking down the data silos’. She also calls for better recognition
of the mutual dependencies of operators and vendors. Which is pretty
well what Zack Warren (Velocity Insights) says in our interview also in
this issue. We report briefly from Hong-Ngan’s ECIM talk in this issue
and plan next to provide a thorough look at her PhD thesis in our next
issue.
One other thing we have seen before and indeed reported on probably
too much over the years is the ontological – semantic – knowledge graph
approach to data. This has recently risen (from the dead?) and popped
up in places like OSDU, with a call from Equinor to retool the OSDU
data platform using semantic web style triplets. And also in CFIHOS
(the capital facilities information handover standard) where some are
pushing for a return to the ontological approach of ISO 15926. This is
curious since CFIHOS started as an attempt to move away from semantic
esoterica in a move to Excel! On LinkedIn there is a constant push for
more ‘semantics’ from a cohort of #influencers, some working in
oil and gas. Ontology has returned to its quasi-religious status of
circa Y2K when the great Tim Berners-Lee first ‘spun the semantic web’!
AI/ML/ChatGPT continues to excite although hallucinations remain a
problem. These can be avoided with judicious use of domain-specific
training data, leading to an ecosystem of advisory prompt engineering
services as we learned at the 2025 EAGE.
2025 saw a shift in the oil and gas discourse. Previously the majors
went some ways along the road of the energy transition. Not necessarily
with hard investment, although some did, but at least by promoting the
‘sustainability’ meme. But this year, Trump has changed all this. At
the EAGE we learned that ‘the energy transition has failed completely’.
The reality is that for most working in oil and gas, the energy
transition was never really a thing. At the 2007 SPE ATCE in Anaheim George Chilingar’s talk on how ‘Humans are nor responsible for global warming’ was greeted by an enthusiastic audience of HGW unbelievers.
Earlier this year SPE President Olivier Houzé asked ‘Are we on
the right side of history?’ Houzé thinks we are. I’m not so
sure. But it is cold right now, my home is heated by kerosene and as
for heat pumps … let’s not go there.
Oil IT Journal Interview: Zack Warren, Velocity Insight
Along with its consulting and advisory activity , Velocity Insight publishes regular surveys of E&P software and data usage. Founder and managing partner Zack Warren discusses the results of last year’s survey and looks forward to the 2026 edition. The biggest problems in upstream software is not data but rather the mismatch between buyers’ and vendors’ expectations and the ‘long tail’ of niche applications.
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The Resources Network GCC AI Digital Conference & Expo 2025, Dubai
More on the KwIDF Digital Oilfield. Socar’s ML-based soft sensors. JJC Technology’s Tripro AI Robotic Rig. Adnoc’s reservoir managers blend AI and physics-based models. AI and ML ‘strategic imperatives’ that are transforming the drilling industry.
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OSDU this and that
Leaks from the Houston Face-to-Face. New ‘Lakehouse’ architecture. Venus promised ‘real soon now’ – will it be THE community edition? OSDU slides to the ‘trough of disillusionment’.
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ECIM 2025
The prime upstream data conference held in Haugesund, Norway, is thriving with insights into AI/ML use, OSDU developments and some back-to-the-future ontological advocacy. AkerBP – AI ‘most disruptive’. Cegal - Interoperability sans OSDU. NNTU in the backrooms of data science. SLB’s AI-augmented workforce. The trusted OSDU ecosystem. Equinor – AI and data governance. Breaking down silos – good idea? Really? More on Equinor’s OSDU seismics. Halliburton’s OSDU journey. SLB, Halliburton clash on OSDU schema. OSDU - SOE or SOR? SLB Lumi and interoperability. DISKOS 30 years on. TotalEnergies and the data mesh. NNTU on the (OSDU) Mexican standoff. Equinor’s central tag mapping library. Google Cortex for Energy (maybe!). PCA - a triple store for OSDU? Halliburton - OSDU a ‘relatively small’ part of the picture. Kadme tests the OSDU promise. Petrobras discovers ResqML. Shell on OSDU and blockchain! Equinor and the Digital Asset. OSDU Rosetta 2.0 initiative. I don’t know/don’t care geomatics.
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Review: Ensemble History Matching
Equinor and NORCE researchers team on an explanation of ‘state-of-the-art’ ensemble methods applied to reservoir history matching and prediction. Ensemble 4DVar approach addresses uncertainty in forecasts as deployed in Equinor’s open-source Ensemble Reservoir Tool (ERT).
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Software, hardware short takes
ABB’s Ability Smart Device Manager. ArcGIS Enterprise 12.0. Axoniq brings explainability to AI. Badley’s Trap Tester 7.4. Beicip Franlab’s OpenFlow, Interwell 2025. Bentley Systems’ Cloud Connect. Clariant’s ClariHub customer portal. New Cognite Atlas AI release. Comsol Multiphysics 6.4. Curvenote Scientific Content Management. New framework for Beicip EasyTrace. AspenTech Subsurface Intelligence. Geolog KickMaster. Geographix Gverse 2026.1. Multiple upgrades for GeoSoftware portfolio. HDF 5 2.0 announced. Petrosys Exchange connects to OSDU. SLB ‘Tela’ heralds agentic AI for the upstream. Multiple enhancements to Rock Flow Dynamics’ TNavigator. Tom Sawyer Software updates SysML V2 model viewer.
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CFIHOS update
Members of Cfihos, the capital facilities information standard from the International Oil & Gas Producers’ association held a face-to-face meeting in Houston recently. ‘Big uptick’ in activity reported although there is ‘no single version’ of Cfihos. French Theorists push for a return to the semantic/ontological approach as deployed in TotalEnergies ‘OneData’ graph-based operational data platform.
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Regulatory round-up
UK NSTA issues ‘Stewardship Expectations’ for CCS. UK Regulators’ Pioneer Fund creates Geospatial Data Viewer and AI chatbot. Norway’s Sodir issues CCS guidelines, announces dashboard for explorations statistics. The Texas Railroad Commission announces ‘StopTheft’ taskforce. RRC Commissioner rails against ‘taxpayer-funded CCUS boondoggles’. NSTA opens secure offshore data portal. Offshore Energies UK publishes 2025 Decommissioning Insight report.
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Sales, partnerships, deployments
TotalEnergies deploys Axway B2Bi. AGR to evaluate DNO Norge reserves, contracts to Vår Energi. Aker BP deploy Cognite Atlas AI. Yokogawa’s ‘historic’ AI deployment for Aramco. Cognite teams with Snowflake, Databricks, announces partnership with TotalEnergies and ‘integrates’ with Nvidia Tesseract. Baker Hughes simulates with Comsol. Envea gets contract from Saudi Aramco. Enterprise Products Partners unit deploys Bridger Photonics LiDAR gas mapper. Emerson and Interwell team on electric gas lift system. Accenture and Google Cloud work for Brazilian Eneva. TotalEnergies E&P UK award contract to Flare Solutions. Murphy Oil signs with GeoComputing. Perenco extends Geoteric deal. Esso Exploration Angola deploys ISNetworld. Indicium and Mesh-AI form Indicium AI. OneSubsea JV names Innovex as wellhead systems supplier. NVIDIA, Oracle supply AI supercomputer to US Department of Energy. OKQ8 renews partnership with LTIMindtree. Ocean Geophysics partners with EdgeTech. TriCipta JV AI for Petronas upstream. Petronas contracts RINA. Sendero Services partners with Finboot. Shell builds chatbot with Nvidia NeMo. Tape Ark gets multi-million tape-to-cloud job. Petronas deploys VROC’s AI platform. Socar deploys Wolters Kluwer Enablon
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Folks, facts, orgs …
This issue’s people hail from : Accuris, AVEVA, Chevron., Clean Energy, Dow Jones Energy, Enterprise Products Partners, Equinor, Flow Safe, Hexagon, PIDX, Servomex, TotalEnergies, Open Geospatial Consortium, Viridien, Pandoscape, Offshore Energy Experts.
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Deer Park terminal fire
US CSB revisits 2019 Deer Park fire with new safety video. CSB slotted for defunding. Texas RRC Commissioner rejects CSB recommendation. Operator deploys digital technology from Parsable.
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Safety first
CII ‘safety performance has plateaued’. Crane Risk project announced. New Emerson PACSystems safety controller. Frank’s Tubular deploys Catwalk Sensor. IOGP Safety Committee publishes safety performance indicators for 2024 and new ‘Line of Fire’ Life Saving Rule. IOGP adds ‘Vision AI’ to DESSI, the Digitally-Enabled Safe Sites Initiative.
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Standards stuff ...
CII FR-398: tools for complex construction. USPI NL: Version 1.3 of FL3DMS. UK FRC on digital standards for corporate reporting. IOGP Reports on offshore collision/entanglement mitigation. IOGP updates Guidelines for drilling hazard site surveys. Wells Expert Committee on ‘source control’ emergency planning. ISO and GHG Protocol partner on emissions reporting. Neoconception: how the Asset Administration Shell and OPC UA can work together. The Pipeline Research Council International on pipeline safety data. IO Tech rolls-out auto tagging methodology for ‘Project Haystack IOT’. The Ultra Ethernet Consortium rolls-out V1.0. Hans Teijgeler appointed Knight of the Order of Orange-Nassau
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Done deals
Bolo.ai gets $8.1 million seed funding. Chart Industries, Flowserve combine. Constellation Software creates GeoSoftware. Energy Domain acquires ClerkRecords. Fugro pulls 2025 guidance. GeologicAI gets $44 million Series B. Hexagon to spin off Asset Infrastructure & Geospatial into ‘Octave’, sells MSC unit to Cadence. Jadwa Investment leads $50 million investment in PetroApp. Ranger Energy Services acquires American Well Services. SLB closes ChampionX acquisition. Spectrum Det-Tronics unit acquires R.C. Systems. Systrends acquires HData Compliance. TotalEnergies sells GreenFlex affiliate to Oteis
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Python-based optimization
TotalEnergies’ Digital Factory leverages Pyomo modeling framework to optimize heat exchanger maintenance.
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