AI and digitalisation can double an oil well’s productivity, the head of Saudi Aramco said on Tuesday, insisting fossil fuels would provide a big slice of the world’s energy needs for decades.
President and CEO Amin Nasser said Aramco, the world’s biggest oil exporter, was now realising gains after investing tens of billions of dollars in computing and hiring thousands of data scientists.
Beyond automating white-collar work, “most of the savings comes from adopting AI and digitalisation in the plants, in the assets themselves, because this is where you get the highest value,” Nasser told the Future Investment Initiative conference in Riyadh.
“If you drill a well and you capitalise on AI and digitalisation, you can increase the productivity two times as much.”
Artificial intelligence is one of the main themes of this year’s FII, where Saudi Arabia, keen to diversify from oil, is promoting its home-grown company Humain, whose products include generative AI and data centres.
Nasser said AI technology can also help oil exploration by improving imaging, and can reduce emissions by detecting leaks and corrosion.
Oil companies are at the heart of the climate change debate after the 2015 Paris accords aimed to limit global warming to well below 2C above pre-industrial levels, and 1.5C if possible, to avoid unleashing catastrophic natural disasters.
This year, renewable solar and wind energy generated more electricity than coal for the first time, energy think tank Ember said earlier this month.
However, US and Chinese policy shifts are slowing growth in renewables, the report said.
“We think oil and gas will continue to be a significant part of the energy mix for decades to come — that’s not going to change,” Nasser said at FII.
“We see a lot of U-turns and policy changes now, realising the importance of hydrocarbons.”
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