Data management has become an important theme in the oil and gas industry as the volumes of data generated by the industry have increased significantly, thus driving the demand for high-performance data storage and processing solutions. The upstream sector, in particular, is contributing to the bulk of the data generated from oil and gas processes. In order to facilitate superior warehousing and mining of this operational data, companies are leveraging the advantages of data centers and high-performance computing systems, says GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company.

GlobalData’s latest thematic report, ‘Data Centers in Oil & Gas’, discusses how rising data volumes from oil and gas operations are making data centers inevitable in data management within the industry.

Availability of data during exploration and production activities is helping companies in evaluating project requirements and accurately determining drilling locations for extracting hydrocarbons cost-effectively. This is being made possible by integrating advanced sensing technologies with a wide range of production equipment deployed on wellheads, including drill bits, injection equipment, pumps, and valves to collect real-time data.

Data centers are playing a pivotal role in this aspect by providing solutions to big data management. Companies are investing in data centers to gain the ability of processing data in real-time and generating insights for creating revenue opportunities, increasing drilling performance, and improving operational efficiencies.

Ravindra Puranik, Oil and Gas Analyst at GlobalData, comments: “Sensors and connected devices that form the Industrial Internet ecosystem are triggering a massive data deluge from oil and gas operations. Data centers provide the ideal platform to accumulate this data and apply big data analytics to monitor real-time performance and predict equipment malfunction. It can also serve as a back-up and recovery mechanism in the event of a critical system failure.”

GlobalData’s thematic research identifies ADNOC, BP, Eni, Equinor, ExxonMobil, Mansfield Oil, NNPC, Saudi Aramco, and Total among the major oil and gas players present in the data centers theme.

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A data center is a very capital intensive asset as it incurs significant costs both to set up and then for its operation and maintenance. The advancement in cloud computing has opened up a more cost-effective avenue for secure, scalable, high-performance data storage solutions.

Puranik concludes: “Oil and gas companies are leveraging cloud-based data centers as an alternative to traditional data centers as it facilitates remote data access via internet connectivity, which compliments field operations. It also enables oil and gas companies to focus on their core competencies while leaving the management of IT systems with the technology players.”

Information based on GlobalData’s report: ‘Data Centers in Oil & Gas’