The complexities of upstream & downstream exploration, drilling, projects, operations, and production require continuous advancements, improved communication, best-in-class practices and maximized efficiency.

The Oil & Gas Industry faces challenges to provide Clean, Affordable and Reliable Products – while lowering costs, carbon emissions and meeting demand.

The right information management solution plays a vital role.

What Is Information Management?

Information Management refers to the collection, organization, storage, management and maintenance of data, including databases, documents, equipment, images,models, and other types of electronic records. Information Management evolved from the traditional data management, which focused on storing and maintaining physical records. Information Management can provide the following benefits:

1. Improved Productivity and Efficiency

The first benefit of information management is that it increases your productivity and efficiency. Your ability to manage information will increase your workload significantly by making you more efficient with your time.

2. Faster Information Access

One of the most important information management benefits is it helps you to access important information more easily. If you are an information manager, your job will be much easier if you have a better idea of how to make the most of your information resources and improve the quality, accuracy, and timeliness of your enterprise information management.

3. Develop an Effective Information Policy

The third benefit of information management is the ability to create a successful information policy. Without a well-defined information policy, a company cannot predict the outcome of its information practices or apply them effectively in the real world.

4. Support Business Needs

Managing information properly will help companies to track changes and improve performance. They use it for planning, organizing, and tracking information.

One of the most important information management benefits is to provide the needed information to support business processes, decision-making, and operations.

5. Robust Security

Companies need to process, store and manage data in a secure and safe manner. Various security measures are used such as encryption, access control systems, firewalls and others.

While the benefits of Information Management have been displayed for many years, some businesses view information management as a low priority with little or no return on investment. Specifically, oil & gas companies with remote site locations are unwilling to change to an electronic information management system or overhaul their legacy or generic information management system. Instead, they prefer to continue maintaining a hard-copy based Information Management system requiring high printing costs. In the short-term this to minimizes the impact on their existing day-to-day operations.

The COVID-19 Pandemic and the Ukraine Invasion

In the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic and current world conditions, the Oil & Gas Industry recovered with oil prices and demand higher than pre-COVID levels.

With the onset of the pandemic, they scrambled to enable adequate remote access to the Information Management systems, social distancing, and continue to maintain  their remote assets in multiple locations. Suddenly Information Management and Information Management Systems were critical to the day to day operations.

This was a difficult transition period for many Oil & Gas companies who were without an implemented contingency plan. An accessible, accurate, centralized, robust, scalable and secure Information Management system emerged as an essential system in the day to day operations.

Information Management is Built on an Electronic Document Management Solution

A well managed and structured information management system is the basis of a well-executed information management organization. The information management can be overwhelming for oil & gas companies as it’s located in various sources such as:

• Correspondence
• Engineering & Vendor documentation
• Purchase orders
• Work orders
• Asset data and maintenance records
• Equipment data

Unstructured Information Leads to Uncontrolled Information Management

Most oil & gas companies manage their information in multiple systems depending on project size, and location. This information can be inaccessible by the corporate, project, operation stakeholders due to:

• External & internal parties managing the information
• “Bootleg” copies distributed through uncontrolled processes such as e-mail or copying
• Multiple systems working independently of each other with little or no integration
• Uncontrolled and unmanaged workflows without standard processess

These inconsistencies lead to incomplete information, poor document control, no audit trail and the potential for safety incidents.

An Incomplete Information Management Solution Leads to Unreliable Information Management Practices

If your organization contains unreliable documentation & equipment information, this will affect your projects, operations and corporate business activities.

This leads to:

• Uncontrolled equipment and documentation
• Out-of-date equipment and documentation
• Industry and regulatory non-compliance
• High Information Management system maintainenance costs
• Information Management security issues
• Information Management project risk failure

Once an insufficient Information Management system exists, the problems have the potential to escalate to additional systems and processes.

A Reliable and Sufficient Information Management System

To set up your business with a successful Information Management system, you can improve by focusing on the accessible, accurate, centralized, robust, scalable and secure Meridian Information Management Solution. It will consolidate your Information Management tools and overcome recurring pain points from using legacy solutions or generic information management systems.

1. Review Your Current Information Management System

Reviewing your current Information Management system and identifying pain points and needs is the first step for improving your Information Management system and processes.

This requires you answer these vital questions about your Information Management System:

• What data do you have?
• What information are you managing?
• How, what, where and who access the Information?
• What does the data tell you about your Projects, Corporate and Operations activities?

Do you have accurate KPIs, about your business?

• Identify missing information management opportunities. Where are there currently gaps in your Information Management needs?

The review of your current Information Management system and processes will assist your team to understand your requirements and how to manage it.

2. Determine your Information Management Solution

The next step is to determine the right Information Management solution  which was determined by your current Information Management review and identifying the pain points and needs.

What Information Management Solution Best Fits your Needs?

The electronic document management system (EDMS) – Meridian is an Information Management solution easily synchronized to other systems to provide increased functionality as a whole.

Most oil & gas companies use a maintenance management solution for their maintenance tracking needs. It allows you to digitize and automate maintenance operations to deploy preventive maintenance strategies better, develop better maintenance practices, stay organized, and ultimately save time and money. While this is a significant first step into modernizing your digital data footprint, a stand-alone maintenance management system is missing essential functionality for maintaining your Information Management needs in other areas (engineering, vendor, technical drawings and documentation). This functionality is where the Meridian Information Management Solution can help you consolidate tools and overcome recurring pain points that arise with using legacy or generic information management systems.

In the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic and the current world conditions, companies with a complete Information Management solution will be steps ahead of their competitors who are relying on legacy or generic Information Management systems.

To learn more about Meridian solutions (EDMS and CMMS) and how they can help your team, don’t hesitate to get in touch with the SolidCAD Meridian team.

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the oil & gas (O&G) industry has recovered better than expected, with oil prices remaining strong and oil demand back to 95% of pre-COVID levels. But O&G companies still face many challenges as they try to provide clean, affordable and reliable fuel – all while lowering their costs, meeting demand and lowering carbon emissions.

Navigating this complex landscape both upstream and downstream – i.e. in exploration, drilling and production operations— will require continuous advancements, improved communication, best-in-class practices and maximized efficiency.

The right information management technology will play a crucial role.

The Unique Challenges of the Oil & Gas Industry

Today, companies in the oil & gas industry face many challenges. They must:

Decrease Emissions

First, companies in oil and gas face ever-increasing pressure to maximize sustainability and decrease carbon emissions, particularly with increasingly stringent environmental, social and governance (ESG) requirements and bold commitments to net-zero emission goals. This will require that companies establish new expertise in the low-carbon space and largely recreate their business profiles.

And getting this right isn’t just about compliance and going green – it’s about having a future. In one Deloitte study, “30% of executives surveyed believe that building capabilities in ‘green’ areas such as hydrogen and CCUS [would] help them thrive the most in the future.” What’s more, “20% of OFS deals in 2021 involved a target company with operations in renewable energy, as compared with 5% between 2017 and 2020.”

In short, the demand for green energy is growing, and today’s O&G companies are responding in kind. In fact, thanks in part to high oil prices, oil & gas companies have been able to fund net-zero commitments and explore pricier green energy solutions like carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS). The trajectory is clear to get to net zero emissions by 2050 or sooner, and companies are documenting their progress by developing:

• ESG benchmarks
• Guidelines
• New reporting metrics
• Quantify climate-related costs and risks

Reduce Costs and Maintain Financial Health

Companies also feel pressure to reduce total spend in order to remain competitive in the market. This requires things like:

• Improved operational practices and processes
• Maximized efficiency to cut costs in every part of the value chain
• Adoption of new technology
• More collaboration and innovation

And that’s just scratching the surface. The good news? Progress is being made. As an industry, oil & gas has lowered its cost base consistently since 2015.

Attract and Retain Employees

The oil price crash of 2020 triggered unprecedented layoffs and extreme market volatility in the U.S. and around the world. Since then, only 50% of employees have come back. There are many reasons for this:

• The industry is no longer seen as a reliable employer
• The predominant skilled workforce is aging out, and younger employees have not been upskilled
• The labour market is extremely competitive
• Employees are looking for remote, hybrid, and cross-border options
• Competitors are offering lucrative pay packages
• It is difficult for companies with low-carbon goals to find workers with green skills

To combat all of this, organizations must offer new pay packages, change their strategies to go with new work structures and upskill current employees to thrive in the changing landscape.

Adapt to a Changing Landscape

The focus on green energy also comes from consumers, who are largely changing their fuelling preferences. In fact, it’s estimated that electric vehicles could account for 50% of new vehicles by 2030, and many automakers are aiming to end the production of internal combustion cars altogether by 2035.

Additionally, as demographics continue to shift and younger generations get on the road, the industry is seeing increased interest in low-emission fuels like hydrogen and renewable fuel.

Many companies must respond in kind, adapting to the changing fuel landscape while evolving to meet the expectations of newer generations of customers. This not only requires new infrastructure but also new, digitally-driven customer engagement methods to keep customers up-to-date on the latest developments.

Progress is Being Made in Addressing These Challenges

Companies in the oil & gas industry are finding ways to lower their costs, minimize risks, reduce carbon emissions and attract new customers and partners. Maintaining all of this progress, though, will call for:

• Continuous investment and maximized efficiency in every part of the value chain
• Best-in-class operational practices
• Continued technological advancements
• Better models and visualization tools
• Improved communication, innovation and collaboration
• Integrated solutions for decarbonizing projects
• New revenue models

The right software can help.

The Right Software Tools Can Help

At the heart of all of this is data. Mountains of unstructured, semi-structured and structured data – saved in text, image, audio, or video formats – created throughout the exploration, drilling and production processes. This data must be generated, stored, processed and analysed:

• Unstructured data: This includes well logs, daily written reports of drilling and CAD drawings
• Semi-structured data: This includes processed data created via modelling and simulation
• Structured data: Internally, this includes drilling data, data from SCADA systems, surface and subsurface facilities data and production data. From an analytics perspective, it could also include asset, risk and project management reports. External structured data includes market prices and weather data for forecasting

And getting this right is the only way that O&G companies can truly maximise their efficiency, adopt new practices that work, decrease costs, lower emissions and optimise operations.

Invest in a Single Source of Truth

The key to a long-term fix for this is comprehensive information management for all of this structured, unstructured and semi-structured information. And generalized enterprise content management systems simply can’t get the job done, as they can’t support the redlining and version control that’s necessary in engineering documentation, CAD drawings and 3D renderings.

You can also consider taking Information Management strategy one step further and migrating to the cloud. The benefits are comprehensive; companies that use cloud technology achieve workplace efficiencies and avoid interruption via faster deployment and easier ongoing support.

Consider Meridian Cloud Engineering Document Management System

Accruent Meridian Cloud provides a best-of-class engineering information management solution for the world’s largest facility owner-operators need to manage their facility engineering content in the cloud. By providing 24/7 access to accurate and comprehensive documentation, Meridian can also:

• Help oil & gas companies maintain equipment and assets, as well as invest in new technology that delivers
• Help O&G companies increase the security and quality of their documents by helping them manage complex CAD documents and maintain ESG compliance
• Improve communication, collaboration and broader practices
• Integrate capabilities with various asset management systems for full asset visibility

Migrating to the cloud also marks the final stage of breaking down siloes in engineering data, as Meridian Cloud application enables company-wide collaboration by providing cross-department access to centralized information to help users make informed decisions.

Meridian helps oil & gas companies like Shell, Total, Bluewater and many more run their refineries, oil rigs, and pipelines efficiently, safely, sustainably, and profitably. Want to learn more about how Meridian can help you overcome challenges and meet your industry’s pressing goals head-on? Visit our website for more information.