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When engineers prepare to drill for oil, they know the spot deep underground where the well must end and can choose their starting point, but there are many possible routes in between.
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Optimizing that subsurface path — evaluating geological opportunities and challenges to ensure a successful job — has been a time-consuming task for engineers. Now, through BP Plc’s technology center in Houston, a new AI-powered tool is dramatically streamlining the process and running thousands of scenarios to determine the best trajectory.
“It basically takes the time it would’ve taken people to do that from months down to days,” said BP Executive Vice President of Technology Emeka Emembolu. The technology “is a massive game changer and it’s getting us better outcomes in the wells we’re drilling.”
Artificial intelligence is being used by many companies across the oil industry. Exxon Mobil Corp. deployed the technology to help develop its flagship offshore discovery in Guyana. Autonomous drilling has played a role in productivity improvements seen in the US shale industry.
The potential for this technology to deliver significant gains in operational efficiency has particular relevance for BP. Under pressure from unhappy shareholders and aggressive activist investor Elliott Investment Management, the company is seeking to reverse a long period of poor performance by boosting growth and profitability.
After several years of focusing on clean energy, oil drilling has renewed importance as BP pivots back toward fossil fuels. The financial targets that underpin Chief Executive Officer Murray Auchincloss’s strategy reset all require doing more with less — curbing capital expenditure, cutting costs, raising returns and giving more cash to shareholders.
To help achieve these goals, BP is pushing AI into every part of its operations, Emembolu said in an interview in London, where he will be speaking at the Tech Week conference.
“Our technology agenda is central to growing oil and gas, central to helping us focus our downstream business and to invest in the transition with discipline,” Emembolu said.
The drilling optimization tool is already being used in fields from the Gulf of Mexico — a key driver of US oil output growth this year — to Azerbaijan, where BP earlier this month advanced a $2.9 billion natural gas project.
In the Permian Basin of West Texas and New Mexico, where BP plans significant investments in shale oil production, Emembolu said an AI-generated “morning report” is directing field hands to sites most urgently in need of work and reduce the amount of time spent driving across the sprawling basin’s roads.
Near Chicago, where BP’s Whiting refinery processes large volumes of crude from Canada, the company is working with Palantir Technologies Inc. to embed data engineers to optimize processes on site to reduce costs and improve operational uptime. Disruption at the facility can have a significant impact on BP’s earnings, such as in the first quarter of 2024 when a storm led to a lengthy shutdown.
The technology is also being used outside of core oil and gas businesses — identifying optimal locations for the fastest electric-vehicle chargers; helping Indian motorists avoid lines at fuel stations with mobile notifications; advising German convenience store managers on how many pastries to bake each morning.
“In terms of costs, we’re looking at things from all scales,” Emembolu said. “Nothing is too big or too small for us to look at.”
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