A path to net-zero emissions for the oil and gas industry Digitalisation and automation will be key to cleaner extraction, processing, and transportation of hydrocarbons
Bill Roberts Rockwell Automation
S everal oil and gas companies have energy-intensive oil and gas operations are, what will it take to meet that goal? In addition, many site locations are remote, and these companies have vast global infrastructures to decarbonise. To put it simply, oil and gas companies will need to use an all-of-the-above approach to achieve their emissions reduction goals and meet market demands for lower-carbon fuel sources. It will certainly require measuring their carbon footprint, investing capital to change their product energy mix, and buying carbon offsets, to name a few. Oil and gas companies will need to rethink their business models and even their role as energy providers in the future. They will need to transform their operating processes committed to achieving net-zero emissions by 2050. However, given how carbon-
carbon or transitioning production to cleaner energy sources like hydrogen require major capital investments. These projects will take years, even decades, to complete and require investment, innovation, and re-engineering of their infrastructure. Leading oil and gas producers realise this, which is why they are making big moves today. ExxonMobil, for example, announced late last year that it will spend $17 billion on its lower- emissions initiatives up until 2027. That spending will go toward helping ExxonMobil and its customers reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Efforts such as the company’s 2030 emission- reduction plans are expected to reduce upstream greenhouse gas intensity by 40-50% compared to its 2016 levels. A second certainty is that automation and digitalisation platforms will greatly influence
and change their energy sources. Finally, they will need to measure and report their energy usage and emissions in their operations to continuously monitor, measure, and improve their carbon footprint. While the journey to net- zero emissions may still hold a lot of unknowns, a couple of things are certain. First, oil and gas companies need to act now. A milestone date like 2050 may seem far away, but strategic efforts such as capturing and sequestering
Oil and gas monitoring systems
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