Adnoc to showcase new energy innovations

The company will hold a chief technology officers' roundtable on February 22 as part of the UAE's Innovation Week event

Adnoc is the main supplier of natural gas to industries in the UAE and accounts for over two-thirds of supply. Courtesy: Adnoc

Abu Dhabi National Oil Company said it plans to continue to harness the power of Big Data and artificial intelligence as it kicks off its first innovation week.

A series of events will run from February 21 to 25 to coincide with UAE Innovation Week. These will take place online as a result of the pandemic and include its first CTO roundtable, featuring chief technologies from leading international companies.

"We began our digital journey back in 2018 when we launched Panorama, our state-of-the-art digital command centre," said Dr Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, UAE minister of industry and advanced technology and Adnoc Group chief executive.

Adnoc has been building in-house capabilities for data gathering and reporting since opening the Panorama Digital Command Centre.

Data gathering, modelling tools and predictive maintenance machine learning technology allow the company to avoid service disruptions and respond swiftly to market dynamics – which have been critical in 2020.

"Panorama basically changed the game for how Adnoc leverages big data and artificial intelligence to guide our decision-making. Before Panorama, our data was decentralised and lacked focus. By bringing it all together, we turned big data into big savings," Dr Al Jaber added.

Adnoc also formed a joint venture known as AIQ with Abu Dhabi artificial intelligence firm Group 42 in October last year to develop and commercialise AI products and applications for the oil and gas industry.

A month later, AIQ, Group 42 and the world's largest energy services firm, Schlumberger, agreed a deal to develop and sell AI products for the global exploration and production market.

“In the future, our progress as a business will increasingly be enhanced by our ability to move from being a technology customer to becoming a technology provider and this is the central idea behind our joint venture with G42 – AIQ," Dr Al Jaber said.

AIQ is working on AI solutions and innovations in machine learning that will ultimately be patented, licensed and offered to our industry partners,” he added.

The chief technology officers' roundtable will take place on February 22, with 30 CTOs from international oil companies. The session will be moderated by Nicholas Webb, a best-selling author and inventor with more than 40 patents.

The national oil company will also showcase different technologies it is embedding across its value chain through panel sessions featuring employees sharing their perspectives on key innovation topics.