AI is the next frontier

The oil and gas sector has historically been slow to adopt new technologies, often out of necessity. Take the example of cloud storage; we’ve stayed behind the adoption curve due to worries about data security and sovereignty, and we’re only now starting to catch up. 

AI is the next frontier. While most are clear-sighted about the opportunities it holds, there’s still a certain inertia around experimenting and committing wholeheartedly.

The caution we’ve all come to know and expect in oil and gas is now being seen in the AI space. And rightly so. Putting AI to work in oil and gas relies on sensitive data being cleaned, normalized and made accessible. Unsurprisingly, operators aren’t all too enthusiastic about the thought of sharing that data. It's valuable IP. Millions of dollars are spent acquiring seismic, reservoir and operational datasets, and the risk of losing control is a major barrier to open adoption.

Many companies want to - and should - experiment with AI, but not at the cost of exposing proprietary data to external systems they don’t fully control.

Securing data while ensuring value

When you entrust a technology provider with your data, you need to be confident that it’s going to be treated securely; zero leaks, zero unauthorized access, 100% trust. 

The development of FieldTwin has always been tightly bound to an integral focus on deploying into robustly managed secure environments, so operators can keep tight control over how data is accessed, shared and switched off if needed. Here are some of the measures we take; food for thought when assessing the security of a new platform.

• Vulnerability scans and penetration tests: we constantly challenge our platform and environments with regular third-party penetration tests and code auditing, and we publish the findings. During software development, we continuously scan FieldTwin for zero-day exploits and known software vulnerabilities. This proactive approach reduces downtime risk and builds confidence in the resilience of your digital twin investments.
• Physical security: all staging and production infrastructure is hosted in our Cloud Service Provider (CSP) environments. Therefore, all physical and environmental related controls are managed by trusted CSP partners, all of whom are certified to SOC1, SOC2, SOC3, ISO 27001, ISO 27017, ISO 27018 and PCI DSS. Customers benefit from the same world-class infrastructure that global leaders use, removing the overhead of managing costly in-house facilities.
• Mitigating potential for human error: every single employee, including contractors, undergoes in-depth cyber security awareness, GDPR awareness and privacy awareness training on their first day and we run regular internal training sessions. All employees must keep up-to-date and attend a refresher at least once a year. This lowers the probability of accidental breaches and protects your project timelines and reputation.
• Responsive access management: all our clients can enable Single Sign On (SSO) using their preferred identity provider. SSO is a core security requirement for any company and is critical to IT and Security Teams to effectively manage user access. In FieldTwin, access control is managed with granular permissions down to the level of individual users, and specific data points, meaning admins can quickly adjust access levels as and when needed. This agility keeps projects moving quickly while ensuring compliance and minimizing disruption.
• Secure hosting and highest standard encryption: we host FieldTwin data in state-of-the-art data centers, usually in Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure or AWS; and we can be flexible about location depending on the needs of the customer, applicable laws and local regulations. Information is continuously encrypted, both in transfer and at rest. Data uploaded, created or stored in FieldTwin is considered customer confidential and customer owned. This assures operators that intellectual property and strategic project data remain fully protected.

Rushing to update regulations

Any new software platform you might look to integrate should offer the same security protocols. But speeding progress across our historically conservative industry isn’t just about the tools, it’s about trust and standards. 

If the oil and gas sector is serious about accelerating towards digital responsibly, regulation will need to catch up. In other sectors, regulation has driven digital adoption. In construction, stricter rules on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions pushed building owners and developers to use digital twins to monitor performance and reduce operational footprints. In aerospace and automotive, tight compliance and digital record-keeping are standard, from aircraft maintenance to robotic assembly lines. Companies in these sectors would fail if they ignored these requirements to change. Adopting digital technology has allowed them to thrive. 

By comparison, I’d argue that oil and gas is several steps behind, with digitalization often still treated as an add-on rather than a baseline expectation. 

Now imagine if governments mandated that every oil and gas field have a real, accessible digital twin. Not just a static model, but a live, data-backed representation that provided emissions and operational transparency. This level of digital openness could not only help regulators keep operators compliant and safe, but make future decommissioning more predictable and responsible too.

Ultimately, stronger regulation could help raise the bar for the entire sector, creating the same kind of push toward trusted, secure and truly useful digital ecosystems.

Ensuring this regulation works in the best interests of everyone is going to require a serious commitment to collaboration and standardization in the data and process languages we use across industry. AI represents an exciting opportunity and holds a lot of promise to speed project lifecycles and streamline the work we do exponentially. But it’s moving fast and the industry as a whole needs to get ahead of it by establishing the digital and data foundations now so it is ready for the future.