Digital conversation maturing - analysis of two CEOs' discussions

Hello, 

I found very interesting that a lot of the conversation around digital has moved away from “AI will change the industry” to much more elaborate analysis on the importance of data in context and data orchestration/DataOps. This realization is making its way all the way to the board room.

A good example comes from the recent conversation between Blake Moret (CEO of Rockwell Automation) and Olivier Le Peuch (CEO of SLB). Both companies have independently decided to partner with Cognite and you can find some of the rationale in their exchange below.

Two additional notes from the discussion:

1. There is a vision to move from an equipment centric digitalization to a full asset/system view of what digital should encompass - with automation/closing the loop as a key actuator (see Sensia’s control systems’ role), 
2. The discussion around optimization has stopped being solely about production volumes but now also systematically includes carbon.

Source: Partial transcript from Rockwell Automation's Annual Investor Day published on Dow Jones.  [minor edits for legibility, bold is mine]

Blake Moret, CEO of Rockwell Automation, is speaking with Olivier Le Peuch, CEO of SLB.

November 16th 2022 | 10:15am EST

BLAKE D. MORET, CHAIRMAN, PRESIDENT & CEO, ROCKWELL AUTOMATION

Let's move on to energy. So for the traditional fossil fuel producers, as well as the providers of renewable sources of energy, energy transition is front and center in all of their dialogue. We saw Schlumberger changed their name to SLB to underscore the importance of their participation in energy transition. We're winning meaningful new business today in carbon capture and sequestration applications at some of the largest fossil fuel providers in the world. We're working shoulder to shoulder with them as they retool their businesses, their business models and they're finding that many of the same building blocks that we traditionally provided them are equally indispensable as they move to a greener future. And then, of course, the work that we're doing with renewables is a particular source of pride.

For all of these, digital is the single most powerful lever that they can pull to transform their businesses, and we're right in the middle of that conversation. It's about being able to upgrade existing operations with efficiency and speed. It's about accelerating the vertical start-up of new operations such as we're seeing with renewables. And so I'll give you a couple of examples of this. And to help me describe it, Olivier Le Peuch, the CEO of SLB will join me virtually to talk about some of the value of Sensia.

Well, Olivier, it's great to see you. We saw each other at the Schlumberger customer event in Lucerne, Switzerland, a few weeks ago, which was I thought a great success. And one of the questions that I wanted to ask you, as we've talked about on our joint venture, Sensia is, why is it so critical at this junction?

OLIVIER LE PEUCH, CEO of SLB: First I think the industry is at critical juncture. I think the industry is trying to address the energy dilemma of affordability, security and sustainability. And for it has transformed itself. Meanwhile, the industry has -- the oil and gas industry has stepped up its performance, its efficiency and at the same time, step up its path to decarbonization. And decarbonization has been made in the last 18 months, 2 years, digital is actually the best lever to step change performance, efficiency and at the same time, lower the carbon footprint. So that's the setting. That's the reason why this for SLB was so timely and so well received by customers and partners.

Now if you put this in context of the priority of the customer, they want the 3Cs. They want perform better on cash, on costs and on carbon. And in producing assets, I believe Sensia, my opinion, has a unique value proposition because it has domain knowledge, it has been fit, it has been staffed with best people that have huge credibility in the industry that have been working and knows the detail of workflows, pollution workflow. It has digital technology at the core of it. And I think it has what Rockwell contributed, what SLB contributed, and it has best-in-class, world-class automation and control capability.

There is a trend happening in the industry is electrification, electrification of platform, electrification asset. And this is the wheelhouse of Sensia, I will say. And then you have the two big contributors. I think the news we can make beyond reducing its own carbon footprint or in the context of reducing. One is methane that has to be detected, has to be addressed. And I think Sensia has a set of capability that can deploy control equipment, automation, digital monitoring that will make it a reality.

The second is carbon capture sequestration. This industry is certainly the industry that can make CCS a reality in the future. And CCS, carbon capture sequestration and finally CCS is the next leg of contribution of the industry to world to do decarbonize future.

BLAKE D. MORET: I couldn't agree more. And this isn't just future-looking type of applications. I know that we're already engaged in some pretty ambitious CCS programs by some of the world's biggest energy producers. One of the common threats through the principles that you just talked about is data and the ability to utilize data that comes from multiple sources. Could you talk for just a minute about the partnership that was announced at your event a few weeks ago with Cognite?

OLIVIER LE PEUCH: I think industry has been suffering from a silo of data, data hubs and data structure that has been plaguing our industry for decades. This has been unlocked for the last three years and is becoming adopted at scale by the industry. But what was missing is the data operation landscape. Data operation, operation data landscape that touch the assets, that touch the equipment, the Avatar of the equipment that is managing the sub-surface, fluids that are being pumped, produced and processed. Regarding this, we are giving access to this to Sensia and creating a world where we can create an Avatar of the subsurface.

Avatar and digitalization of the surface equipment and process equipment and then allowing Sensia to plug its digital capability, is control and innovation capability that will then not only impact and play with the data set that is the data layer with Cognite, but also be able to connect to the subsurface, so that the full loop is optimized.

BLAKE D. MORET: I think it's really unique in that the ability to close the loop, right, to take that data, contextualize it, to be able to aggregate multiple sources of it and then to produce real outcomes and changes in your control system to optimize production, avoid downtime. That's something that across industries, not just in energy is something that's been looked at and prized for years.

OLIVIER LE PEUCH: We always have a pipeline of customer leads that are willing to see the benefit of this aggregation of data, how to connect it to the real-time workflow, producing asset workflow and then how to bring intelligence at the edge, how to bring automation, how to bring a capability that then optimized and create the control loop that came out.

BLAKE D. MORET: Well, Olivier, I really look forward to working together as this trend accelerates as people get the value in all the different ways that we've just talked about.