In the energy industry, data and analytics can have a multi-billion-dollar impact on success. Managing some of the biggest hydrocarbon bets in the world, reservoir characterization can bring significant business opportunities.

Data analysis was always central to the process, but modern data analytics practices are providing the greatest boost. Today, the oil and gas industry is vastly increasing the value it extracts from data—transforming the role of geoscientists and petroleum engineers. Powerful compute resources available today are steering exploration and production (E&P) companies to more streamlined processes, precision drilling, and greater production efficiencies.

One way energy companies realize these benefits is with Schlumberger, the world's leading provider of technology to the global energy industry, with a presence in more than 120 countries. Schlumberger supplies the industry's most comprehensive range of products and services, from exploration through production, and integrated pore-to-pipeline solutions that optimize hydrocarbon recovery to deliver optimal reservoir performance.

While global energy consumption has increased, finding and extracting easy-to-reach reserves has become increasingly difficult. While operators’ needs evolved, so did the technologies and data-driven solutions provided by Schlumberger.

Schlumberger transformed itself to provide cutting-edge digital solutions that help petrotechnical experts in the oilfield. Its cloud-based DELFI E&P knowledge-collaboration platform leverages TIBCO Connected Intelligence for advanced visual analytics. In a connected cloud environment, DELFI provides the world's best E&P apps, data, and AI for energy companies. With DELFI, teams can work better together. Its common framework for guiding and understanding E&P decisions makes insights accessible in real time companywide. For upstream energy companies needing to stay ahead of the innovation curve, it's the hottest software on the market.

"One of the key differentiators of Schlumberger is our eagerness to drive technology forward. We are a technology-driven company, whether in field measurement services or digital solutions. We develop technology to help our customers perform better—that is the driving force behind Schlumberger," said Trygve Randen, director of Digital Subsurface Solutions at Schlumberger.

The DELFI environment is proof that the industry is realizing the value of digital transformation. While oil and gas fields are found all over the world, expert analysts are often located in company headquarters or outposts. The DELFI environment enables geoscientists, petroleum engineers, data specialists and other professionals to access consistent insights, scientific knowledge, and domain expertise. They can make better, faster, decisions wherever they are in the world, helping their companies streamline operations.

Building an entire scalable oilfield data and insights ecosystem from the ground up is not so easy. Surveying its global customer base for the best technologies and tools needed to do the job was key, and one name came up consistently: TIBCO. Many Schlumberger customers were TIBCO users and advocates. TIBCO’s record of leadership in the industry, and technology recognition and innovation, validated what users were saying. Working with TIBCO also ensured Schlumberger that it both had what it needed to build its solution and a platform for innovation that would continue to bring value.

The combination of TIBCO technology and Schlumberger expertise made a powerful union. "In TIBCO, we clearly saw the market leader in being able to analyze vast amounts of data. By partnering with TIBCO, we have access to the right data analysis tools in the DELFI environment," explained Randen.

The future-proofed DELFI environment is already facilitating transformation. An early example demonstrated its ability to reduce implementation cycle times for characterizing subsurface reservoirs, a key challenge. Parts of this process have historically taken up to 18 months, but using TIBCO Spotfire software, Schlumberger digital solutions, and domain expertise supported by the DELFI environment, engineers at Woodside in Australia cut the time down to eight days.

Another example of DELFI's innovative power and openness is its agile data ecosystem. The platform integrated more than 300 data types from over 150 data sources to improve workflows and provide wide extensibility throughout E&P organizations. By making DELFI available on public, private, or hybrid clouds, Schlumberger solved the data residency issues some customers had experienced.

Through its collaboration with Microsoft, which provides the widest global access on public clouds and with IBM via Red Hat OpenShift, Schlumberger added localized hosting solutions. These collaborations enable DELFI to be deployed for the broadest global reach, including in regions where there are data residency challenges.

The commitment to openness at Schlumberger runs deep. The company opened the DELFI data ecosystem, contributing to the global E&P community and accelerating the delivery of the OSDU data platform, an open-source ecosystem for the energy industry. The OSDU Forum seeks to build a common data framework that will allow companies in the upstream market to focus better on their core competencies and key differentiators; lower the cost and resources required for designing and validating custom data platforms; and accelerate reference components that will become foundational to digital transformation in the space.

The DELFI environment leverages TIBCO Data Virtualization technology to enable OSDU users to blend the vast universe of data sources while simultaneously preserving the integrity of the underlying data. The community can leverage a secure, scalable, performant platform where data is independent from applications and fits within individual company operations.

Schlumberger has helped create the next wave of innovation in oil and gas exploration. When asked about the future, Randen made Schlumberger's position clear: "We're accelerating the technology and solutions that drive innovation, efficiency, and performance increases to deliver the world’s energy, now and in the future."