Chevron, Schlumberger and Microsoft collaboration to accelerate digital transformation

Chevron, Schlumberger and Microsoft have unveiled what is claimed to be the industry’s first three-party collaboration to accelerate the creation of innovative petrotechnical and digital technologies.

Data is quickly emerging as one of the most valuable assets to any company, yet extracting insights from it is often difficult as information gets trapped in internal silos. As part of the collaboration, the three companies will work together to build Microsoft Azure-native applications in the DELFI cognitive E&P environment initially for Chevron, which will enable companies to process, visualise, interpret and obtain meaningful insights from multiple data sources.

DELFI is a secure, scalable and open cloud-based environment providing seamless E&P software technology across exploration, development, production and midstream. Native client applications differ from web apps because they are installed on a device, while web apps are accessed through a browser. 

The collaboration will be completed in three phases starting with the deployment of the Petrotechnical Suite in the DELFI environment, followed by the development of cloud-native applications on Azure, and the co-innovation of a suite of cognitive computing native capabilities across the E&P value chain tailored to Chevron’s objectives.

Commenting on the announcement, Olivier Le Peuch, Chief Executive Officer, Schlumberger, said: ‘Combining the expertise of these three global enterprises creates vastly improved and digitally enabled petrotechnical workflows. Never before has our industry seen a collaboration of this kind, and of this scale. Working together will accelerate faster innovation with better results, marking the beginning of a new era in our industry that will enable us elevate performance across our industry’s value chain.’

‘There is an enormous opportunity to bring the latest cloud and AI technology to the energy sector and accelerate the industry’s digital transformation,’ continued Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft. ‘Our partnership with Schlumberger and Chevron delivers on this promise, applying the power of Azure to unlock new AI-driven insights that will help address some of the industry’s – the world’s – most important energy challenges, including sustainability.’

Meanwhile, Joseph Geagea, Executive Vice President, Technology, Projects and Services, Chevron, said: ‘We believe this industry-first advancement will dramatically accelerate the speed with which we can analyse data to generate new exploration opportunities and bring prospects to development more quickly and with more certainty. It will pull vast quantities of information into a single source, amplifying our use of artificial intelligence and high-performance computing built on an open data ecosystem.’