Will all oil and gas companies have to adopt generative artificial intelligence (AI) at some point?
That was the question Rigzone posed to Toni Fadnes, the Chief Transformation Officer (CTO) of Pions, which recently changed its name from eDrilling.
Responding to the question, Fadnes told Rigzone, “those in an actual competitive environment, yes”.
“Those, for example, national oil companies that will get ‘favorized’ by governments etc. do not need to get better, be better, reduce emissions, etc., because there are no real consequences,” he added.
When he was asked when that ‘some point’ will be, Fadnes told Rigzone that “it will happen sooner than we think”.
“Everything in this ‘AI revolution’ has gone faster than first assumed and it keeps on speeding up,” he added.
“For example, we can already now shave 40-70 percent of a drilling engineer’s time, allowing them do what they are/were supposed to,” he continued.
Rigzone has contacted the International Association of Oil and Gas Producers (IOGP) for comment on Fadnes’ statements. At the time of writing, the IOGP has not responded to Rigzone.
The IOGP describes itself on its website as the global voice of its industry, “pioneering excellence in safe, efficient, and sustainable energy supply”.
“Our members, integrated energy companies, national oil companies, independent upstream operators, service companies, and industry associations operate around the globe, supplying over 40 percent of the world’s oil and gas demand,” the IOGP states on its site.
In a release sent to Rigzone back in May by Fadnes, eDrilling announced that it had changed its name to Pions “to reflect the company’s broader vision, evolving technology, and growing ambitions”. The website of eDrilling has been updated to reflect the company’s rebrand. On the new website’s ‘about’ section, Pions states, “we build AI-powered engineers. Agents that think, act, and collaborate with humans to solve the world’s toughest engineering problems”.
The previous eDrilling website described AI as a “megatrend” and highlighted that the company had built three “AI powered engineers”. These comprised Ida, which was described on the company’s eDrilling site as an AI powered drilling engineer, Nora, which was described on the site as an AI-powered well design and planning engineer, and Marie.
That site had little information about Marie back in April, but a statement sent to Rigzone by Fadnes in March introducing the creation described Marie as an “Agentic AI powered data management engineer”.
Fadnes previously served as eDrilling’s executive chairman and CEO, and joined the company, which is based in Norway, back in 2015.
A Pions release sent to Rigzone by Fadnes on June 30 announced “the next generation of Ida”, which the company described in the release as its “first AI-powered engineer”.
Pions outlined in the release that the update “set… new standards for advanced reasoning and inference capabilities, as well as enhance[ed]… complex task management”.
“Also, a new powerful feature extractor significantly boosts Ida’s adaptability and generalization, allowing her to tackle complex, real-world environments with increased confidence and efficiency,” Pions added in the release.
In that release, Pions also revealed that it had started external testing of its “Engineering SME”, which it described as “your AI powered thinking partner – think Claude or ChatGPT for drilling engineers”.
A July newsletter sent to Rigzone by Fadnes earlier this month announced that Aker BP had “join[ed]… team Ida”. Measured in production, Aker BP is one of the largest independent oil companies in Europe, Aker BP states on its website.
To contact the author, email andreas.exarheas@rigzone.com
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