Digital innovation
A low carbon transition for America and a net zero future is predicated on digital innovation.
Innovation as a service
Digital innovation drives new ways to engage customers, create efficiencies, develop higher returns and build low carbon solutions. That’s why we created a team dedicated to providing innovation services for bp and our customers.
Globally, we’re aiming to double our capital investment in digital to around $1.5 billion per year up to 2025, and we see this translating into value for bp and our customers.
Building a digital energy company
To reimagine energy, we also need to reimagine digital technology because it underpins everything we do. It’s a key enabler of our new strategy, which is why we have centralized and integrated digital as part of our wider innovation and engineering ecosystem.
Dynamic Digital Twin
Advanced digital tools are already in use across our US businesses and operations. For example, our Dynamic Digital Twin (DDT) software has been instrumental in the development of our Argos platform. Argos is a floating production unit in the Gulf of Mexico that’s scheduled to come online in 2022. It’s the centerpiece of our $9 billion Mad Dog 2 project.
DDT creates a skeleton copy of the platform, helping us virtually plan for startup by bringing together everything from engineering drawings to real-time sensor readings in one place.
DDT’s patent-pending algorithm pulls together a host of sources, linking complex data from Argos systems to lifelike 3D models and putting that information at users’ fingertips. It allows our teams to visualize everything happening below the subsurface, up through the production systems, into the platform and out the export line, helping them make better decisions, optimize production and identify potential issues. Subsea engineers can now get an up-close look at underwater sensor readings and inspection footage, as well as build simulations to test procedures, which improves safety and increases efficiency.
Seismic technology
Sustained investment in innovative solutions in seismic technology continues to deliver value to bp. In bp’s Gulf of Mexico business, we are using 4D seismic imaging ocean-bottom node surveys to support production decisions. The business also uses digital rocks technology, which can simulate 3D digital models of reservoir rock and helps us make faster, better-informed decisions about where to safely explore and drill.
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Source: Platts Daily April 2021
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Source: Megawatt Daily, 2021 Wholesale Power Sales Statistics (June 16, 2021)
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IEA report – The Role of gas in today’s energy transitions
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Center for High-Performance Computing
bp’s Center for High-Performance Computing (CHPC) in Houston has one of the world’s most powerful supercomputers for commercial research, which we have used to make historic breakthroughs in rock physics and advanced seismic imaging, allowing our teams to see deep into the Earth’s subsurface.
In 2021, bp geophysicist Joe Dellinger received the Virgil Kauffman Gold Medal from the Society of Exploration Geophysicists for “significant contributions in developing the most effective methodology for seismic imaging with low and super low frequencies.” These innovations would not have been possible without the CHPC.
bp also leverages the CHPC in its partnerships with US Department of Energy National Laboratories, industry and academia to progress leading-edge technologies and the development of innovative solutions to subsurface, computer science and applied science problems faced by the energy industry.
Since then, several other experiments and improvements on our FWI code and acquisition methods have revolutionized how we image our vast resources in the Gulf of Mexico. In recent years, bp used advanced seismic imaging and the CHPC to discover 400 million additional barrels of oil in place at our Atlantis field and 1 billion additional barrels in place at our Thunder Horse field.
Looking ahead, bp will continue leveraging the CHPC to drive our resilient and focused hydrocarbon strategy, delivering safe wells through improved subsurface imaging. The CHPC will also underpin research efforts supporting bp’s net zero ambition, providing the platforms to model wind farm scenarios, carbon sequestration, lubricants, coolants and hydrogen.