EZ Ops’ Brandon Ambrose, joined author, speaker and oil and gas futurist Geoffrey Cann for a 30-min live stream about the oilfield worker of the future.
Want to know what it takes for oil and gas producers to go digital in the field? Watch the live stream:
“We know the power of field teams. When you let them know what needs to happen for bottom line success, and provide clarity in what they need to do to have an impact, everyone rows together. Operations teams can drive incredible value from assets in the field. I think, too often, the value they can contribute gets overlooked.” – Brandon Ambrose, EZ Ops CEO
5 key takeaways from the conversation
1. Why do technology initiatives in the field often fail?
Too often technology is dropped into the field to serve a one-off need from head office, maybe compliance monitoring or specific data tracking. These initiatives can happen without awareness of the multiple systems already in use plus the other communication coming at operations teams daily – emails, phone calls, paper logs and reports.
If you know an oilfield worker young or old that’s really resistant to digital solutions – ask them why? Typically they’ve been burned by solutions forced down on them.
Instead, implementing technology for field operations needs to start with the right questions. What are the producer’s goals? What do oilfield workers need to contribute to achieve those? And what technology do they need to take that action?
Then ask – how can you put those capabilities behind one login and save operations teams hours in the day to take the right actions to drive production, reduce OPEX and conduct proactive compliance management?
“In North America on average each frontline worker is in control of about eight and a half million dollars each year. There’s about 1.5 million of that that’s OPEX and about 7 million of that is commodity that they’re pulling out of the ground. It’s an incredible amount of money not to take seriously.” – Brandon Ambrose, EZ Ops CEO
2. How can you get adoption of technology with oilfield workers?
The day in the life of a field operations team demands different things from technology than software for head office. To get adoption in the field, technology needs to be developed specifically for the operators – how they work, the physical environment, being on and offline and focused on getting operations teams some immediate wins like reducing drive time and admin. Oilfield workers also need to be involved in technology selection to buy in.
3. Why is it worth going digital with field operations?
The actions operations teams take in a day are a key determinant of how producers perform, affecting costs, production and carbon emissions reduction.
Working with 10% of Canadian producers, EZ Ops has seen a pattern where equipping field operations teams with real-time communications and data-driven tools to prioritize tasks enables companies to reduce OPEX 15% or more.
Input from customers reveals that the people who need to take action for that savings are predominantly in the field – both frontline workers and operations foremen and maintenance managers. Without software to support efficient field operations management, producers are falling short on the cost savings, production and proactive compliance possible.
4. What does the oilfield worker of the future look like?
We need a new management model – one that combines frontline workers’ decades of experience with data-driven guidance on top priorities. We need to draw upon human experience and intuition and augment it with machine intelligence to empower operations teams as problem solvers, and ensure that every action taken is in alignment with company goals.
In practice that means less duplicate data entry, less drive time, less reactive activity and less stress. Using technology the people working hard to contribute get more fulfilling work and earn job security.
5. How can you smooth the path for producers to go digital in the oilfield?
Three things are key – speed to value, smooth adoption, and ease of technology integration.
EZ Ops goal is to have clients seeing early impact against their defined objectives within three months.
We’re sitting at 100% adoption with operations teams because we have a systematic approach of looking at delivering frontline workers value first.
We also want to be really good at receiving data that can help ensure the frontline workers are being the most effective. That means APIs to tie in other solutions – so we maintain our focus on being best at interfacing with frontline workers.
“I really believe that over the next five to 10 years, humans and technology will synergize to create some of the cleanest and most profitable hydrocarbons in the world. We’re very excited to be part of that.” – Brandon Ambrose, EZ Ops CEO
The backstory
Brandon founded EZ Ops to solve his own frustrations as a field operator juggling priorities via phone calls, email, paper, and multiple systems. He was fiercely determined to reduce OPEX, optimize production and streamline compliance on the fields he operated but the long, chaotic workdays and inefficient tools to communicate and manage activity were sucking his time and energy.
Having dedicated the last five years to helping producers gain efficiency and boost performance in the field, Brandon’s seen the pattern in what works, what doesn’t, and how essential it is to pick the right technology to earn adoption from operations teams.
Moderator Geoffrey Cann
Geoffrey Cann communicates the complexity of digital in clear and concise terms, suitable from the boardroom to the control room. Geoffrey is frequently engaged as a panelist, panel chair, and even a conference chair. He is most widely sought after to deliver a keynote presentation on his ground-breaking book, ‘Bits, Bytes, and Barrels: The Digital Transformation of Oil and Gas‘. Audiences highly value hearing directly from the author on the underlying research, recent updates, and future directions.
Speaker Brandon Ambrose
Brandon has been in oil field operations for over 15 years and is a serial entrepreneur. He founded EZ Ops in 2015 to take software he’d developed for his own efficient field management and offer it to other producers. He is dedicated to finding efficiency in complex oil and gas operations, which translates into tens of millions of dollars in savings for clients, and certainty of hitting ESG goals.
