Schlumberger, IBM and Red Hat are collaborating to accelerate digital transformation across the oil and gas industry.

The joint initiative will provide global access to Schlumberger’s exploration and production (E&P) cloud-based environment and cognitive applications by leveraging IBM’s hybrid cloud technology, built on the Red Hat OpenShift container platform.

Collaborative development will initially focus on two key areas: private, hybrid or multi-cloud deployment of the Delfi cognitive E&P environment enabled by Red Hat OpenShift to expand access for users; and delivering the first hybrid cloud implementation of the OSDU open data platform.

Schlumberger has committed to the exclusive use of Red Hat OpenShift. Using the container platform willenable the deployment of applications in the Delfi environment across any infrastructure, from traditional data centres to multiple clouds, including private and public. This way of hosting offers the possibility to use multiple cloud providers and will address critical issues, facilitating in-country deployments in compliance with local regulations and data residency requirements.

The Delfi environment incorporates data analytics and artificial intelligence, drawing on multiple data sources and automating workflows, and facilitating seamless collaboration for domain teams. Many more oil and gas operators, suppliers and partners from all regions of the world should be able to work from a digital environment built on a standard, open platform where they can write once and run everywhere when creating applications.

“The logic, purpose and differentiation of all businesses can now be rendered in code, which is why digital innovation has become the most powerful way to drive transformation and hybrid cloud is the lever that unleashes it,” said Arvind Krishna, chief executive officer at IBM. “Together with Schlumberger, we are empowering a much broader group of participants to play a role in driving that transformation and helping the energy industry solve some of the world’s toughest challenges to emerge stronger.”

Schlumberger supports oil and gas operations and is at the forefront of digitalisation across the energy sector. It has established Delfi as a cognitive E&P environment where energy professionals access open APIs to work together, independent of role, workflow or physical location, and create ways to improve business operations.

“By expanding market access to the Delfi environment, we take a major step forward on the journey to establishing the open and flexible digital environment our industry needs,” said Olivier Le Peuch, chief executive officer at Schlumberger. “Our collaboration with IBM and Red Hat complements our established digital partnerships to produce an industry-first to overcome our customers’ challenges. Together, we are enabling seamless access to a hybrid cloud platform in all countries across the globe for deployment in any basin, for any operator.”

The organisations intend to further their collaboration with the creation of a differentiated data management and operations for the OSDU data platform, enabling oil and gas operators to build, deploy and transition digital operations with hybrid-cloud data infrastructures. This should foster wider collaboration and greater efficiency across many professionals in the E&P value chain.

“The energy industry is transforming as organisations look for efficient new ways to power their operations, adopt digital technologies to create a competitive advantage, and innovate and integrate workflows to make faster and better decisions,” said Paul Cormier, president and chief executive officer at Red Hat. “A hybrid cloud foundation built on open source offers the flexibility, acceleration and innovation this digital transformation requires. We look forward to working closely with Schlumberger to make the Delfi environment available everywhere with Red Hat OpenShift.”

Prior to this announcement, Schlumberger, IBM and Red Hat piloted the hybrid cloud deployment of the Delfi environment on Red Hat OpenShift Kubernetes platform, working with Red Hat and IBM Services. The organisations focused on demonstrating the flexibility and portability for compute, storage and data intensive exploration and field development applications.

IBM’s collaboration with Schlumberger is part of the company’s commitment to invest in accelerating adoption of hybrid cloud and open architectures. IBM is targeting essential industries, such as energy, running crucial processes. These efforts are increasing in importance as organisations navigate the impacts of the pandemic and economic downturn, which is creating an acute need for speed to market, flexibility and nimbleness to encourage innovation.

Schlumberger has executive offices in Paris, Houston, London and The Hague, and reported revenues of $32.92bin in 2019.

Red Hat provides enterprise open-source software using a community-powered approach to deliver Linux, hybrid cloud, container and Kubernetes technologies. Red Hat helps users integrate new and existing IT applications, develop cloud-native applications, standardise on its operating system, and automate, secure and manage complex environments.