Russian energy giant makes digital tech adoption a priority

Russian oil and gas giant Gazprom Neft has put its digital transformation high on its priority list with the creation of a programme that brings together the entire strategy.

The Digital Transformation Directorate, as the programme is known, will cover the entire company’s digital strategy.

Gazprom Neft will attempt to apply IT to make improvements to the operational efficiency of all business processes. It will also support the development of smart services. It has a diverse business with exploration of energy, transportation, and sales and supply, all of which can benefit from the latest digital technologies.

For example, internet of things technology could be applied to its mining equipment, artificial intelligence can be used to analyse data in exploration and cloud computing could be applied to sales and logistics.

The company has appointed Andreo Belevtsev as chief digital officer to head up the programme, not least due to his experience with the automation of industrial processes for large companies in the mobile communications and banking industries.

It will develop an IT platform to create new information flows and datasets, and will also develop predictive analysis tools. It is currently working on a prototype of this and plans to begin developing new products and services.

Gazprom Neft CEO Alexander Dyukov said the company is already benefiting from the latest digital technologies and wants to become more competitive in the energy sector through it.

In the past, IT was often seen as a cost in many industries – particularly traditional sectors like energy exploration and supply – but things have changed through software such as data analytics and networking technology. “Digital transformation is creating further competitive advantages for our company, further enhancing its technological leadership of the industry.”

The company uses IT across its business. “We are already using digital technologies at every stage of the production chain; in upstream, refining and in sales,” said Dyukov.

He said the programme will give it the company-wide view required to help it “identify new and breakthrough opportunities for utilising digital technologies throughout all areas of our business”.