CleanTech for the oil and gas sector

The oil and gas sector has been a phenomenal success. Over the course of the last century, it has been the driving force behind the global economy, helping move goods and people all around the world, changing the nature of work, holidays and consumption in the process. It is said to be worth around 2-3% of the global economy.

It’s coming under pressure though, with some commentators pointing to the sector’s environmental impact and others suggesting that the way that the sector handles the world’s natural resources is deeply inefficient.

With some alternative sources of energy beginning to look like they could become viable and genuinely challenge the primacy of the oil and gas sector within the next decade or so, perhaps it’s time for the oil and gas sector to look at how it operates and investigate if there are cleaner, more efficient ways to go about the extraction and management of natural resources.

The PermianChain team has developed a platform that will revolutionise the exploration, refinement, trading and delivery of natural resources. Implementing a comprehensive blockchain strategy that covers the entire process from upstream all the way to downstream, we can significantly enhance the efficiency of the oil and gas sector, reducing costs and wastage and giving the industry the opportunity to prove that it is stepping up to its environmental responsibilities.

Control wastage

One of the most important improvements that the PermianChain strategy would deliver to the oil and gas sector would be the massively enhanced ability to find and control wastage. What our platform does is assign a value to a deposit of natural resources as soon as it is discovered. This gives a clear, transparent, transferable definition of what is thought to be in the ground and what is produced.

This value is refined as the exploration process proceeds, but because the information is stored on a blockchain and accessible by people with the correct authority, organisations can keep track of the amounts of oil and gas at any given point in the system.

This means that it becomes far easier to track the points where resources are wasted. These losses can be tracked and remedied to ensure that the maximum benefit is made from the extraction of oil and gas.

Shareholders, regulators and even pressure groups tend to be more accommodating to organisations and industries that can prove that they are making steps to improve any perceived challenges, and the PermainChain platform will enable organisations to provide evidence of the steps they are taking to reduce waste.

Bring efficiency to supply

Another way to reduce wastage in the industry would be to improve the efficiency of supply. At the moment, large volumes of oil and gas are transported around the world with only a rudimentary understanding of when they will be needed where.

This means that the industry spends a significant amount of money on storing oil and gas. Historically the inconsistency of bureaucracy, systems and overall information has meant that this has been virtually unavoidable, but the rise of artificial intelligence has the potential to improve the situation by offering insights into trends and potential demand spikes. This will mean that it could become easier to ensure that natural resources are transported and stored in a more efficient way. Using a comprehensive blockchain structure will give organisations at all stages of the process a better idea of what is where and how long it is likely to take to move arrive at a specific point. This will mean that there is less need for extensive reserves and the industry will be able to move closer to a situation where natural resources can stay in the ground until they are needed.

Making use of what we have

There is a challenge with the blockchain however: To work, it requires servers that consume energy at a voracious rate. From this perspective, it could be suggested that bringing the blockchain together with the oil and gas industry is not very environmentally friendly at all.

PermianChain’s approach is to power our servers using power from gas that would otherwise have been allowed to flare off on-site, giving projects the opportunity to enhance their environmental credentials and make use of a by-product that would otherwise have been wasted.

Ultimately, the oil and gas sector needs to make the most of what it produces in order to maximise profitability and efficiency as well as enhance its environmental credentials. The development of the blockchain, the introduction of previously marginal energy sources such as shale gas, tight oil, oil sands and coal seam gas, coupled with the rise of alternative forms of energy make this a unique opportunity for the oil and gas sector to underline its commitment to the environment.

If you would like to hear more about how PermianChain can help, please join us on social media, @PermianChain.

PermianChain Technologies is a pioneer member of the Blockchain Research Institute. PermianChain is investigating ways to harness the power of blockchain technology, data science and artificial intelligence to digitize, tokenize and monetize proven but undeveloped natural resources, starting with oil and gas. The PermianChain, which already has secured oil and gas reserves to be listed on its platform, intends to unlock liquidity to revolutionise the way that oil and gas reserves are funded, produced, bought and sold on a permissioned-access blockchain. The firm is currently in the process of applying to for its regulated digital securities trading and investment platform.