In an exclusive interview with Oil & Gas Middle East, ADNOC Group’s upstream executive director Abdulmunim Al Kindy revealed that the Ghasha concessions would take advantage of digital technology to improve efficiency.
“The digital approach we take optimises work procedures and efficiencies, strengthens data integration, enhances safety and boosts environmental preservation,” Al Kindy says. “Also, it improves real-time decision-making, from subsurface to drill centers and to ground facilities.”
He sees the benefit of digitalisation in centralising operations—all of the Ghasha concession’s remote facilities will be operated from one control centre in Al Manayif, which could speed up responses to incidents that require intervention.
“This central control room will be one of the largest automation control systems in the Middle East, controlling all offshore and onshore operations from one location handling information from more than 100,000+ analogue/digital inputs/outputs,” he says. “All offshore operations will also be fully digitalised and 100% unmanned, achieved through high-tech sensors, drones, rail cameras, and surveillance robots.”
He noted that Ghasha would be the first oil and gas project to rely solely on surveillance robots for all offshore operations, which would be microchipped and monitored at the control centre.
ADNOC already monitors all of its 14 operating companies from its Panorama Command Centre, which provides a constant flow of information to a 50 metre wide screen at its headquarters.
