Carbon Capture and Storage emerged as a central theme, with an expert panel exploring its commercial, technical, and policy hurdles. Susan Mackenzie, Projects Manager, Energy Transition at Spirit Energy, emphasised the urgent need to move away from siloed competition:
“The track process isn’t good enough because it’s driven by competition. We need to shift the dial from competition to collaboration. If we share resources and standardise approaches we can become more efficient, bring costs down, achieve our targets, and drive industrial growth.”
Hooman Haghighi, Global Director of Decarbonisation at Wood, highlighted that while carbon capture isn’t new, delivering it at scale is a different challenge:
“Without the right digital solutions across design and operations, it’s impossible to run efficiently.”
The panel concluded that policy incentives, digital innovation, and industry-wide collaboration will be vital for CCS to meet UK and global decarbonisation goals.
The energy trilemma – balancing affordability, security, and sustainability – demands systemic solutions rather than isolated digital tools. Julia Benbow, Digital Innovation, Fuels & Feedstock at OMV, explained:
“Digitalisation lets us extract and utilise data effectively, creating transparent systems that underpin new business models in the energy transition.”
Similarly, Parisa Bardouni of Aker Solutions challenged attendees to prioritise purpose-driven innovation:
“Don’t just chase the shiny tool – ensure you’re solving the right problem. That’s what will drive meaningful change.”
The conference emphasised that digital and AI integration must be rooted in clear problem statements, operational workflows, and measurable outcomes to truly transform industry resilience and performance.
Digital twins are rapidly evolving from visual representations or monitoring dashboards into critical decision-making tools across the oil and gas value chain. Companies are leveraging digital twins to integrate real-time operational data with predictive analytics, enabling proactive maintenance, optimised production planning, and enhanced asset integrity management.
This shift reflects growing maturity in digital twin use cases, expanding their role from passive asset visualisation to active enablers of operational excellence and strategic decision-making.
A recurring theme was that AI adoption enhances, rather than replaces, human expertise. Graham McHardy of Seeq Corporation reinforced this human-centric perspective:
“AI won’t replace subject matter experts – it can empower them. By validating insights and refining outputs over time, confidence in decisions grows.”
Shane McArdle, CEO of Kongsberg Digital, echoed the importance of AI tools being designed to augment frontline work rather than create displacement fears:
“We need to think about how we can do our jobs better? How can we get the frontline workers running their days more effectively? That’s really the focus we try to have.”
While digital solutions are critical, speakers highlighted that cultural transformation is equally essential for successful digital deployment. Shehzad Rehman, Global Head of IT & Technology at INEOS, summarised this reality:
“Successful digital transformation starts with understanding who you’re dealing with – their mindset, their culture, and how they respond to change. Without that context, even the best technology won’t land.”
Integrating new digital tools into legacy infrastructures remains a bottleneck across the industry. Overcoming these constraints requires balancing operational continuity with innovation, often demanding substantial change management and investment in modernising IT architecture and data governance frameworks.
Todd Baker, VP, Alliance & Partnerships at Turnitin, warned delegates of the critical need to uphold credibility and integrity in AI-generated outputs, particularly for technical reports, working documents, and published materials shared externally:
“What we were focusing on is integrity of output, especially things that get published like technical reports or working desks or other types of output sent to other parties. It’s important to have integrity of an output, both in terms of plagiarism as well as with the EU AI Act – that it is representative of regional work and that AI use is declared.”
Baker shared data from Turnitin’s recent research showing 66% of respondents report AI is now widespread in their day-to-day work, moving beyond pilots into core operations. However, this rapid adoption has outpaced governance structures:
“When we look at AI involved with producing a lot of output, the issue is that governance often hasn’t kept pace. We’re trying to do speed, and AI has allowed us to do that with content generation, but the governance and scrutiny aren’t necessarily keeping up.”
He cited the 2023 Sports Illustrated scandal, where AI-generated authors and articles led to CEO and executive resignations, warning of real risks:
Baker urged companies to close the widening gap between speed and scrutiny to avoid similar pitfalls in industrial contexts.
Adam Soroka, CEO of Cavendish Group International, summarised the optimism and realism shared by many speakers:
“The Future of AI in the oil and gas industry is promising but will be challenging. Data silos and limited digital infrastructure will hinder progress, however as technologies evolve, their integration into digital twins and autonomous systems will increase rapidly. Leak detection, emission monitoring and worker safety enhancement will be key areas of development.”
