Delegates at a new global symposium and exhibition were told that they must “rise to the challenge” of driving radical digital and technological transformation across the upstream oil and gas industry.

Khaled A. Al-Buraik, Vice President, Southern Area Oil Operations, Saudi Aramco delivered the keynote address at the inaugural SPE ENGenious event in Aberdeen this morning.

He said: “This is a very important symposium and I am very impressed with the number of sharp minds involved with this event. After coming through the downturn, the petroleum industry is on the verge of a technological revolution.

“However, we must also tackle two main issues. We need to see a behavioural change as there can be apprehension when adopting new technology. Cyber security is the other main challenge for us as the energy industry is one of the top three targets across the world.

“We’ve seen before that this industry, due to the ingenuity of our people and the adoption of new technology, the oil and gas industry always rises to a challenge.”

Running over three days, more than 1500 delegates, visitors and exhibitors are expected to attend SPE ENGenious, under the theme ‘Re-imagining the oil and gas industry. Unleashing the power of digital – today, tomorrow and beyond’ at the Aberdeen Exhibition & Conference Centre (AECC).

Mr Al-Buraik was joined on stage by conference co-chairs Ahmed Hashmi, Global Head of Upstream Technology, BP and Binu Mathew, SVP, Global Head of Digital Products, Baker Hughes, a GE company, together with Darcy Spady, 2018 President, SPE.

The symposium and exhibition is themed around four topics: Automation & Control Systems, Data Analytics, Robotics and Smart Communications. More than 90 presenters will participate over the three days.

ENGenious aims to provide deep technical content and provocative forward-looking strategy discussions. Sessions will highlight the latest reservoir, drilling and production software and technology innovations to enable discovery and learning.

ENGenious will host 30 industry exhibitors focused on driving radical transformation to move the upstream industry into the digital industrial era. The event’s exhibition space is free to attend for visitors and students.

Malcolm Frank, Executive Vice President, Chief Strategy Officer and Chief Marketing Officer of Cognizant also addressed the delegates as a keynote speaker at the opening plenary. He was joined by the co-chairs and Dr.Stephen Cook, Chief Commercial Officer, Group Technology at BP, Hans Middelthon, Managing Director, SAEV VC Europe and David Millar, Technology Accelerator Director at the OGTC for the session ‘Defining the Opportunity and Seeing the Changes Underway Both in and Outside the Industry’.

AJ Abdallat, the CEO of Beyond Limits, will speak at plenary session 2 tomorrow (September 5) on ‘Radical Organisational Change through Digital’. The Caltech artificial intelligence start-up has developed technologies at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory to support its unmanned autonomous space program. His talk will touch on lessons learned in space that inform AI development projects on earth, and how companies can drive digital innovation for positive change.

ENGenious has been launched by SPE and Reed Exhibitions, the partners behind SPE Offshore Europe, in response to demand from the upstream oil and gas community for an event focused on emerging products, services and techniques with the ability to transform the efficiency of exploration and production activities.

The first edition is being held at AECC, Aberdeen, Scotland from 4 – 6 September 2018. The event will run on alternate years to SPE Offshore Europe.

To register for free or for more information about exhibition visit www.engeniousglobal.com