The Oilholic got straight into proceedings on the opening morning with an executive fireside briefing on the topic "Resilience by design: Building adaptive, digital operations now" at the event's main plenary stage.
The panellists included André Marino, SVP Industrial Automation North America, Schneider Electric, Chris Scheefer, EVP Global AI, Energy & Chemicals at Capgemini, and William Barrett, VP Product Development, Oxy subsidiary 1PointFive.
The timing and the setting for such a discussion couldn't have been more ideal. By some estimates, the US is in the middle of the largest energy buildout in a generation stretching from major LNG projects to offshore exploration, utility-scale renewables to nuclear.
Industry projections suggest the US is committing $9.1 trillion to energy infrastructure through to 2038. With the proliferation of hyperscale datacenters profoundly altering power (water and cooling solutions) demand scenarios, this need not come as a surprise.
In the face of this, the industry can no longer rely on legacy delivery and operating models to service a US economy premised on digitization and automation, twin facets in turn underpinned by electrification.
Under these new pressures, the panel discussed how project
sponsors, EPCs and their industrial & software partners need to build
smart, agile and resilient foundations, or shall we say “co-innovate.”
We also discussed how the change required isn't incremental but architectural, as well how the industry’s contracting and governance structures that were built for a previous era need to be revisited in the age of digital automation and AI.
To quote Schneider Electric's Marino, the next era of US energy infrastructure will not be won by organisations that build the most but by those that build differently — unifying electrification, automation, and digital intelligence from day one, designing resilience in rather than bolting it on, and turning every hour of operational continuity into margin. That investment window is indeed open now.
Elsewhere, away from the plenary stage, leadership sessions kicked-off along several different content silos including LNG Engineering & Construction, LNG Investment & Finance, Midstream Engineering & Construction, Nuclear EPC, Petrochemicals, Refining & SAF and Power Generation EPC over the course of an engaging opening day of proceedings.
Never far away from the conference halls were discussions among delegates on the currently falling oil price and speculative details of the deal between Washington and Tehran to hopefully conclude the Iran War.
Both Brent and WTI were down by 11% on Monday, over the previous week as the market awaits formal details of the agreement. Then begins the long march toward market normalisation which may take better parts of six to seven months. That's all for now folks! More market musings to follow soon. Keep reading, keep it here, keep it 'crude'!
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