PETRONAS bags awards in digital solutions for AI, automation, big data

The company’s recognitions at the recently concluded Malaysia Technology Excellence Awards signify their exceptional performance in the Oil & Gas and Energy industries.

Petroliam Nasional Berhad (PETRONAS) has bagged several awards at the Malaysia Technology Excellence Awards, recognising its innovative digital solutions in the Oil & Gas and Energy industries.

The prestigious awards programme, which celebrates companies leading the technological revolution in their respective industries, saw PETRONAS winning four award categories AI - Oil & Gas, AI - Energy, Automation - Oil & Gas, and Big Data - Oil & Gas.

In 2022, the PETRONAS Gas Control Centre (PGCC) decided to adopt machine learning operations in its Peninsular Gas Utilisation (PGU) system that can act as an advisory dashboard to users for running compressors in an optimised mode. This came about after the company discovered that lower energy consumption can be achieved if the load is shifted towards the compressor station with higher efficiency. 

This initiative aims to optimise fuel gas consumption, leverage users’ tacit knowledge of the PGU system, and provide data-driven decision-making. The team behind the project consolidated various data sets using exploratory data analysis to study data quality, structure, and insight. This allowed the team to gain significant data model regression through continuous iterations of modelling and improvements through extensive discussion with users.

On the other hand, users gained immediate visibility of real-time actual and predicted fuel gas consumption and CO2 emissions. The dashboard helped eliminate the need for users to inefficiently depend on manual and time-consuming updates.

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On top of this, PETRONAS was also recognised for its Engineering Wizard initiative, which aims to increase the productivity – of engineers whilst indirectly creating value for the company.

Engineering Wizard or "WIZARD" spans multiple engineering disciplines and utilises AI to liberate domain data and knowledge, transform it into consumable knowledge, and generate insights for users.

Since its deployment, WIZARD has contributed to a 25% increase in engineers' work efficiency measured by a reduction in manhours when searching for information. This increase in worker efficiency achieved a value creation of more than RM 2m for efficiency improvement and was delivered using agile methodology and through successful collaboration between the engineering and digital domain.

Meanwhile, in the automation category, PETRONAS won for its initiative to ramp up plant production from 0% to a desirable level via automated operations through the Autopilot system.

This initiative aims to ramp up production with stable process dynamics at minimum to no violation towards a plant and equipment-safe operating envelope, temperature rate of change excursion, and excess duration of the production ramp-up. It also helps establish a consistent and high-quality production ramp-up performance for the LNG trains in the PETRONAS LNG Complex.

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The Autopilot has replaced routine and repetitive manual adjustments previously done by panel operators, allowing operators to better supervise the quality and efficiency of the overall production ramp-up activity.

In the big data category, PETRONAS won for its innovative platform called PETRONAS Integrated Vision for Operational Excellence and Technology Descriptive Analytics (PIVOT DA).

The platform provides real-time insights into the operational performance of PETRONAS' plants, empowering PETRONAS Downstream staff to make better-informed and effective business decisions.

The precision of PIVOT DA's descriptive analytics enables historical and present operational data to be interpreted, compared, and analysed accurately, leading to improved operations monitoring and better tracking of key performance indicators. The platform has successfully reduced the average time taken to gather insights and create reports from weeks to hours, resulting in increased productivity and optimised manhours.

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These accolades are a testament to PETRONAS' continuous commitment to using digital innovation and data analytics to achieve operational excellence in its operations.

The Malaysia Technology Excellence Awards is presented by Asian Business Review Magazine. To view the full list of winners, click here. If you want to join the 2024 awards programme and be acclaimed for your company's outstanding contributions in pursuit of technological innovation, please contact Danica Avila at [email protected].