Meeting new standards in Oil & Gas - IORS 2008

As the scramble for crude oil gets more spirited, companies have begun leveraging a diverse set of capabilities involving people, processes and technologies that stretch beyond the frontiers of known sciences. The will to succeed has served as the driver for technological growth in this spectrum. The past few years have seen several attempts being made to showcase the Indian oil and gas scenario through conferences, expos and other forums. It is the Indian Oil and Gas Review Symposium (IORS), an annual event since the past 15 years that has done justice bringing to the fore every aspect of this highly volatile sector.

The growing reputation of this event continues to draw ever large numbers of visitors and participants each year. However, the IORS 2008 held at the Hotel Taj Lands End, Mumbai on September 01 and 02, 2008 saw the biggest number yet with over 700 participants from 200 plus international companies spanning over 16 countries making the most of the event. Nearly 100 stalls were set up in the Hotel and in the hotel’s sprawling grounds.

Oil and gas may be the chief commodities fuelling and polluting the world presently, but it is the need to secure the future with a more permanent source of fuel and protect the environment so as to present the future generations with a world that is greener, more eco-friendly and resourceful. This was one of the major concerns that came to be expressed at the symposium.

Featuring the theme: Emerging Business & Technologies in Exploration & Production, Refining and Marketing, Petrochemicals and Retails, this year IORS saw Indian and global experts focusing on finance and technology from various angles to bring out the best and most profitable solutions in the overall petroleum sector in all relevant perspectives including exploration, production, refining, marketing, LNG, CBM and alternative energy options.

In the session on ‘Innovatives’ the paper by Dr. Siddhartha SenGupta, principal scientist, Tata Consultancy Services figured prominently. Deliberating on the topic ‘The Next Generation Supply Chains – Integrated and Profit maximized’, he substantiated that over the last decade, major supply chain management (SCM) software vendors like i2, SAP, Manugistics, JDA have been supporting advanced planning and scheduling, including enterprise profit optimization by tracking segmented demand fulfilment. “Most of the demand, pricing, supply, costs, resource and other data is available in the SCM system databases,” he said. “Advanced supply chains are equally well planned at all three levels – strategic, tactical and operational.”

“Intelligent oilfield solutions have key performance-oriented implementation components,” according to Neeraj Gupta*, oil & gas solutions leader, IBM Asean/South Asia. “These interdependent components are essential to achieving significant returns on investment. Implementing them facilitates real-time global asset awareness—or access to data from all of the appropriate assets—by enabling proactive asset management using frequently captured data that can be distributed, converted into relevant knowledge, evaluated and acted upon in real time.”

Considering the hostile environment, pipelines face several challenges. In this regard Dr Richard Perrinaud of Arkema, USA highlighted the emerging technologies in corrosion resistant underground piping systems. Taking on a similar approach Bilal Ghalaini, Dupont Fluoropolymer, presented Innovative down-hole coating solutions for oil and gas production. Besides, techniques such as ‘Line Pipe-liquid Free Epoxy coating’ and various protection methods for ultra deep water pipelines where harsh conditions existed were featured in detail.

The vulnerability of the oil and gas industry is borne from the fact that it is hazardous by nature posing high risk to property, environmental and human safety. “It is Integrated Management System (IMS) Quality, Environmental and Safety Management that can ensure safe, reliable and constant quality of the products and services in oil & gas Industry according to V. Murlidhar, general manager of International Certification Services. In his paper he presented how IMS could prove beneficial for developing, implementing and monitoring the IMS system for maintaining occupational health safety and protection of the environment.

“It is less expensive and a more efficient use of organisations,” said David Brewer of International Certification Services. “It helps to ensure that various issues of concern are treated as a line management responsibility, ensuring conformance with the ‘management commitment’ requirements of these standards. IMS can deal with simple management structures to quite sophisticated ones, with various departments assuming prime responsibility.”


‘Ensure Process Safety Management compliance’, was the motto suggested by Kjell Eriksson of Det Norske Veritas. Build a Culture for Process Safety he advised. The DNV Initiatives he believed in were: i) standardize sensor communication protocol; ii) offer consolidated data analysis; and iii) Provide real time monitoring, evaluation, and risk assessment services.

Curtailing emissions and factoring in a healthier atmosphere has been a trend that has got most pundits in the industry working overtime. Re-cycling waste and ensuring a more complete combustion of fuel has turned out to be the commonest way out. T.R. Rao, director of STEPS, presented a paper that dwelt on the ‘Polycrack Technology’ which provides waste disposal services using a technology which converts waste in the oil and gas industry into useful products and adds value to the industry. Thus non-edible seeds, electronic waste, plastics, etc. are being converted into oils which are very close to gasoline and diesel.

Shriram Iyer another technocrat highlighted the success of re-cycling tyres, rejects or plastics into furnace oil as is being done at his unit at Vasai, Mumbai.

The extensive research conducted by ONGC and the setting up of facilities for generating power through alternative sources of energy including wind, solar, geothermal and tidal was amply dealt with by Anoop Kumar, ggm – technical services of ONGC, Dehradun, and Atish Chandra Saha, BD & JV, ONGC, New Delhi. The company has been successful in generating a significant amount of electricity in Gujarat through wind power for captive use.

It can safely be said that IORS is proving to be a useful platform for interaction and a forum where the cream of the global oil and gas business gathers to discuss threadbare each and every aspect concerning the energy segment which is at the present time facing one of the biggest environmental and financial challenges. The forum no doubt has earned its place as a vital component in the hydrocarbon sector in the Indian sub-continent.