Highlights:
- Race towards net zero carbon have pushed Big Data & Analytics (BDA) to the top as main investment priority
- Asia Pacific is the fastest growing market for digital transformation for BDA
- Top 3 digital investments points towards a future of digital environment
The Oil & Gas industry consumes and generates large volumes of data. It is estimated that there are 80k sensors deployed globally, with 2TB of data flowing daily.
Within a short time, BDA have become the industry’s top investment priority[1]. A significant change considering in 2014, no funding was allocated to any digital transformation initiatives.
Investment in BDA is estimated at USD$6 billion globally with a CAGR of 22%.
Figure 1: Oil and Gas key investment areas by region
The most common goal for increased investment in BDA lies within the race towards net zero carbon by 2050. These digital transformation initiatives are also driven by external factors such as global supply chain limitations, everchanging economic policies and ongoing skills shortages.
Additionally, within the APAC context, another two key areas of investment are Cloud and Collaboration Tools. Essentially, investors are focused on building a digital environment to enhance the value of BDA.
These investments are validated by recent top trends in Oil & Gas[2], where BDA plays a crucial role in optimising business performance. In addition, Oil & Gas companies are now seeking funding to utilise BDA for use within Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML), among other use cases.
Narrowing our focus towards Australia, a global natural resources supplier, the island nation is expected to play a more prominent role as an energy producer in the future of net zero carbon. With APAC expected to continue its strong economic growth, Australia is well placed for an industry-scale energy transition that supports the energy demand of its regional neighbours.
In the meantime, it will remain a supplier of high volume, low cost, carbon-based resources as it configures its transition roadmap towards a greener future; a tricky balancing act.
Figure 2: Top 10 oil and gas trends
The next article in this series will explore the unsustainable change.

Shaddie Helmy
Associate Partner
Transformation Executive who is passionate about partnering with organisations across APAC to innovate and accelerate their transformation ambition to deliver complex and sustainable Change.

Prakhar Medatwal
Senior Consultant

Min Hamid
Consultant
Management consultant with over 10 years of engineering experience within Australia’s Oil & Gas industry, supporting large-scale, human-centric digital transformation initiatives within the energy sector.

Dhruv Chugh
Senior Consultant
Management Consultant with over 6 years of experience in delivering successful change outcomes. A Petroleum Engineer with a strong IT background Dhruv has in-depth experience in delivering digital transformation projects within Australia’s public and private sector. Committed to solving client issues by innovative thinking and implementing change solutions with a Human Cantered approach.