Development and exploration initiatives worth over $196bn on-going across the GCC oil and gas sector

As the region remains on track with its massive oil and gas expansion initiatives, SAS, the leading provider of business intelligence and analytic software and services, is offering solutions that helps upstream, midstream and downstream companies in the Middle East O&G sector transform masses of data into operational intelligence.

In addition, the critical and timely insight provided by the solutions can also fuel companies' competitive advantage, proactive decision making and enhanced reserves exploitation.

The current economic crisis has prompted O&G companies in the Middle East, to enhance reservoir characterisation and flow modeling based on geostatistical analysis to accurately estimate reserves.

By using SAS' solutions, companies can make reserves-exploitation decisions more quickly and accurately while ensuring consistency across silos and enabling geoscientists to perform interpretive assignments without being burdened by data preparation. In addition the company also offers solutions that provide O&G players a detailed view of integrated operations, subsurface and overall performance, with data management and predictive capabilities.

"In addition to multibillion dollar investments the region's O&G players are undertaking at present, plans to expand the market through a massive investment worth $365bn in the future are also in place. This reflects how oil and gas remain a very important economic driver and a critical resource for the region's economy," said Peter C. Venn, Regional Director - Oil & Gas, SAS - Middle East & Africa.

"Leveraging the technologies we have developed specifically for this market, we are offering technology-driven solutions, which can bolster the exploration and development initiatives being undertaken by regional O&G companies. By using our solutions to draw valuable insights from the massive volume of data available, issues pertaining to declining reserves, deteriorating assets and long-term supply will be more efficiently addressed."

One of the most important advantages SAS' O&G solutions offer is their capacity to facilitate sustainable production improvements and enhance overall operational efficiency, safety and integrity by transforming planning and decision making into an open, well-documented process that can be replicated by a broad range of stakeholders. More relevant now than ever, the solutions also help lower maintenance costs by performing predictive, preventive maintenance on assets with minimal disruption to production. Companies can also gain foresight that can increase production uptime and ultimate profitability, thereby mitigating the impact of unplanned shutdowns.

"Many national oil companies in the Middle East are capitalising on the lower construction materials and engineering costs and are now more open to adopting technology-driven solutions to power their development and exploration investments. With the current challenges in the market brought about by sheer size of the industry and the global economic slowdown, we believe that we can offer an excellent host of benefits through our predictive analytical solutions, which can further drive the growth of the region's O&G sector," concluded Venn.