For oil and gas companies
AI implementation in oil and gas, from first use case to every shift
Most AI projects in the industry stall between the demo and daily use. This is how ChatPetroleum takes a company from one team on real files to AI connected across drilling, production, maintenance and HSE, read-only to operations and measured at every step.
How we work
Six rules for AI in an operating company
01
Problem first, platform second
Start from a piece of work and a measure. Tools and integrations follow what that work needs.
02
Read-only to operations
AI reads from control and historian systems and never writes a setpoint or touches a safety system.
03
Every answer cites its source
File and page, or system and record, under each answer, so an engineer can check it in seconds.
04
People approve
Drafts wait for a named engineer. Nothing is raised, closed or issued automatically.
05
Tested on your history
Before go-live, answers are checked against past events whose outcome is known.
06
Your language, your region
English, Arabic and Urdu, typed or spoken; data stored where your policy says.
Before you start
Are you ready for a first AI project?
Five questions decide whether a pilot will produce a result. If you can answer yes to four, you can start this month.
- 1
Is there one piece of work that is frequent, document-heavy and painful?
The first project should be something people do every week, so the improvement shows quickly.
- 2
Can you collect the files for it in a day?
Reports, programs, plans and spreadsheets are enough to start. A data lake is not needed.
- 3
Is there a team of three to five people who will use it daily?
Usage by real engineers, not a demo, is what proves value.
- 4
Can you measure how the work is done today?
Hours per report or per plan, before and after. Without a baseline nobody can say it worked.
- 5
Do you know your data rules?
Where data may be stored, who may see what, and who approves outputs used in operations.
Roadmap
Four phases, each with something you can measure
Timings are typical for one use case and one team; they depend on your data and approvals. Each phase ends with a result you can judge before committing to the next.
01 · Weeks 1–2
Assess
Pick the first work to improve and agree how it will be measured.
- Workshop with operations, engineering and IT
- List candidate use cases; score value against effort
- Choose one; record today's time and quality as the baseline
- Agree data rules: storage location, access, approvals
You get: A one-page plan: use case, team, data, measures and rules.
02 · Weeks 3–8
Pilot on files
Real engineers use ChatPetroleum on real work, with real files.
- Set up the project: files, project facts, rate cards
- Train the team in fifteen minutes, with three good example questions
- Daily use for the chosen work only
- Collect every wrong or weak answer as a test set; fix the cause
You get: Measured results against the baseline, and a test set from your own work.
03 · Weeks 9–16
Connect
Connect the systems that hold the data, read-only, and test against history.
- Read-only connections to the systems the use case needs: SAP, PI, SCADA, WITSML, document stores
- Permissions that follow each user's access in the source system
- Test against past events: known failures, false alarms, questions with known answers
- Approval steps for anything that would create a record
You get: A connected workflow that has passed evaluation on your own history.
04 · Month 4 onward
Scale
Go live on shift, then add the next asset or team.
- Go live with named owners and a support channel
- Track use, accuracy and time saved each month
- Reuse the connections for the next asset or discipline
- Review the rules as use widens
You get: A repeatable pattern for adding use cases across the company.
Architecture
Where ChatPetroleum sits in your stack
Your systems stay as they are. ChatPetroleum connects them to the right model for each task, keeps permissions and approvals, and records everything.
Agents
One for each discipline
Models
The right model for each task
ChatPetroleum
Connects the models to your systems
Your operational systems
What you already use, unchanged
Connections to operational systems are read-only. Nothing writes to the control or safety layer.
Measuring it
How you know it worked
Agree the measures in the first two weeks and record the baseline before anyone uses the tool.
| Time per task | Minutes per DDR summary, cost sheet or permit, before and after |
| Traceability | Share of answers whose figures can be traced to a file or record |
| Consistency | The same question in two chats gives the same figures and source |
| Adoption | Questions per engineer per week, rising without reminders |
| Early warnings | For connected use cases: events flagged before they happened, and false alarms |
Where to start
First use cases that pay back quickly
Drilling and completions
Daily drilling report summaries
A morning summary of depth, operations, mud and problems, each line cited to the report and page.
Works today on your files
Maintenance and reliability
Rig overhaul planning
One workbook, plan and presentation that share one set of numbers, updated from chat.
Works today on your files
Maintenance and reliability
Predictive maintenance on critical equipment
Equipment ranked by risk, with the past failure it resembles and what fixed it. A planner raises the work order.
Needs a read-only system connection
Production
Rate drop diagnosis
The likely cause in a production engineer's terms, and the test that would confirm it.
Needs a read-only system connection
HSE
Permit-to-work drafting by voice
A drafted permit checked against the procedure, with missing items flagged. A person signs it.
Works today on your files
Commercial and management
Tender and contract review
A compliance matrix and a list of risky clauses, each quoted with its page.
Works today on your files
Questions
AI implementation questions
Where should an oil and gas company start with AI?+
With one frequent, document-heavy piece of work, such as daily drilling report summaries, overhaul planning or procedure questions, used by one team on real files and measured against how the work is done today.
How long does AI implementation take in oil and gas?+
A first use on files can be in daily use within weeks. Connecting operational systems and testing against past events typically follows over the next few months, one asset or workflow at a time.
Do we need a data lake or data platform first?+
No. Reports, programs, plans and spreadsheets are enough to start and to prove value. Systems are connected read-only when a use case needs them.
Can AI be connected to SCADA or the DCS safely?+
Read-only. ChatPetroleum reads alarms, live values and historian data and never writes to the control or safety layer.
Can the data stay in our country or our own environment?+
Yes. Deployments can store data in your region, or run inside your own environment if your policy requires it.
Which systems can be connected?+
Document stores, SAP and SAP PM, OSIsoft PI and other historians, SCADA and DCS (read-only), Maximo and other CMMS, WITSML drilling feeds and OSDU.
More detail in the guide Implementing AI in the petroleum industry: a practical 90-day plan.
Talk to us
Plan your first AI project
Tell us the work you want to improve and the data you have. We will come back with a suggested first use case, what it needs and how to measure it.
- A first use case and how to measure it
- Which systems, if any, it needs
- Where your data would be stored