Woodside Energy is set to work with the Western Australian government and other liquefied natural gas operators to pursue the development of advanced technology skills in Australia.
Chief operations officer Meg O’Neill told the Australasian Oil & Gas conference in Perth that she saw an opportunity for Australia, “and, in particular, the LNG sector, to carve out a role as a global leader in remote operating and automation capabilities.”
“This includes advanced sensor design and deployment, robotics and autonomous systems, artificial intelligence, data science and visualisation,” O’Neill said.
“If we are not at the forefront of technological progress, we will have no choice but to import
advanced equipment and services.
“Our goal should be to create the jobs of the future in our industry and, in the longer-term, we can export these capabilities.
“We intend to work with the State Government and other LNG operators in Western Australia, through the LNG Jobs Taskforce, to pursue this opportunity.”
Woodside Energy has been on a long innovation trajectory.
The company has a large cognitive and data science capability, based on IBM Watson technology, that it has been developing for several years.
It is currently trialling a NASA humanoid robot that, in future, may be able take care of tasks that would otherwise be too dangerous for a human worker to perform.
Semi-autonomous robots are also being used to patrol and inspect parts of Woodside’s LNG operations.
