en.Wedoany.com Reported - Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) has announced a partnership with SLB (Schlumberger) to deploy an AI-powered "Real-Time Operations Center (RTOC)" system across its fleet of more than 120 onshore and offshore drilling rigs. The system aims to enhance drilling efficiency, accelerate operational decision-making, and reduce unplanned downtime.
This expansion of AI application is part of ADNOC's strategy to optimize operational processes and strengthen digital solutions across all stages of exploration and production. The global energy industry is currently accelerating the adoption of intelligent applications to improve productivity and asset management efficiency.
The new system connects drilling rigs to a unified platform, enabling operations engineers to monitor performance and analyze operational data in real time. The system provides instant visualization, helping to identify potential issues before they escalate and enabling faster, more accurate operational decisions. According to ADNOC, the system can partially replace traditional drilling operations management tools and reduce engineering workload by 30% to 40%. With automated dashboards and AI analytics, engineers can simultaneously oversee two to three times more drilling rigs without compromising monitoring efficiency. The system also converts vast amounts of drilling data into analyzable and actionable information, compressing operational reporting time from days to hours. Real-time data analytics can reduce operational incident response times by 4 to 12 hours, and in some cases help avoid 1 to 2 days of operational disruption, thereby mitigating impacts on production continuity and operational efficiency.
Musabbeh Al Kaabi, CEO of ADNOC's Exploration, Development, and Production division, stated that the system integrates AI into daily drilling operations, continuously adding operational value and helping teams make faster, more effective decisions at scale. The system was developed within the UAE, with data hosted in the company's domestic cloud environment to enhance data security and operational flexibility, while supporting the development of a more independent digital infrastructure.
Rakesh Jaggi, Head of SLB's Digital Solutions business, stated that DrillOps technology can collect drilling data in real time and transform it into operational insights, helping technical teams optimize performance and make data-driven decisions. Deploying this technology in ADNOC's sovereign cloud environment provides a scalable digital foundation to support AI-driven operations.
The RTOC system, based on SLB's DrillOps solution, aggregates data from different drilling rigs into a single operations platform, enabling asset performance tracking, proactive risk monitoring, and improved coordination between operations and engineering teams. The system can reduce analysis tasks that previously took a full day to just minutes, built on a combination of operational data, advanced analytics, and AI-based insights.
The announcement comes as the oil and gas industry increasingly adopts AI and automation technologies to enhance operational efficiency, reduce operating costs, and minimize downtime while maintaining high safety standards and productivity. Major energy companies are focused on integrating digital technologies across the value chain—from exploration and drilling to production and asset management—to address competitive pressures for improved efficiency and enhanced operational sustainability.
