The OOC Oil & Gas Blockchain Consortium has completed a blockchain pilot test to automate payments for oilfield water-handling.
The process of oilfield water-handling requires the management of the huge amount of water extracted and injected during the process of oil and gas extraction.
A Reuters report claimed that the blockchain solutions implemented during the test cut short the workflow process by nine steps, eventually reducing the completion time from 120 days to just one week. Additionally, the group specified that during the test, the blockchain solution automatically validated 85% of all volume measurements.
The OOC Oil & Gas Blockchain Consortium is a 10-company oil and gas group including major firms such as Dutch Shell, Equinor and ConocoPhillips. The blockchain solutions for the pilot test were developed by a Saudi Aramco-funded Blockchain-as-a-Service company, the Data Gumbo Corporation.
Ready for implementation in production sites and beyond
The pilot was conducted in partnership with Nuverra Environmental Solutions, which handled the water disposal of oil wells owned by Equinor. After the successful completion of the test across five Equinor wells in North Dakota, the consortium now plans to implement the blockchain solutions on production sites.
The consortium may also implement blockchain across other commodities and services.
The chairman of the OOC Blockchain Consortium Rebecca Hofmann noted that the crash in oil prices during the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated blockchain implementation. She estimated that the group could be adopting the solutions this year as it could potentially save millions of dollars.
