Colombia’s majority state-owned oil company Ecopetrol is planning to use artificial intelligence (AI) to boost production from its existing fields, reported Bloomberg News citing Ecopetrol new CEO Ricardo Roa.
The company intends to use technology to increase oil recovery factor by 2% points. Currently, Ecopetrol’s oil fields have recovery factor of around 19%.
Roa was cited by Reuters as saying that the company plans to implement “new technologies, with artificial intelligence, brought together with data intelligence” to make its oil fields “a bit more intelligent”.
“This is to make crude production more operational in the different wells that Ecopetrol currently has,” Roa added.
By boosting the efficiencies of the oilfields, the company’s daily production is expected to reach around one million barrels of oil equivalent per day (mboed) from the current 709,500boed.
Ecopetrol is also considering increasing its exploration success rate using technology, from the current rate of between 18% to 20%, Roa said.
Ecopetrol’s acquisition of 51.4% of energy conglomerate ISA was the first “responsible decision” taken by the business regarding the transition to greener and renewable energy sources.
Last year, Ecopetrol and US oil major Occidental signed exploration agreement to jointly explore four deep-water blocks offshore Colombia.
The deal allows the two firms to explore for potential hydrocarbon resources in blocks COL 1, COL 2, COL 6, and COL 7, located in deep waters in the northeast of the Colombian Caribbean.
