The Covid-19 pandemic has in many cases upended traditional working methods, making remote activities far more common while social distancing measures are in place.

That presents a challenge for offshore energy, however — a sector that is also facing a potentially difficult task in recruiting workers as the industry recovers.

Speaking in an Adipec Energy Dialogue webinar, Philip Whittaker, director of oil and gas at the Boston Consulting Group, says the pandemic has forced companies involved in the offshore oil and gas sector to use digital technologies to do more with less.

Whittaker says offshore companies have had to adapt rapidly to the changed work environment as projects have been shut in, crews withdrawn from offshore platforms and work limited to core production operations.

But digital technology could speed up the sector's recovery, he insists.

“At BCG, we are having a lot of conversations around, first, responding to the crisis quickly and, secondly, being really ambitious and using the events of the last few weeks as a springboard to create a stronger, really sustainable offshore business in the mid-term,” Whittaker says.

“A great example is one of our clients, working in North Sea operations, which has had to demobilise about 40% of its traditional crew from their platforms but due to the application of wearable technology, digitised remote viewing and remote work planning, they are still able to liquidate 90% of the plant maintenance and integrity activity they have planned.

“It really starts to drive us towards the use of technology to do more with less, which has to be good for everyone,” he says.

However, Whittaker cautions that the wider adoption of digital technology across the offshore value chain could create a recruitment challenge for offshore businesses.

“At the moment, the sector faces two very distinct talent crises. The first is the demographic crisis of attracting younger people into what they see as a sunset industry. And the second is around the type of talent required,” he says.

“Beyond geoscientists, beyond traditional engineers, we need to attract the data scientists, the digital scientists, those who are leading the digital revolution — and to be frank, they are very, very mobile.

"We have to make offshore exciting for them, but at the moment what we offer them is a cyclical and insecure environment, so that is going to be a tough job,” he says.

Concerns about job recruitment for the oil and gas sector are raised in every downturn, and alarm bells were sounding even before Covid-19 struck.

This January, before the pandemic took hold, saw the release of the 2020 Global Energy Talent Index (Geti) report, based on a survey of 21,000 energy professionals representing 151 different nationalities and spread across 169 countries.

The report found that 43% of the professionals surveyed said they were keen to move into the renewable energy sector as the focus of oil and gas companies on energy transition initiatives grows more prominent.

Focus

Offshore industry learns to do more with less