Page 4 - NorthAmOil Week 45

NorthAmOil COMMENTARY NorthAmOil
Suncor, Microsoft partner in first for oil sands
Suncor Energy has partnered with Microsoft in a deal focused on digital transformation that has been described as a first for the oil sands industry
ALBERTA
WHAT:
Suncor and Microsoft have formed a partnership in Canada’s oil sands.
WHY:
Suncor is looking to digitalisation to transform its operations and boost cash flow.
WHAT NEXT:
Oil sands producers will continue to seek ways to improve their operations and public image.
CALGARY-BASED Suncor Energy announced this week that it had formed a multi-year part- nership with Microsoft Canada in a bid to accel- erate its digital transformation. Under the deal, Microsoft will be Suncor’s strategic provider of cloud services. The move, focused on harness- ing the power of cloud computing, big data and machine learning, has been described as the first of its kind for the oil sands industry.
Indeed, the oil sands is a region that has strug- gled with its image in recent years as producers – also under pressure from low oil prices – tried to find innovative technologies to reduce their carbon footprint. However, the industry has been comparatively slow to adopt new technol- ogies such as machine learning, whose presence is becoming increasingly widespread across the whole oil and gas sector.
Suncor and Microsoft have agreed to work together on a number of projects over the com- ing years under their newly announced deal. These projects will be aimed at transforming Suncor’s retail fuel network of Petro-Canada stations, tracking data collected at its oil sands
operations and changing how people work at its headquarters.
The deal includes agreements covering Microsoft’s Azure service, Dynamics 365 enter- prise computing and Office 365 software suite.
“This is an example of how we are driving to improve our business in ways that were not pos- sible before – to make our people safer, increase reliability and productivity, reduce costs and improve sustainability,” Suncor’s president and CEO, Mark Little, said in a November 12 statement.
“Althoughweareanindustryleaderinmany respects, we still have much to learn in the dig- ital space, which is why we’re working with a number of organisations including Microsoft to challenge us,” Little added. “Similar to how we partner with and learn from innovators across our physical value chain, we’re choosing to part- ner with the experts in digital innovation.”
Microsoft’s director of enterprise for West- ern Canada, Sarah Kennedy, told the Financial Post that the partnership was a first in terms of its scale in the oil sands as Suncor seeks to make
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w w w . N E W S B A S E . c o m Week 45 13•November•2019