May 23rd, NUR-SULTAN - Over 80 representatives of local IT companies and industry experts participated in the “Digitalization in TCO” Forum on May 23 hosted by Tengizchevroil. The main objective of oil companies is to identify local suppliers of goods and services for potential cooperation in the provision of information technology services. A platform of technological startups, Astana Hub, was chosen as the venue of the event.
TCO General Manager of Information Technology Department Raddi El Mogazi welcomed the event participants.
“Our TCO IT vision is “to be the best in the oil and gas industry at applying digital technology and we will present today what is being done in our company to advance digitalization and discuss opportunities for your companies to partner with us.”.
The Forum’s subject sounds trendy. The country has adopted and been implementing the “Digital Kazakhstan” program. As mentioned by Nazgul Bazhaeva, Director of Digitalization Department in Ministry of digital development, defense and aerospace industry of Kazakhstan, currently the scope of work is being carried out in five main areas – development of human capital, development of digital silk road, digital government, digitalization of economy and creation of an innovative ecosystem, Astana Hub is an example of that initiative.
Since the past one year of program implementation, it has had an economic effect for the country of 218 billion tenge, - she concluded her speech.
Alan Aralbayev, RoK Ministry of Energy, Director of Digitalization and IT Department, talked about digitalization processes in oil and gas industry in more details. Digitalization is very relevant in the main sector of the economy and it is coordinated by a specific digitalization office. RoK Ministry of Energy had announced several initiatives in “Digital Kazakhstan” program – hydrocarbon allocation and metering system, monitoring and environmental protection systems, subsoil management and liquefied gas balance forecasting system. In addition to these initiatives, RoK Ministry of Energy along with other state agencies and quasi-state companies have been working on additional digitalization programs. In his conclusion, Mr. Aralbayev expressed support for such type of work in the forum. Besides other IT services suppliers and other guest representatives of KAZENERGY Association, JSC NC “KazMunaiGas” and “Samruk-Kazyna” were looking forward to launch the Forum agenda.
Relevant information on potential cooperation opportunities with TCO, success stories of local IT service providers, supplier selection process and prequalification of future suppliers were presented during the forum.
TCO IT Advisor Radomir Dorociak informed when first TCO digitalization initiative began in 2017. According to Radomir, TCO digitalization projects were focused on improving safety, reliability and production efficiency.
Mr. Dorociak has informed the Forum participants to pay special attention to TCO statistics on Kazakhstani content development.
“TCO spent over $29 billion on goods and services from domestic producers since 1993 up to day. Only in the first quarter of 2019, this figure exceeded $1 billion, - he said and expressed hope with support of the forum and future cooperation with IT service providers, these figures will become even more impressive.”
Radomir Dorociak spoke about several examples of digital technologies implementation projects TCO safe driving.
“A few years ago, road accidents had been occurring quite often in TCO and it was a big risk for health and safety for both drivers and passengers. The analysis showed that the most frequent factors of road accidents are fatigue and drowsiness of drivers while driving. Then we decided to search for technologies that could help us to find solutions for the problem. As a pilot project, 50 vehicles were equipped with scanners that could detect drowsiness or fatigue effect of the driver and could give warning sound and vibration”.
As it was noted, this technology significantly helped to reduce motor vehicle (MV) risks and provided understanding of real cases of fatigue and drowsiness while driving. He also provided other examples of current TCO projects in big data collection and analysis, digital inventory of production equipment and real-time monitoring of vehicle movements.
According to experts, application of digital technologies in oil and gas sector may benefit up to $1 trillion. That’s why TCO sees the future potential from IT area, digitalization in the industry.
“If you have experience in digital technologies, virtual reality, please share it with us. We are open for cooperation, and this forum is organized for that, " Radomir Dorociak addressed the audience at the end of his presentation.
Potential suppliers have opportunity to express their interest in cooperation through SEOI (Supplier Expression of Interest) system via TCO website. Gulshat Sakauova, TCO Strategic procurement specialist, told about it and other expectations from future partners.
“First of all, we look at your company compliance with safety and quality control requirements, local content and development plans, financial stability.”
The first step to cooperation with TCO is to register as a potential supplier in the database through SEOI system. They should be careful while filling the database.
“Registration and profile creation in SEOI, further work in system is absolutely free of charge. Successful registration in the system do not guarantee participation in TCO tenders, but it is a tool that is used to search for potential suppliers in the future.”
In case of successful registration of supplier in SEOI system, they are invited to participate in future tenders. At this stage, TCO specialists expect that bidders will correctly prepare proposals package and ensure timely submission according to deadline. According to previous situations, there are many cases when bidders were excluded due to lack of complete documentation required under terms of tender and late submission.
Aman Akhmetzhan, Kazakhstani content development specialist, discussed about digitalization core issues. He presented success stories materials about successful replacement of foreign IT service providers by local suppliers and noted advantages of IT services localization.
“First of all, cooperation with local suppliers allows us to increase local content. At the same time, we receive constant support from suppliers from local facilities, sustainable IT partnership and cost savings.”
After discussion part of the forum that included Questions & Answers session, forum participants were able to communicate directly with TCO representatives and present their services. In conclusion, Director of Astana Hub - Joseph Ziegler provided a tour for TCO representatives.
In general, the “Digitalization in TCO” forum was successfully completed. Potential suppliers received information, established relationships and presented their services. TCO representatives gave a clear guidance they are ready to cooperate with domestic IT services market.
