Woodside has announced it will use IBM Watson as part of the oil and gas company’s next steps in data science. 

The cognitive computing system will be trained by Woodside engineers, enabling users to surface evidence-weighted insights from large volumes of unstructured and historical data contained in project reports in seconds.  

Watson is part of Woodside’s strategy to use predictive data science to leverage more than 30 years of collective knowledge and experience as a leading liquefied natural gas operator, to maintain a strong competitive advantage.

Allowing a broad population of employees to leverage this knowledge will enhance Woodside’s collective expertise in designing, fabricating and constructing major oil and gas facilities as well as managing major turnarounds.

Delivered via the cloud, the cognitive advisory service - ‘Lesson Learned’ – scales the knowledge of engineers making insights and information quickly accessible to a wide group, with the potential to lead to faster resolutions, improved process flow and operational outcomes.  Lesson Learned will enable Woodside’s engineering teams to ask complex questions in natural language.

Woodside Senior vice president strategy, science and technology Shaun Gregory said data science is the essential next chapter in knowledge management, enabling the company to unlock collective intelligence.

“We are bringing a new toolkit to the company in the form of evidence based predictive data science that will bring down costs and increase efficiencies across our organisation,” Shaun said.

“Data science, underpinned by an exponentially increasing volume and variety of data and the rapidly decreasing cost of computing, is likely to be a major disruptive technology in our industry over the next decade.

"Our plan is to turn all of this data into a predictive tool where every part of our organisation will be able to make decisions based on informed and accurate insights."

“Here in Australia IBM Watson is transforming how banks, universities, government and now oil and gas companies capitalise on data, helping them discover completely new insights and deliver new value,” said Kerry Purcell, managing director, IBM Australia and New Zealand. “In any area where knowledge professionals are working with an ever-increasing volume of data, Watson is fundamentally changing how these organisations operate, make decisions, drive growth and gain competitive advantage.”