Microsoft is the Leading Cloud Provider for the Oil & Gas Industry

A recent study published by Kimberlite Oilfield Research with 319 geologist and geophysicists worldwide reveals that Microsoft remains the leading cloud provider serving the G&G community of the oil & gas industry. Google and Amazon, however, are gaining ground.

34% of the respondents interviewed report using Microsoft/Azure as their cloud provider followed by 26% of respondents citing use of Google as their cloud provider (up from 14% in the 2018 report) and 26% using Amazon (up from 3% in 2018). IBM’s growth and penetration in the market is lower than that observed with both Amazon and Google.

While Microsoft got off to an early start with the G&G community, it is clear that Google and Amazon are actively investing in this segment and gaining adoption among the G&G community.

Interest and use of the cloud to access software applications continues to grow, albeit at a slower pace than E&P operators had anticipated two years. 22% of E&P operators worldwide cite use of the cloud to access G&G software applications representing on average approximately 10% of all G&G software applications worldwide being accessed from the cloud (up from 7% in 2018).

E&P operators expect the use and adoption of the cloud to grow significantly in the years ahead. The Kimberlite report reveals that approximately 50% of E&P operators expect to be using the cloud in some fashion by 2022 which would represent a significant increase in users versus today.

64% of the oil & gas operators interviewed report that they expect the G&G software vendors to manage their software in the cloud while approximately 36% of operators plan to manage this task in-house.

Security and privacy issues remained the leading concern regarding use of the cloud among oil & gas operators with 65% of the respondents citing concerns regarding their data. Clearly, the industry providers will have to step up efforts to provide improved information security and to gain the confidence from their customers. Concerns regarding accessibility/ connectivity/ transfer speed rose in importance from 22% to 33% of respondents citing the factor as a major concern in migrating to the cloud. Other key concerns cited by oil & gas operators include data management & data preservation, system uptime/reliability and cost.

Kimberlite will continue to monitor and track the use and adoption of the cloud as well as use of machine learning/AI technologies.