The Offshore Energy Data Strategy (OEDS) Taskforce has set out a series of recommendations to digitally unite the offshore oil, gas and renewable sectors.
On 16 June, the OEDS Taskforce outlined seven recommendations to accomplish this, having been tasked with encouraging a modernised digitalised, integrated offshore energy sector upon its launch in September 2021. With the UK striving to achieve net zero by 2050, the offshore energy sector has significant obligations to fulfil when it comes to accelerating the deployment of clean energy sources, such as hydrogen and offshore wind, along with carbon capture and storage technologies.
It is also aiming to reduce emissions across all existing manufacturing, construction, operational and decommissioning endeavours, with the taskforce setting out how to create better conditions for better data sharing and digitalisation initiatives on this path.
There are three strategic recommendations, the first being unifying data principles, meaning that the offshore energy sector should establish a Digital Strategy Group and drive the adoption of Data Best Practice Guidance across the sector. It also recommends that the sector establishes a common data toolkit to facilitate controlled and automated data sharing across the sector, as well as that it should coordinate digitalisation efforts to enable efficient investment and capture cross-sector requirements.
It also made a series of workstream recommendations, representing high-level opportunities to address key issues, containing proposals for projects or initiatives.
It called for the sector to create a whole system view of existing and planned infrastructure, aligning different data layers to provide a forward view of development requirements; to establish a Task Group to drive interoperability of data portals across the sector and promote the discoverability and reuse of existing data through the development of a data portal roadmap; to increase the utilisation of existing operational and asset data, using the Open Data Triage process, mitigation techniques, and standardised data sharing agreements to manage risks; and to enable monitoring of net zero targets and advanced emissions tracking by leading on the provision of high-resolution and digitised emissions data monitoring and reporting.
