Stake Acquired in the Norwegian Oil & Gas Related Company Earth Science Analytics AS

September 04, 2020

Sep. 03, 2020 Sumitomo Corporation

Sumitomo Corporation (Head Office: Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo; Representative Director, President and Chief Executive Officer: Masayuki Hyodo) has acquired a stake in Earth Science Analytics AS (Head Office: Norway; hereinafter, “ESA”), a technology company providing artificial intelligence (AI) based software for subsurface big-data analytics in the geoscience domain. ESA brings more digital capability to the industry as well as to the oil and gas Exploration and Production companies (hereinafter, “E&P’s”) in order to accelerate their digital transformation initiative from the viewpoint of the geoscience domain.

Up to now, technology development of subsurface data analytics for efficient reservoir development has been the biggest sweet-spot for the E&P’s because of the huge potential of benefit and cost-savings opportunities. Nevertheless, there are still a lot of human intervention and dependency of the individual experience, resulting in a huge uncertainty on the interpretation results and possibly less accuracy on the reserve estimation. Since recent exploration activities become more and more complex, the timing is right for a new digital technology such as AI/Machine Learning (ML) to be combined and integrated in order to make subsurface data analytics more robust.

By leveraging AI/ML, high performance computing and cloud computing technology, ESA offers a proprietary digital platform empowering geoscientists and decision makers with a decision support tool to predict the structure of the subsurface and its rock and fluid properties faster, more cost effective and more accurate than what can be achieved with traditional software and workflows. This leads to improved exploration success, improved field development decisions and improved reservoir management decisions which all ultimately results in increased production, recovery and revenue generation from oil and gas fields.

Together with ESA as well as other Norwegian technology companies (e.g., Sekal AS and Exebenus AS) which we have invested in recently, Sumitomo Corporation continuously contributes to the E&P’s digital transformation initiative by supporting to automate processes, reduce costs, save in personnel and minimize greenhouse gas emissions. Furthermore, we are looking forward to collaborating with ESA to explore new “green” subsurface business opportunities such as carbon capture storage, geothermal development and underground energy storage, etc.

＜Reference＞

■EARTH SCIENCE ANALYTICS Overview

Year Established : 2016 Representative : Eirik Larsen Employees : 27（As of April, 2020） URL : https://earthanalytics.ai/

■Sumitomo Corporation’s Material Issues Sumitomo Corporation Group positions “Six Material Issues to Achieve Sustainable Growth with Society” as an important factor in developing business strategies and in the decision-making process for individual businesses. Going forward, we will pursue sustainable growth by resolving these issues through our business activities. This project especially contributes to “Achieving Harmony with the Global Environment” and “Contributes to the Development of Local Communities and Industries”.