COVID-19 and its impact on Energy
The COVID‑19 crisis and measures taken to slow its spread have had a profound impact on energy demand and supply, the likes of which have not been seen for 70 years. The full impact of the current situation, as yet unknown, will be determined by the duration of lockdown measures and the recovery paths taken around the world.
In response to the COVID-19 crisis, governments around the world have had to take short-term measures that actively suppress economic activity.
As a consequence, this has led to:
- Volatility in fossil fuel markets. The recent large drop in oil demand has led to extreme oil price volatility. This has had negative consequences for key producer economies as well as for many companies.
- Heightened awareness of the benefits of clean and secure energy. Air pollution in cities, largely linked to road transport and to oil and coal use, has major implications for health, and is a possible contributory factor in COVID-19-related mortality. Significant improvements in air quality during the lockdown period have underlined how much air pollution there normally is in many cities. Meanwhile more than 4 billion people have spent time in lockdown, with many working from home and home-schooling, underlining the vital importance of reliable electricity supplies.
- The possibility of lasting changes to the way people behave. Some of the changes to behavioral patterns originally brought about by the COVID-19 lockdowns could continue to some extent after the immediate crisis has waned. Working from home could become more common, reducing commuter journeys and potentially reducing air pollution in cities.
Energy as part of Sustainable Development
By putting clean energy transitions at the heart of recovery, governments of the world can help to bring about the structural changes needed to ensure that economic recovery is not associated with an unsustainable rebound in Green House Gas (GHG) emissions and local air pollution. It is therefore clear that this crisis represent an opportunity to address the core issue of sustainable development.
According to a recent report published by the International Energy Agency, in the context of Energy, such sustainable development plan could set out policies and targeted investments for the following measures:
- Electricity. Expansion and modernization of electricity grids; hydro, wind and solar installations and re-powering of existing ones; maintaining the role of hydro and nuclear power, mainly by preserving existing facilities; and managing gas- and coal-fired generation.
- Fuels. Investment to reduce methane emissions from the oil and gas sector while cost effectively reducing GHG emissions.
- Innovation. Technology innovation in hydrogen, batteries, small modular nuclear reactors and carbon capture, utilization and storage.
Measuring progress of Sustainable Development
Any sustainable development plan needs to employ the following measures:
- Well-designed regulations. Including how oversight will be carried out, the institutional arrangements for enforcement and penalties for non-compliance.
- Quantitative targets. Set targets that can be measured.
- Measurement. Measure progress against the targets.
- Transparency on data and methods. Essential for credible reporting, include third-party verification.
Sustainable Development Data Center (SDDC) for Venezuela
In order to facilitate such sustainable development in Venezuela, we propose developing a cloud-native Sustainable Development Data Center (SDDC).
SDDC as a decision-making platform
SDDC would support decision making by enabling:
- Collection, storage and management. Georeferenced, surface and subsurface data relevant to sustainable development.
- Data analytics. Historical trends as well as forward-looking, predictive analytics.
- Advanced decision making workflows. What-if scenario analysis, decision tree analysis, causal/regression analysis, etc.
- External access to data. From external applications via API on commercial and non-commercial basis.
Example data types managed in the SDDC
- Oil & Gas. Static and dynamic data: gravimetry and magnetic data, seismic surveys, well locations, well parameters, completions, geology, production, work-over treatments, relevant satellite imagery, etc.
- Renewables. Hydro power, solar & wind “farms”, etc.
- Environment. Gas flaring, emissions, CO2 storage & sequestration, air/water/soil samples, flora & fauna diversity & count, bio-remediation, pollution and heat sensing satellite imagery, etc.
- Surface infrastructure. Roads, pipelines, transmission grids, industry installations - power stations, compressor stations, refineries, port terminals, other industrial facilities - cement factories, steel plants, ports, etc.
- For all of the above. Dimensions, weights, capacities, costs, time-series data, as appropriate.
Example workflows and analysis enabled by the SDDC
- EXAMPLE 1. Which energy source in Venezuela is the most sustainable on a cost and emission basis?
- EXAMPLE 2. Community A in region B is going to require energy supply of C/year over the next 25 years. Which energy source is the most sustainable to use for this purpose? Where?
- EXAMPLE 3. What is the historical trend for air quality in region A over the past 10 years? What is it going to look like over the next 10 years assuming the Energy and Industry scenario A, B C or D.
- EXAMPLE 4. What do I need to do to grow natural gas production in region A? Do I need to drill new wells or workover existing wells? Which approach is the most effective and which will leave the lowest carbon footprint?
- EXAMPLE 5. What is the total carbon footprint of mining operations A, B and C? Why are they different?
- EXAMPLE 6. What is the current assessment of Oil and Gas or/and mining on surface and subsurface of area A,B, and C? Are they in compliance with regulations and safety to restart operations? Why are they different? What needs to be done?
- EXAMPLE 7: How did the installation of a wind farm in region A impact the surrounding biodiversity?
- EXAMPLE 8. I choose to install a solar collector array in region A. What power generation efficiency can I expect based on average sunshine available in region A?
- EXAMPLE 9. How can my local government enforce environmental protection?
- EXAMPLE 10. How much is my farm land is contaminated by the nearby mining activity? How clean is the water in my area?
- EXAMPLE 11. What are the CO2 emissions levels from the local plant (mining operations) and are they improving year on year? How can my local government effectively manage deforestation in the region?
Other benefits of the SDDC
SDDC could become a flagship project positioning Venezuela as the leader in sustainable development in Latin America and the Caribbean. Transparency in the process for setting objectives and measuring progress against those objectives would dramatically increase the attractiveness of the country for FDI. Private investment funds as well as sovereign funds are encouraged by their owners and investors to invest into sustainable development and energy transition projects around the world and they would be no doubt attracted by investing money into projects that generate tangible (and measurable) results.
Project tracks
Subsurface
- Oil & Gas
- Mining
Surface
- Electrical Grid
- Pipelines
- Facilities
- Renewables
- Infrastructure
Legal and Commercial
- Contracts
- Operating Agreements
- Revenues
- Cash flow
- Capex/Opex
- Development NPV
- Working interests
- Royalties
- Taxes
- Project Economics
- Fiscal terms
Environment
- Cultural
- Waste management
- Flora/Fauna
- Hydrology
- Contaminant geology analysis and bio-remediation
- Indigenous groups
Technology
- Platform
- Content
- Applications
- APIs
Project leadership and team
- 25+ years in E&P
- New Ventures business development
- Geoscience
- Enterprise project management
- 25+ years in E&P
- New Ventures business development
- Digital business integration
- Enterprise project management
- 25+ years in OFS and Technology
- Private Equity/VC Advisory
- Technology executive
- Oilfield services – field & management
Project team
- 20+ Venezuelan Leads with deep knowledge of Venezuelan Energy business
- 70+ U3 Venezuela Project Network – project execution collaborators
Technology
SDDC Venezuela platform is built by codet3.dev which has vast experience in building cloud-native, scalable content platforms. Through years of experience code t3 has build edgeframe.dev – a development framework allowing for very rapid development and deployment of even most sophisticated cloud native applications.
Current status (August 2020)
- Define Deliverables (COMPLETED). Develop a cloud-native Sustainable Development Data Center (SDDC) to facilitate such sustainable development of Energy in Venezuela.
- Define Input Data and Resources (COMPLETED - PILOT). Build a list of publications, databases, research, data and online sources for reviews, revisions
- Identify Contributors (COMPLETED). Build a list of project contributors, content types, volumes and formats they can contribute with
- Define Process (COMPLETED - PILOT). Review and revision of recent publications, cataloging of validated material, creation of new content
- Secure Funding (COMMENCED). Define budget, funding model, go fundraising
Why are we going to succeed?
- We have hundreds of years of Energy & Technology experience – generating, interpreting, editing and using subsurface as well as surface data
- Our project team is composed of the most knowledgeable experts on Venezuela data custody and analysis
- We have experience in designing, managing and delivering large projects in IOCs and NOCs
- We have experience leading the largest energy technology and information businesses in the world (IHS, Schlumberger), have advised others (Wood Mackenzie) as well as PE (Warburg Pincus, Goldman Sachs PE)
- Our technology is developed by one of the most advanced cloud software engineering firms
