Sector Spotlight: Modernizing Energy Supply, Trading & Risk Management for Oil & Gas

Navigating Complexity and Opportunity in Oil & Gas

The oil and gas sector is at a pivotal crossroads. Global energy markets are more volatile and interconnected than ever, shaped by years of underinvestment, the accelerating energy transition, rising inflation, and geopolitical unrest. These forces have created a landscape where agility, transparency, and innovation are not just competitive advantages—they are essential for survival and growth.

Yet, with this complexity comes unprecedented opportunity. Oil and gas companies that modernize their digital infrastructure and embrace data-centric, AI-powered ecosystems are unlocking new sources of value, driving operational efficiency, and positioning themselves to thrive amid ongoing disruption.

The Case for Transformation: Breaking Down Silos, Enabling Agility

Traditional oil and gas supply, trading, and risk management functions have long relied on a patchwork of legacy systems—commodity/energy trading and risk management (C/ETRM) packages, shadow IT, and manual processes. While these systems may have sufficed for single-commodity, single-market operations, they are ill-equipped for today’s interconnected, multi-jurisdictional, and multi-asset trading environments. The result? Data silos, process inconsistencies, limited automation, and a lack of real-time insight—all of which hinder innovation and increase operational risk.

Key challenges include:

Inflexible, commodity-specific, on-premise C/ETRM systems with overlapping functionalities
Data silos and limited collaboration tools restricting timely, data-driven trade and risk analysis
Over-customized, complex system architectures that are costly to support and difficult to integrate
Manual intervention in data aggregation, analysis, and reporting, increasing the risk of human error
Slow pace of modernization, hampering the ability to optimize and support the energy transition

To thrive, oil and gas organizations must move beyond incremental improvements and embrace holistic digital transformation—building unified, data-centric ecosystems that enable real-time analytics, automation, and AI-driven decision support across the entire value chain.

The Digital Ecosystem Advantage: Value Drivers for Oil & Gas

Modernizing supply, trading, and risk management starts with breaking down data silos and creating a connected digital ecosystem. By integrating trading, risk, operations, and compliance data into a unified platform, oil and gas companies can:

Gain Agility: Respond to market changes and regulatory shifts in real time, enabling rapid decision-making and portfolio adjustments.
Enhance Collaboration: Foster seamless information sharing across front, middle, and back office, as well as with external partners and counterparties.
Achieve End-to-End Visibility: Monitor assets, contracts, exposures, and sustainability metrics across the entire value chain.
Drive Innovation: Leverage AI and advanced analytics for demand forecasting, price simulation, optimization, and scenario analysis.
Automate for Efficiency: Streamline trade lifecycle management, automate settlements and reporting, and free up teams for higher-value activities.

Sector-Specific Challenges: Integration, Emissions, and Carbon Trading

Oil and gas companies face unique challenges that demand sector-specific solutions:

Upstream/Midstream/Downstream Integration: Managing the flow of hydrocarbons from production to processing, storage, and distribution requires seamless data integration and process automation across business units.
Emissions Data Management: As emissions data becomes increasingly intertwined with trading data, companies must ensure transparency, auditability, and full-cycle cost analysis to meet net-zero commitments and regulatory requirements.
Carbon Credit Trading: The rise of carbon markets and the need to bundle carbon credits with traditional products make it essential to have robust systems for tracking, validating, and monetizing these assets.

Next-Generation Solution Framework: The Data-Centric Digital Ecosystem

Publicis Sapient and Microsoft have developed a proven framework for modernizing oil and gas supply, trading, and risk management:

Service and Integration Layer: Leverage comprehensive AI and low-code capabilities to create next-generation business services and digital user channels.
Unified Commercial Analytics Platform: Centralize data and analytics across supply, trading, and risk to unlock high-value, AI-enabled workflows.
Common Commercial Infrastructure: Execute and record business-critical processes across the value chain, supporting both legacy and new business models.

This architecture can be fully cloud-based or hybrid, designed to enhance security, drive efficiency, and support innovation and collaboration across the organization.

AI and Automation: Unlocking Next-Generation Capabilities

The integration of AI and automation into C/ETRM platforms is a game-changer for oil and gas. Key use cases include:

Front Office: AI-driven demand and price forecasting, market simulation, schedule generation, sentiment analysis, and regulatory impact assessment.
Middle Office: Automated credit scoring, contract review and generation, risk policy monitoring, and hedging recommendations.
Back Office: Automated reconciliation, invoice matching, regulatory reporting, and management dashboards.
Corporate Functions: Employee chat and help desk, information discovery across disparate documents, and co-pilots for business intelligence and app development.

Real-World Impact: Case Studies in Oil & Gas Transformation

1. Reducing Total Cost of Ownership with Cloud Infrastructure

A leading U.S.-based oil and gas company sought to improve scalability and operational efficiency for its C/ETRM systems. By adopting Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) on Microsoft Azure, the company achieved:

25% reduction in total cost of ownership (TCO) through pay-as-you-go service software and hardware utilization models
80% decrease in time to provision new hardware, optimizing capital investment with actual utilization trends

2. Accelerating Analytics and Collaboration at Chevron

Chevron, managing over 200 data pipelines and vast supply data, needed to replace its legacy on-premise platform. By migrating to Azure with Publicis Sapient, Chevron:

Achieved 45% faster query completion
Launched self-service business intelligence for seamless data exploration
Minimized support and disruption costs
Gained the ability to rapidly deploy advanced analytics and AI services

Embarking on the Transformation Journey

Modernizing energy supply, trading, and risk management is a journey, not a one-time project. Publicis Sapient and Microsoft guide oil and gas organizations through a proven transformation framework:

Automate and Decouple: Eliminate manual tasks, decouple legacy systems, and migrate to the cloud for efficiency and scalability.
Enable Real-Time Insights: Centralize and contextualize data, enabling real-time analytics and AI-driven decision support.
Optimize and Innovate: Automate and optimize front-to-back office activities, enable scenario analysis, and unlock new business models (e.g., carbon trading, new energies).
Monetize Intelligence: Leverage unified data and AI to create new revenue streams, from data products to algorithmic trading and beyond.

Why Publicis Sapient and Microsoft?

With decades of experience in digital business transformation and deep sector expertise, Publicis Sapient and Microsoft are uniquely positioned to help oil and gas companies navigate volatility, regulatory change, and the energy transition. Our joint approach combines:

Industry-leading cloud and AI technologies
Proven frameworks for data-centric digital ecosystems
Agile, outcome-driven delivery
A track record of success with global energy leaders

Ready to Reimagine Your Oil & Gas Future?

The future belongs to oil and gas companies that can harness digital innovation to drive agility, efficiency, and growth. Whether you are looking to modernize legacy systems, break down data silos, or unlock the power of AI and cloud, Publicis Sapient and Microsoft can help you define and realize your digital vision.

Contact our Energy & Commodities team at energyandcommodities@publicissapient.com to start your transformation journey.

Publicis Sapient is a digital business transformation partner helping established organizations get to their future, digitally-enabled state. We fuse strategy, consulting, and customer experience with agile engineering and problem-solving creativity. Learn more at publicissapient.com.
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