Open Industrial Data
Inspiring innovation& fueling collaborationin the oil & gas ecosystem

Open
Industrial Data
Inspiring innovation & fuelingcollaboration in the oil & gas ecosystem

Table of contents
Executive summary........................................................................................................................... pg. 3
Introduction....................................................................................................................................... pg. 4
Project background........................................................................................................................... pg. 5
Project vision..................................................................................................................................... pg. 6
How will the data be shared?............................................................................................................ pg. 7
Cognite Data Fusion®................................................................................................................. pg. 7
Live data...................................................................................................................................... pg. 7
What data will be shared?................................................................................................................. pg. 9
High level system description................................................................................................... pg. 9
Live data...................................................................................................................................... pg. 9
Utility systems............................................................................................................................ pg. 10

Cognite Data Fusion® codifies industrial domain
knowledge into software that fits into your existing
ecosystem and enables scale from proofs ofconcepts to truly data-driven operations to deliver
both profitability and sustainability.
WHY COGNITE DATA FUSION® →2

Cognite is a global industrial SaaS company that
supports the full-scale digital transformation ofasset-heavy industries around the world. Our core
Industrial DataOps platform, Cognite Data Fusion®,enables data and domain users to collaborate toquickly and safely develop, operationalize, andscale industrial AI solutions and applications.

Strategic thinking, struggles, & precautions.................................................................................. pg. 11
Public visibility of equipment downtime................................................................................... pg. 11
Third-party access & security................................................................................................... pg. 11
GDPR and protected personal information.............................................................................. pg. 11
The legal framework................................................................................................................... pg. 11
Extracting & leveraging the value of big data.......................................................................... pg. 12
Potential rewards outweigh the risk................................................................................................ pg. 13
Call to action............................................................................................................................... pg. 13

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About Cognite

Executive summary

For too long, Oil & Gas companies have taken a
passive posture toward digitalization, reacting toeach new technology as it comes. But this halting, piecemeal approach is inefficient and leaves
companies vulnerable.

The Open Industrial Data project is a crucial firststep toward a more open and collaborative industry, where data sharing is the norm rather than the
exception.

Though the industry has become expert at collecting and aggregating data, it has yet to find a way toleverage the data as an asset. The crucial next step
will be a fullscale embrace of technology at every
level of operation, transforming business models
and activities through the strategic use of data.
The vast amount of industrial data collected every
day contains hidden insights that can improvecompany workflows, optimize operations, andreduce costs. Oil & Gas companies can (and must!)
find a way to extract these valuable revelations.
And they don’t have to do it alone. Data science
vendors, research communities, and students
are eager to contribute to this progress. Unfortunately, these groups face a number of obstacles.
Often they are working with outdated data sets,or are forced to spend considerable effort getting
WHY COGNITE DATA FUSION® →By sharing this live stream of industrial data freely,
Aker BP and Cognite hope to accelerate innovation within data-heavy fields, such as predictive
maintenance, condition monitoring, and advanced
visualization techniques, as well as other new,unexpected applications. Advancement in theseareas will directly benefit Aker BP’s operations
and will also improve the health and outlook of theindustrial ecosystem on the Norwegian Continental Shelf.
That’s why Aker BP and Cognite also want to inspireother industrial companies to join the Data Liberation Front. Imagine the speed of innovation andimprovement in a world where hundreds or thousands of industrial companies share live data thisway.
We’re not sure how this venture will play out. Whowill be interested in this data? How will they use it?

BENEFITS FOR YOUR TEAMS →CONTACT SALES →Which specific problems will they attempt to solve?
What solutions will be developed to solve them?
We have some ideas, of course, but that’s not the
point of the project.
This is about open industrial data. Injecting real,
live data into the realm of innovation and invention. Then stepping back to see what happens, tobe surprised.
So, whether you are an ML startup focused on theoil and gas industry, a graduate student looking
for an interesting data set for your thesis, or justcurious about what real live data from a runningoil platform looks like – here it is! Take it and learn
with it. Show us what you find. We’re excited to see
what is possible.
With your help, the days of intentionally concealing data in industry will come to a necessary close.
Openness will be the standard of the future. And
that future will be bright.
3

their hands on relevant data. Potential collaboration partners within data science have traditionallybeen made to jump through several hoops just to
get started: show-and-tell, commercial contracts,
data sharing agreements, NDAs, you name it.

©COGNITE 2018 — COGNITE.COM

In a digitalized future, it’s difficult to predict what
the landscape of the Oil & Gas sector will look like.
Metamorphosis is certain, but what kind? And what
can we do to position ourselves to remain relevant
and resilient?

Introduction
The Open Industrial Data project presents theworld’s first live industrial data stream. The data
originates from a single compressor on the Valhall
oil platform in the North Sea. The project is theresult of a collaboration between Aker BP, one ofEurope’s largest independent oil companies, andCognite, a fastgrowing tech startup headquartered in Norway. Aker BP uses the Cognite Data
Fusion® to organize the data stream and create adigital representation of the Valhall compressor’s
industrial reality.

This will include time series data,maintenancehistory, and Process & Instrumentation Diagrams(P&IDs) for Valhall’s first stage compressor andassociated process equipment. Cognite’s extensive and welldocumented APIs and user-friendly
toolkits (in multiple languages) will allow users tobuild machine learning models and applications
on top of the liberated industrial data. To mitigate
the risks concerning sensitive information from the
Valhall’s compressor (e.g., equipment downtime),
the data stream will be delayed by one week.

With the Open Industrial Data project, Aker BP
has positioned itself has a pioneer of industrial
data sharing. This openness is a radical proposition within the Oil & Gas industry. Most companies still consider such historical and live data to
be strictly confidential information. However, Aker
BP and Cognite believe data liberation is essential
to human innovation. Every journey begins with asingle step; this stream of compressor data is only
the beginning.

The Open Industrial Data project will provide themost exciting, publically available industrial data
set in the world. Free, straightforward access toa continuous live stream of real data is a groundbreaking opportunity for academic researchersand startups alike. Real, reliable, live data is the best
way to evaluate state-of-the art models and algorithms, as well as to develop graphical user interface applications on top of industrial data.

WHY COGNITE DATA FUSION® →BENEFITS FOR YOUR TEAMS →©COGNITE 2018 — COGNITE.COM

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The data stream will be provided through the Open
Industrial Data website, open to the public on a
subscription basis free of charge. Registered users
will receive access to Cognite’s Operation Intelligence application, a visualization tool for analyzing, monitoring and planning data, in addition to an
API-key, which gives access to all relevant data inthe platform.
CONTACT SALES →Project background
Aker BP’s intention behind the Open Industrial Data
project is multifaceted. They want to offer the live
data stream to
1. Establish Aker BP as the leading example of data
sharing in the O&G industry;
2. Test and benchmark potential vendors within
machine learning, predictive maintenance andother data science fields through defined problem statements related to the shared data;

The first step of a journey isn’t always easy. With
this project, Aker BP wants to break trail on behalfof the Oil & Gas industry. By being the first to sharea live data set, Aker BP can go on to leverage andshare what they learn along the way, enabling
more data sharing by more players, more assets,
and even more data sets made live to the public.

3. Attract interdisciplinary talent, expertise, andbackgrounds to the company;
4. Test potential new job candidates within the data
science discipline;
5. Contribute to worldwide research by providing
real data for evaluating state-of-the art models
and algorithms;

WHY COGNITE DATA FUSION® →BENEFITS FOR YOUR TEAMS →©COGNITE 2018 — COGNITE.COM5

6. Innovate on methods of sharing by using The
Cognite Data Fusion®, via a non-commercial
application;

CONTACT SALES →Project vision
Aker BP and Cognite hope to inspire more companies to join the project in order to increase theamount of shared data from the industry. Because
no industrial player is an island. Each company
exists as part of a larger ecosystem made up of
suppliers, vendors, and other external stakeholders. The individual pieces impact one another inmany different ways, including via innovation andcollaboration. The Open Industrial Data project is a
step towards increasing this kind of positive impact
by promoting an openness that benefits everyonein this ecosystem.

Organized and clean, easily accessible and easily
tested, live data is the perfect stimulant for rapid,
sustainable innovation. Without trying, we’ll neverknow what openness might empower us to do.

Explore the upside(s)of sharing data

WHY COGNITE DATA FUSION® →BENEFITS FOR YOUR TEAMS →CONTACT SALES →Take the initiativein this field on behalfof the industry

Start a conversation
with evidence in hand

©COGNITE 2018 — COGNITE.COM

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It’s true that increased data openness assumes a
corresponding increase in business risk. But thecorresponding benefits, even the ones we can’t
yet name, are likely numerous too. For Aker BP and
Cognite, the vision for the Open Industrial Data
project began with the as-yet unfathomed depthof value that comes with revolutionary openness.
It’s time to:How will the data be shared?

The Cognite Data Fusion® is currently deployed
across all five of Aker BP’s operational assets. Here,the Cognite Data Fusion® handles live and historical data for close to 200,000 sensors, with a peaktransfer of 800,000 data points per second. A rangeof third-party applications and data scientists use
the 1+ trillion data points in the platform to create
value and support Aker BP’s strategy for day-today operations.
The initial focus has been to aggregate and processdata from sensors and contextualize it, structuring
it in relation to process diagrams, production information, 3Dmodels, and event data (maintenance,
incidents). Everything linked in the real world is also
linked in the platform. This enables machine learning applications for optimization and automatization, as well as human-facing applications, such
WHY COGNITE DATA FUSION® →The Open Industrial Data project website provides
access to the live data stream on a subscription
basis, free of charge. Once they register using a
Google ID, users will receive an API-key, which gives
access to all data in the platform. Cognite also
provides access to their Operation Intelligence
application, a visualization tool to improve datacomprehension.
Immaturity of condition monitoring anomaly detection algorithms, etc., is due in large part to the factthat there hasn’t been a lot of data available. The
Open Industrial Data project presents a steadystream of stable data, stored and relatively clean,made possible by the Cognite Data Fusion®.
Once data has been liberated and contextualized
within the Cognite Data Fusion®, it can be madeopenly and securely accessible to approved third
parties. Aker BP can grant this permission to strategic partners and vendors via user-friendly Application Program Interfaces (APIs). Or, as in the caseof the Open Industrial Data project, they can makea specific data set publically accessible in a secure,functional environment, to inspire innovation andequip innovators.
The supplied APIs for the Open Industrial Data proj-

BENEFITS FOR YOUR TEAMS →CONTACT SALES →ect allow for flexible parameters to empower quick
aggregations. For example, users can call for values
every five minutes or for the average values eachhour. This allows the user to aggregate targeted
data quickly and zoom into specific points in time athigh speed. Cognite also provides an open source
graphing library to help users visualize their data.

Live data
Convenient, continuous access to a live streamof reliable industrial data is a game changer for
researchers and entrepreneurs dealing withmachine learning (ML).
One of the most challenging and time consuming
parts of developing an algorithm or application isoften tracking down data sets to use during development. These products need to be tuned andtested. Previously, most testing has been doneusing historical data. A researcher might develop
an algorithm using two-year-old data, then test it
on last year’s data. This practice has been generally accepted because it was the only practical
option, but it has shortcomings.
Historical data is dead data. In the case of historical sensor data on an oil platform, for example, an
old data set leaves developers vulnerable to blind
spots such as the interim replacement of upgraded

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The Cognite Data Fusion® is a horizontal platform
for all types of production and operations data. It
breaks down existing data silos to liberate data
across the industrial value chain. This dramaticallyreduces the cost of integration and maintenancewhile enabling scalability, speed of development,
and data openness throughout the organization.
Internal and external experts are able to apply
algorithms to visualize and solve critical businessproblems.

as advanced visualizations and apps for the digitalfield worker.

©COGNITE 2018 — COGNITE.COM

Cognite Data Fusion®

equipment or the deployment of new technology.
These simple, common occurrences could render
the an ML algorithm skewed or and application
obsolete before it’s even complete.
Live data, on the other hand, opens exponential
opportunities, not only for product development,
but for the disruption and revitalization of researchin general.
A living data set will change. What is good one
year won’t necessarily continue to be good. Environmental circumstances can change. It’s likepressure testing. Algorithms and applications
developed on live data will naturally grow stronger, more adaptable, prepared to respond to thethe curve balls of reality.

With a live data stream, the concept of publication becomes more flexible. Released from theconstraints of historical data, research findings
will continue to live and grow along with the data
it is based upon, carried forward and continuously
tested.
Universities and employers can also use this sourceof living data to their advantage in evaluating theperformance of students and employees. Competitions can be conducted over time, comparing
teams; if something unexpected happens, evaluators can see who picked it up and who didn’t. During
a hiring process, developers can showcase theirwork to the potential employer based on current
circumstances in the real world.

©COGNITE 2018 — COGNITE.COM

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These dynamic qualities of living data may even be
pulled forward into the research published on it. The
status quo for research dictates that any publishedfinding is trapped in time. Others may pull out thethesis and respond to it with tests of their own, butthese new theses, too, will likely be based only on
similar data and will be tied to the date of their publication. Technology and time march on.

WHY COGNITE DATA FUSION® →BENEFITS FOR YOUR TEAMS →CONTACT SALES →What data will be shared?
High level system description
The data set represents the first of four stages forcompression of natural gas on the Valhall PH platform. The purpose of the gas train is to compress
and treat the gas to meet the required export pressure and specification, with a total capacity of 4,06
MSm3/d (143 MMscf/d).

The first stage compressor (23-KA-9101) is an electrically-driven, fixed-speed centrifugal compressor which receives gas from the separators at
approximately 3 barg pressure. Before reaching
the compressor, the gas is cooled in the first stage
suction cooler (23-HA-9103), which is a shell-andtube heat exchanger. The cooled gas flows into the
WHY COGNITE DATA FUSION® →1. The temperature at the suction cooler outlet iscontrolled by regulating the amount of coolingmedium flowing through the shell side of thesuction cooler.

Live data

2. The level in the first stage suction scrubber iscontrolled by regulating the amount of liquid
flowing out of the scrubber. Excess liquids aresent back to the 2nd stage separator.

Automatic control of the first stage compressor
and associated process equipment is achieved by
the following control loops:

3.The pressure in the first stage separator iscontrolled by regulating the suction throttle
valve (STV) upstream of the first stage suction

BENEFITS FOR YOUR TEAMS →CONTACT SALES →9

first stage suction scrubber (23- VG-9101), whichremoves liquid droplets before the gas enters thecompressor. The gas is compressed to approximately 12 barg and flows through a pair of dischargecoolers (23- HA-9114/9115) before entering thesecond stage of compression.

©COGNITE 2018 — COGNITE.COM

Aker BP selected the first stage compressor on
the Valhall because it is a subsystem with clearly
defined boundaries, rich in time series and maintenance data. The data set available in the Cognite
Data Fusion® will include time series data, maintenance history, and Process & Instrumentation
Diagrams (P&IDs) for Valhall’s first stage compressor and associated process equipment: first stage
suction cooler, first stage suction scrubber, firststage compressor and first stage discharge coolers.In addition, data from the compressor’s lubrication system, dry gas seal system and condition
monitoring system (temperature and vibration) will
be available.

scrubber, which controls the amount of gas sent
to the compressor.
4. Anti-surge protection is achieved by recycling
gas from downstream the discharge coolers
back to the inlet. The amount of gas to be recycled is controlled by regulating the antisurge
valve (ASV). Since the recycle line is connectedjust upstream of the STV, the pressure control
and anti-surge control loops have strong interactions.
5. The temperature at the discharge cooler outlet
is controlled by regulating the amount of cooling medium flowing through the shell side of thedischarge cooler(s).

■The lubrication system for the first stagecompressor. The system is comprised of pumps,
coolers, filters, heating elements, and associated monitoring equipment, the purpose ofwhich is to reduce friction and mechanical wear
and to prevent overheating and corrosion in thecompressor internals.
■ The dry gas seal (DGS) system, the purpose ofwhich is to prevent the process gas inside thecompressor from escaping to the atmosphere.
■ The condition monitoring system (CMS), whichmonitors temperatures and vibrations in the
motor, gearbox and compressor.

Utility systems©COGNITE 2018 — COGNITE.COM

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The following utility systems are also included in
the data set:

WHY COGNITE DATA FUSION® →BENEFITS FOR YOUR TEAMS →CONTACT SALES →Strategic thinking, struggles, & precautions

Transparency could be a business risk. For example,
what might the consequences be for letting everyone know when equipment is down? Oil is a global
commodity, which means increased scrutiny on thecompanies involved in its extraction and production. There’s a possibility that public visibility of realtime equipment breakdown could impact the stock
exchange. After all, consumers don’t necessarily
have the context, history, and/or sophistication toappropriately gauge the seriousness of an event.
Their reaction could be premature.

Aker BP opted to instate a delayed release of thedata to defend against this particular risk. Whilethe data stream will be continuous and live, theone week delay between the creation of data and
WHY COGNITE DATA FUSION® →Third-party access & security
Opening previously confidential data to publicaccess seems like it could also increase the company’s vulnerability to a data breach.
The Open Industrial Data (OID) project is set up
within the Cognite Data Fusion® as its own secure,separate project or “tenant”. The live data stream
inside the tenant is a duplication of the stream
from the Valhall compressor. No navigable connection exists between Aker BP’s own environment
and the OID’s public tenant, making it impossible
for anyone to access and tamper with the originaldata. In addition, registered users receive readonly security credentials that are limited to the
public tenant environment and authenticated ateach log in.
While the Cognite Data Fusion® allows for infinite
scalability and can run countless separate projects/tenants simultaneously, these environments are kept separate and secure. For practical
purposes, what the user of any one of these projects can see and work with might as well be on its
own server/computer.

BENEFITS FOR YOUR TEAMS →CONTACT SALES →GDPR & protected personal information
In the post GDPR-era, there is also a heightenedawareness of the potential exposure of data that
includes personal information. Aker BP needed tomake sure any individually identifiable information
was removed or redacted from the records.
For example, while maintenance logs (Events)
are part of the Open Industrial Data stream, thenames of the personnel who serviced the equipment could not. This is achieved by removing all
text fields which may contain names.

The legal framework
For each production license on the NCS, the license
partners are required to enter into a Joint Operating Agreement (JOA), a standard document issued
by the Norwegian Ministry of Petroleum and Energy(OED). The agreement includes formal restrictions
on the sharing of data. While the operator is entitled to share necessary data with a third party toachieve some business goal, public sharing of datais generally restricted unless permission is grantedby all license partners.
Approaching the Open Industrial Data project, Aker
BP secured this permission from the Valhall license
partners.

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Public visibility of equipment downtime

the release of data will give the company time toresolve downtime issues or deploy a necessary
public relations strategy.

©COGNITE 2018 — COGNITE.COM

Publishing any important data means confronting a variety of risks. There are reasons why thiskind of data has long been classified as confidential. Before releasing the live stream of compressor data to the public, Aker BP measured the listof possible risks against the potential value of theventure. The exercise helped them understandwhat precautions should be taken to mitigate therisks, but also highlighted other obstacles between
them and a golden age of industrial data sharing.

However, Aker BP intends for the Open Industrial
Data project to be a first step toward an industry-wide shift toward increasingly proactive data
sharing. More complex assets involving multiple
parties on a single JOA could become major obstacles to this goal.

Extracting & leveraging the value of big
data
Oil & Gas companies already have an incredible
volume of data, and it’s expanding all the time. But
data is only as valuable as it is accessible, readable,
and open for connections. Dropped into a data lake
on a distant server, companies cannot leverage its
value.

data into the ecosystem. Opening our minds on acompany level can and will encourage the authorities to do the same.
Aker BP responds to these issues internally byusing the Cognite Data Fusion® to collect, clean,and contextualize their data. Now, with the Open
Industrial Data project, they are using the imperative fourth functionality of the Cognite Data
Fusion® to maximize data value: facilitating collaboration and equipping innovation by easily sharing
selected data.

©COGNITE 2018 — COGNITE.COM

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To make data openness an industry standard, JOAs
must change, not least because any supplement,
amendment, or exception to the current JOA is
subject to approval from the Ministry. A good firststep would be to remove these kinds of legacy
restrictions, which stem from a time when the data
landscape was entirely different. Formal restrictions on data sharing in this foundational contract
predispose whole ventures toward a mindsetof exclusivity and protectionism. This negative
stance cannot be healthy for a joint venture.
Every industrial player on the NCS needs to reconsider the benefits of data sharing, the gains to
be won simply by injecting more clean, reliable
WHY COGNITE DATA FUSION® →BENEFITS FOR YOUR TEAMS →CONTACT SALES →Potential rewards outweigh the risk

Rather than stand overwhelmed by the impending metamorphosis, Aker BP has determined to
go on the offensive. Daring to invest in philosophical shifts, even or especially in the early stages.
Considering the possibilities, the risks, the rewards,
and picking a side.
Openness should be the new standard. All industrial data should be open by default.

WHY COGNITE DATA FUSION® →Are you ready to test an API or algorithm? Want tosee how the data works or share ML insights witha like-minded community of developers?

REGISTER FOR OPEN INDUSTRIAL DATAON COGNITE HUB →No matter what the digitalized landscape of Oil &Gas looks like in the future, Aker BP and Cognite
want to do more than be a part of it. They want toshape it. They want to break it wide open.

Call to action
Given the demand for live data, the Open Industrial
Data project could easily become the most referenced public data set in academic publications
and the most utilized public data set in tech startups innovating on ML.

BENEFITS FOR YOUR TEAMS →CONTACT SALES →13

Technologically speaking, operators cannot accurately plan their next one to five years. No one
knows who the best vendors will be, because somany new companies are entering the market. No
one knows what the interplay between vendors
and customers will be, as technology will impact
those interactions and new partnerships are sureto emerge. And no one knows the pain points forcustomers and vendors in this new world, because
only direct experience with these problems canlead to solid insights on how to solve them.

This is a striking deviation from historical norms.
Immediate, total transition probably isn’t possible, nor would it be advisable. Instead, Oil & Gas
companies need to take on this initiative in phases,
deploying the conceptual shift in practice on asmall scale in order to experience trial and error.
The Open Industrial Data project does exactly that.
With it, Aker BP wants to demonstrate the benefits of making live data easily available to students,
startups, and other interested innovators. It’s alsoa chance to troubleshoot the process and set bestpractices in a secure environment. With the Cognite
Data Fusion®, it will be possible to scale this project
quickly to realize benefits on more sensitive, morecritical data, once stakeholders can be assured of
the value and reassured regarding the risks.

©COGNITE 2018 — COGNITE.COM

Somehow, a fully digitalized future in Oil & Gas
seems both distant and inevitable.

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