Halliburton (HAL) - Get Report is teaming up with IBM (IBM) - Get Report Cloud to help streamline its oil and gas fields businesses.
"Halliburton is essentially moving all of their large reservoir simulations to the IBM cloud, and that's a huge change for them and it's great for their clients," said Jim Comfort, chief technology officer at IBM Cloud, adding that the move provides Halliburton with more agility to serve its clients worldwide.
He said Halliburton is moving to the cloud amid competitive pressures in the industry. Comfort said the company realized "the challenges of trying to sustain and maintain [its] infrastructure. While [that's] necessary for [its] core business , it's not the core." This is one way Halliburton is looking for ways to do more with less.
"Selecting the right development strategy is a multibillion-dollar decision for a large oil and gas field," said Steven Knabe, a director in Halliburton Consulting, in a statement on Thursday. "Using high performance computing of the IBM Cloud, we can run very detailed simulation models and evaluate a wide range of field development options, which translates into better field development plans for our clients and a competitive advantage for our business."
While Comfort wouldn't disclose how much money the move is expected to save Halliburton, he said efficiency is key amid the 32% slump in West Texas Intermediate, the U.S. benchmark price for oil, over the past 12 months.
Companies are "looking at cloud to find ways to transform and move," Comfort said, adding that he is noticing a major shift in the industry. "This is [about] large enterprises moving to the cloud to affect and enhance their business,' Comfort added.
Shares of Halliburton added 18.5% since the start of the year. The broad S&P 500 gained 2.9% during the same time.
