Oil & Gas
The Oil & Gas industry accounts for around 7% of global GDP and provides the dominant source of fuel for modern industry and most forms of transportation.
Industry Trends & Challenges
Oil & gas companies face a number of opportunities and threats to their businesses. The companies best placed to deal with a challenge will consider it as an opportunity, whilst those poorly prepared will face the challenge as a threat.
Before the COVID-19 crisis, there were several trends that oil & gas companies were responding to. Some of those have accelerated because of COVID-19 and are likely to continue to be a challenge over the coming years. Those include:
- competition from alternative sources of energy and the transition to electric vehicles
- cyber security, as processes become more digitised
- health, safety, and environment (HSE) – managing compliance with many different regulatory authorities
- improving operational efficiency to ensure profitability
- managing and analysing big data from sensors
- meeting future demand through unconventional resources, including biofuels as well as shale gas and ‘fracking’
- meeting sustainability goals around global warming and the carbon budget, and reacting to reduced demand for fossil fuels
- rising production costs as it becomes more difficult to access the remaining supplies
- securing future oil and gas supply
- the ‘big crew change’ – as around half of all employees are expected to leave in the next 10 years
Fast growing technologies such as machine learning and predictive analytics are opening up new possibilities for oil & gas. Companies that embrace these new technologies will become more efficient and sustainable. Looking ahead, companies are investing in leading research in converting crude oil directly to chemicals or hydrogen as a possible energy source choice for the future.
What is the current position of the oil & gas industry?
The oil & gas industry in 2022 is recovering well from the setback it experienced due to the pandemic. The reopening of economies and easing of social distancing guidelines means that demand for oil is reaching prepandemic levels, this would indicate oil & gas companies will perform well in 2022.
Sustainability and decarbonization will likely be a key concern in 2022. Many oil & gas companies are anticipated to boost their investment in R&D capabilities and exploit developments in decarbonization and recycling technology.
The energy transition will continue to remain a key talking point in 2022, even with oil prices at a six-year high. History would indicate that when the oil price is high oil & gas companies have less incentive to focus on sustainable opportunities, that is unlikely to be the case this year as companies are taking advantage of high oil prices to fund their energy transition.
The ageing workforce is a big issue in oil and gas because the sector is set to see around half of its existing workforce leaving over the course of the next ten years or so. Additionally, the pandemic and ensuing oil price crash resulted in thousands of job lay-offs in the industry.
Companies need to make sure they recruit, train, and most importantly, keep their young new recruits in the industry. However, hiring new recruits in the middle of an industry wide sustainability transition will not be easy, companies will need to battle the negative reputation the industry has as an employer, with fierce competition from other industries suffering from a labour shortage for the best recruits.
E-learning course
- Self-paced e-learning
- CPE/CPD-approved
- Designed for customer-facing professionals
Objectives
- Distinguish between the metrics used to measure various aspects of company performance
- Distinguish between upstream, midstream, and downstream activities and how these contribute to company profitability
- Identify the business implications of current sector trends and challenges
- Identify the different types of company operating in the sector


Oil & Gas Industry Insights
Cambashi Oil & Gas Industry Insights offers tactical industry intelligence updated by industry experts, that provides the latest information from across the globe:
- Tactical industry intelligence updated in real-time by industry experts
- The latest trends & challenges, business drivers, products & services, and technology
- Business strategies and initiatives
- Key players and consumer perspective
- Industry terminology and metrics
- Deeper knowledge across a variety of industry subjects
Technology
Oil & gas companies spend heavily on multi-billion dollar projects such as building or upgrading refineries or rigs and increasing use of IT systems are helping companies run these facilities more efficiently.
As with any modern business, sophisticated IT is the key to analysing the big data generated across the value chain and deciding what steps need to be taken to improve them. This is especially important in oil & gas, where huge vertically integrated companies must manage a presence in upstream and downstream areas in markets all over the world.
Prominent IT trends now and for the foreseeable future include:
- artificial intelligence
- Big data analytics
- cloud computing
- Internet of Things (IoT)
Here we can see the relative sizes of the Computer-Aided Technologies (Mechanical CAD, Mechanical CAE, CAM), PLM, BIM, and GIS software sectors in the global oil & gas market. The total is worth approximately $US 670 million annually. Note how BIM is the largest segment, highlighting the importance of structural design within the oil & gas sector.
Learn more about our market data for the engineering software

Blog
Cambashi Drills Down into Oil & Gas and Chemicals Industries’ Challenges
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