Innovation and social

BRUNEI SHELL PETROLEUM I PROFILE

Brunei Shell Petroleum (BSP) is the largest oil and gas company in Brunei. BSP is dedicated to oil and gas exploration and production from onshore and offshore fields for domestic use and export. A report by Phil Nicholls.

Brunei Shell Petroleum BSP manages an extensive network of infrastructure offshore and around Brunei. The company operates over 200 offshore structures linked by more than 5,000 km of pipelines, drawing oil and gas from 4,500 reservoirs reached by 800 wells. The company employs a diverse and highly qualified workforce of 4,000 employees and 20,000 contractors.

The partnership between Brunei and Royal Dutch Shell began with the onshore Seria oil field in 1929. A joint venture between the government of Brunei and Shell, BSP is the largest oil and gas producer in Brunei, supplying the equivalent of 350,000 barrels of oil and gas daily to nearby countries such as Japan, Korea, Indonesia and Australia.

The current Managing Director of BSP and the Country Chair of Shell in Brunei is Agnete Johnsgaard-Lewis. A Norwegian

BRUNEI SHELL PETROLEUM I PROFILE

BSP Managing Director: Agnete Johnsgaard-Lewis

national, Ms Johnsgaard-Lewis graduated from the University of Surrey in the UK with a M.Eng. Distinction in Chemical and Process Engineering. She initially joined Shell in 1996 as an offshore field engineer in the Netherlands. Ms Johnsgaard-Lewis enjoyed long-term postings around the world, before being appointed Managing Director of BSP in mid-2020.

Under Ms Johnsgaard-Lewis’ leadership, BSP remains the backbone of Brunei’s economy, supporting the growth and development of the country. She is a firm supporter of the Bruneianisation Directive which came into effect in June 2018. This directive requires oil and gas operators in Brunei to achieve a 90% proportion of Bruneian employees at all levels of the company.

“We as a company have also come a very long way in the area of Bruneianisation,” said Ms Johnsgaard-Lewis, speaking at a BSP event in 2021. “We continue to develop local leaders, who are dedicated in their duties, passionate in making a change, and continue contributing to fuelling Brunei.”

Social investment

In 2020, the Oil and Gas Discovery Centre in Seria, on the coast in western Brunei, was rebranded the Seria Energy Lab, or SEL. SEL is the flagship of the BSP social investment programme to expand science literacy in the country. At SEL, science is brought to life and creative minds are engaged by science and technology.

BSP also administers a social investment fund devoted to the creation or development of the skills and resources crucial to the sustainable progress of Brunei’s people, environment and community. These investment programmes are built on four key pillars: education, enterprise development, environment and biodiversity, and community development.

During 2020, 1200 students and teachers were educated in STEM via SEL outreach and NXplorer, 40 tonnes of rubbish was collected for recycling and over 1,000 higher-education students engaged in the Tell Everyone road safety campaign. i-Usahawan is a youth entrepreneurship development initiative in Brunei, launched by the Ministry of Energy in 2018. BSP is proud to be the front runner in offering iUsahawan contracts, with seven awarded to date. These contracts are in the areas of IT and Digitisation, part of BSP’s commitment to develop local businesses partners across their value chain.

Alongside participation in the i-Usahawan programme, BSP runs Shell LiveWIRE, developing the capabilities of local entrepreneurs through education and workshops. 2020 saw over 780 LiveWIRE students. The same year brought about 40 new registered companies after participation in LiveWIRE and another

BRUNEI SHELL PETROLEUM I PROFILE

100 Bruneians employed by companies who benefitted from the programme.

In 2021, the Shell LiveWIRE Brunei programme celebrated its 20th anniversary. LiveWIRE Brunei has helped over 6,300 alumni since 2001. In line with Brunei’s strategic drive towards digitalisation and the Industry 4.0 revolution, the accompanying LiveWIRE Business Award Focus identified five main areas to support: agrotechnology, energy transition, waste management, digitalisation and smart manufacturing.

Digital transformation

Just as digitalisation is a key topic for Brunei, so too is BSP undertaking its own digital transformation journey. The company is currently on-schedule to bring greater efficiency and develop powerful new capabilities from smarter exploration, leaner hydrocarbon development and safer operations. BSP was a sponsor and participant in the 2021 ASEAN Business and Investment Summit in October 2021.

Ms Johnsgaard-Lewis spoke in a panel session at the summit on the future of working in the post-pandemic world: “The pandemic has pushed the world to go through a rapid digital transformation and while that has its own challenges, it also provided some opportunities.”

BSP launched its Digital Transformation Strategy in 2019, aimed at achieving specific strategic priorities to work faster, better and cheaper. The all-Bruneian team of data-scientists unlock value from data to develop practical solutions, helping the company continuously learn and improve.

Hajah Sofiah Haji Umar, BSP’s Digitalisation Manager was clear on the benefits of the team’s work: “Digital solutions have provided BSP with efficiency gains that would be impossible to achieve without technology.”

Partnerships for the future

BSP announced a contract with ION Geophysical Corporation for logistics management in 2022. ION’s Marlin software suite will provide BSP with vessel monitoring, berth management and visual reporting tools for material supply workflows. The solution digitises manual processes and interfaces with existing tools, enhancing BSP’s ability to make informed decisions whilst managing its fleet of more than 70 vessels.

“We are thrilled to be able to embark on this journey with BSP to see them become a leader in digital integration of exploration and production marine logistics,” said Stuart Darling, Senior Vice President of ION’s Software group.

Another source of increased digitalisation at BSP arises from the partnership with GEP, a leading provider of procurement software and services. BSP will use the SMART – GEP’s unified procurement software platform – to manage complete source-to-pay across its subsidiary operations. This includes a full range of functions, such as spend analysis, savings tracking, sourcing, contract and supplier management, purchasing and invoice handling.

Technology and the oil industry advance in lockstep, and BSP’s search for new fields around Brunei continues with the development of the Merbah Deep-1 and Jagus Subthrust-1 deep water wells. The Brunei Ministry of Energy is eager to venture into deep-water exploration activities to bring technological advancement and expertise to Brunei in support of the country’s economic development.

BSP’s technological expertise also drives the innovation that is vital to providing sustainable and clean energy. The jewel of BSP’s sustainability drive is the 3.3MWp Solar PV Plant located at the Solar Park near Seria. This Solar Plant received the ASEAN Outstanding Engineering Achievement Award 2021 at the ASEAN Federation of Engineering Organizations. The site features 7,000 solar panels installed on four hectares of land, generating enough electricity to supply 600 households and contributing to Brunei’s target of 100 MW of renewable energy by 2025.

Brunei Shell Petroluem weaves together expansion of oil production, social responsibility and technological innovation for a sustainable future. n