Today, companies in the Energy sector find themselves in a complex landscape with the upstream, midstream, and downstream sub-segments having their own set of business challenges. Each year, the stakes get bigger as firms need to face the rising challenges of:

• Increasing exploration and production costs
• Highly-volatile crude oil prices and low retail margins
• Complex scheduling and operational challenges
• Challenges related to aging workforce in oil fields

The Oil and Gas industry has always been at the forefront of adopting the latest information technology (IT) standards.The prime motive behind adoption of technology has been cost reduction through process simplification. Stiff competition from their global counterparts is also driving many Indian Oil and Gas companies to reassess their operating practices and invest in new technologies. The IT spend of Oil and Gas companies is steadily increasing across the value chain, as there is a strong need to adopt sophisticated technology standards. The back-office applications have come a long way from being focused on accounting and payroll, to ERP-based applications integrated with a large number of legacy applications. Companies today, use the best-in-class solutions to optimize operational efficiencies, improve asset and plant management, and integrate systems; thereby providing a concentrated view for better decision-making.

In view of the success of the IT in Oil & Gas Summit 2011, attended by thought leaders and industry participants across the value chain, Frost & Sullivan is organizing the IT in Oil & Gas Summit 2012. The Summit would include discussions on the issues pertaining to the evolving role of IT in the Oil and Gas sector, achieving operational excellence in Oil and Gas industries, and Service Oriented Architecture (SOA)-based integration for enabling operational excellence, along with a panel discussion with renowned names from the industry deliberating on the evolving trends in the industry.