When a few years ago media began calling data the new oil, it was because some pretty direct parallels could be drawn between Big Oil and Big Tech. These parallels had to do with the increasingly enormous size and influence of the companies, and the controversial nature of their business. In the post-2014 world, however, digital technology and Big Oil have teamed up to bring in the era of the digital oilfield, which just a couple of decades ago must have sounded like science fiction. Earlier this month, Schlumberger announced it had struck a partnership with Rockwell Automation, a company specializing in automation solutions for industrial applications. The two, Schlumberger said, had set up the first fully integrated digital oilfield automation solutions provider. The company is called Sensia and will provide “measurement solutions, domain expertise, and automation to the oil and gas industry. It will offer scalable, cloud and […]