Digital Innovations in Oil and Gas with Geoffrey Cann

Geoffrey Cann
  • 5.0 (19)
  • BUSINESS
  • UPDATED WEEKLY
Digital Innovations in Oil and Gas with Geoffrey Cann

A weekly podcast on the impacts of digital on the oil and gas industry.

  1. 6D AGO

    Digital Gets Real in the Mid-Market: Lewis Gillhespy on Unlocking Value from Data-Driven Decision Making

    Mid-sized oil and gas companies are now at a digital crossroads. While supermajors have pushed forward with large-scale transformation programs, many mid-market firms are only beginning to explore how digital innovation can improve performance. Their operational processes—budgeting, forecasting, asset planning—tend to mirror those of larger firms but constrained by fewer resources and less internal capability. Unfortunately, mid-sized companies cannot simply copy the big-company playbook. They lack dedicated data teams, struggle with legacy systems, and must handle all the integration hassles with bespoke coding. At the same time, they are under the same pressure to lower costs, improve transparency, and make faster, better decisions. Is a pragmatic and impactful digital transformation even possible in this context? Absolutely. In this episode, I speak with Lewis Gillhespy, Executive Advisor at Rockflow, on practical solutions that work with mid-sized firms. By focusing on core business processes—particularly budgeting and production forecasting—smaller firms can drive efficiency through better data quality, increased transparency, and dashboard-driven decision-making. A bonus outcome is that improved data transparency leads to a self-reinforcing data stewardship culture, and why starting with business needs (not technology hype) is the key to lasting change. 👤 About the Guest Lewis Gillhespy is an Executive Advisor at Rockflow, a UK-based consultancy focused on oil and gas strategy, technical excellence, and expert witness services. A former transformation leader at Suncor, Lewis now advises global mid-sized energy companies across Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. He brings deep operational experience and a keen understanding of how to turn digital ambition into practical execution. Connect with Lewis Gillhespy 🔗 Rockflow 🔗 LinkedIn - Lewis Gillhespy Additional Tools & Resources 🎙 Go backstage: My Podcast Studio 🎓 Take the course: Digital Strategy for Oil and Gas Connect with Me 🌐 Resources 📝 Substack 🔗 LinkedIn ✖️ X (Twitter) Contact for Lectures and Keynotes I speak regularly on these and other topics. Book a brief call about your event. Disclaimer The views expressed in this podcast are my own and do not constitute professional advice.

    33 min

  2. JUN 4

    Methane Matters: How Voluntary Carbon Credits Can Solve the Orphan Well Crisis

    The oil and gas industry is sitting on a ticking environmental and financial liability. Around the world, millions of wells have been drilled to date, many more will be drilled, and all will eventually need to be plugged and abandoned. Today, the US alone has thousands of orphaned and marginal wells, many leaking methane, a greenhouse gas many times more potent than carbon dioxide. With underfunded asset retirement obligations and inconsistent plugging practices of the past, the sector faces mounting pressure to act—but struggles to finance solutions at scale. There is a potential solution: the voluntary carbon credit market. In this episode, I interview David Stewart, President of Engineering and Environment at Sendero Services, who explains how new carbon methodologies are turning methane leaks into monetizable credits. By quantifying emissions avoided through proper plugging, validating permanence with reserves analysis, and using blockchain for traceability, these credits offer a science-based, verifiable way to fund environmental remediation. Methane credits tied to oil and gas wells are not only more reliable than many nature-based offsets, but also ripe for scale. Dave and I discuss the economics, digital technologies, and policy barriers shaping a new frontier in decarbonization finance. 👤 About the Guest David Stewart is President of Engineering and Environment at Sendero Services. He holds a Master’s degree in Environmental Policy and Management and brings over 30 years of experience in the oil and gas industry. His career spans emissions measurement in California to executive roles at Encana, Bonanza Creek, and Crestone, where he led environmental compliance, strategic partnerships, and M&A. At Sendero, David leads efforts to transform the challenge of orphaned wells into an opportunity through the application of voluntary carbon credits. Connect with Dave Stewart: 🔗 Sendero Services Website 🔗 LinkedIn - Dave Stewart 🛠 Additional Tools & Resources 🎧 Go backstage and check out my studio: My Studio 📘 Take my one-day digital strategy training for oil and gas: Digital Strategy Course 🔗 Connect with Me 🌐 Resources 📘 Substack Blog 🎙 Podcast Archive 💼 LinkedIn 🐦 X (formerly Twitter) 🎤 Contact for Lectures and Keynotes I speak regularly on these and related topics. Contact me here to book a discovery call for your next event.   ⚠ Disclaimer The views expressed in this podcast are my own and do not constitute professional advice.

    31 min

  3. JUN 4

    700 Ways to Boost Cash Flow in Oil and Gas: With Author and Technologist Matthew Hatami

    The oil market is once again bracing for change, with OPEC signaling their interest in unlocking supply that has been withheld. For producers, this looming oversupply translates into a fresh imperative: cut costs. The oil and gas sector, long accustomed to volatility, must now sharpen its cost control strategies in the face of intensifying pressure on margins.  Matthew Hatami, a professional engineer, entrepreneur, and author, joins me on this episode to discuss the tools and tactics operators can use to improve free cash flow. With experience spanning Halliburton, Hess, Chesapeake, and private equity ventures, Matthew shares how data and digital technologies can identify, prevent, and mitigate costly inefficiencies—without big budgets or sweeping tech overhauls. Drawing from his new book, Shale Oil and Gas Operations: Maximize Cashflow with Cost Reduction, Matthew shares three practical, high-impact digital strategies: build operational algorithms to flag issues before they arise, embed probability-based decision-making into drilling management, and implement daily visual reporting using nothing more than a smartphone. Each tactic is aimed at boosting productivity, engaging teams, and staying competitive in an increasingly lean industry. 👤 About the Guest Matthew Hatami is an accomplished oil and gas professional with over two decades of experience across engineering, operations, and executive roles. A former Halliburton and Hess engineer, he’s also the author of Oilfield Survival Guide and Shale Oil and Gas Operations: Maximize Cashflow with Cost Reduction. He advocates for data-driven, digital-first thinking to solve industry problems at scale.  ⚒️ Additional Tools & Resources: 🎙 Go backstage and check out my studio 🎓 Take my digital strategy training for oil and gas 🔗 Connect with Me: 📚 Digital Oil and Gas Blog 🎧 Podcast Archive 🔗 LinkedIn 🐦 X (formerly Twitter) 🗣️ Contact for Lectures and Keynotes: I speak regularly on digital transformation and innovation in oil and gas. Contact me to book a session for your team or event. ⚠️ Disclaimer: The views expressed in this podcast are my own and do not constitute professional advice.

    34 min

  4. MAY 28

    Fracking Reinvented: RocketFrac’s Bold Solution to Oilfield Challenges

    For decades, hydraulic fracturing—or fracking—has relied heavily on water and sand to crack underground rock and release oil and gas. Fracking is safe, proven, and reliable, and in collaboration with horizontal drilling, has resulted in the huge growth in hydro carbon production in the US and Canada.    But fresh water is a scarce resource particularly in arid settings, and in many places under stress because of climate change. Disposal of used water is a technical challenge and costly. The sand resource, or proppant, is both costly to mine and heavy to ship. The mechanical process of forcing water and sand under pressure down the wells and into the rock generates a substantial carbon footprint.    Enter RocketFrac, a Calgary-based innovator using solid rocket fuel to crack the status quo.   Unlike conventional fracking, RocketFrac’s technology eliminates the need for water and sand, which dramatically lowers carbon emissions and site disturbance. This self-propping, solid-fuel-based technique also opens up economically stranded assets, including abandoned or underperforming wells, with potential applications in water-stressed regions like California and the Middle East. It’s an innovation that could redefine the economics and environmental impact of oil extraction.   In this episode I speak with Pavan Elapavuluri, Chief Technology Officer at RocketFrac, to hear firsthand about the origin of RocketFrac’s solution, the physics behind the technology, its regulatory journey, and the digital tools they’re using to model outcomes and rank well candidates. From carbon offsets to offshore potential, this episode is an explosive look at what could be the next big leap in oilfield operations.   And yes, those puns are all intended!    ⸻   👤 About the Guest   Pavan Elapavuluri is the Chief Technology Officer at RocketFrac Services Ltd. With a Ph.D. in Geophysics from the University of Calgary and prior experience at Schlumberger in both Houston and the UK, Pavan brings deep domain expertise to the development of cutting-edge oilfield technology. He leads RocketFrac’s mission to reduce fracking’s environmental footprint using propellant-based fracturing. Originally from India, Pavan is passionate about digital transformation in energy and commercializing sustainable innovations. Connect with Pavan: 🔗 RocketFrac's website 🔗 LinkedIn - Pavan Elapavuluri Additional Tools & Resources 🎙 Go backstage: My Podcast Studio 🎓 Take the course: Digital Strategy for Oil and Gas Connect with Me 🌐 Resources 📝 Substack 🔗 LinkedIn ✖️ X (Twitter) Contact for Lectures and Keynotes I speak regularly on these and other topics. Book a brief call about your event. Disclaimer The views expressed in this podcast are my own and do not constitute professional advice.

    33 min

  5. MAY 21

    Mapping The Wet Frontier: Bringing The Earth's Oceans To Your Device

    Despite covering over 70% of our planet, the oceans and seas remain largely unmapped and poorly understood. Collecting useable data about the oceans is hard and expensive--reliant on specialized costly vessels, old-school technologies, and plenty of labour. The comparison to land mapping technologies (like Google Earth) is stark--we have near-total visibility of land-based infrastructure, continuously updated, and collected by satellite. Subsea infrastructure, like pipelines and cables, are managed with minimal, outdated, and isolated datasets. This gap in oceanic intelligence is an increasing problem.  We're constantly adding new subsea infrastructure—cables, pipelines, risers, platforms—to support oil and gas, power, telecoms, mining, and military operations. At the same time, owners and operators are sailing blind, relying on static years-old surveys. And sea floors are pretty dynamic, subject to tides, currents, and human activity. You can really appreciate the mounting financial and operational risks—from infrastructure damage to safety concerns to project delays. Enter Terradepth, a data-as-a-service company that is bringing Silicon Valley smarts to subsea intelligence. In this episode, I speak with COO Kris Rydberg on how they’re using autonomous vehicles and cloud infrastructure to drastically cut the cost of ocean data acquisition. The best part is how ocean data is now subscription-based, with high reusability across industries. This model reduces capital risk, improves predictive decision-making, and promotes multi-sector collaboration.  👤 About the Guest: Kris Rydberg -- Chief Operating Officer, Terradepth Kris Rydberg is a seasoned executive with three decades of leadership in tech-driven operational strategy. He’s helped scale startups, transform Fortune 500 divisions, and consult on industrial IoT, edge computing, and platform technologies. Kris brings a rare blend of deep tech fluency and cross-sector business acumen. He holds two U.S. patents and an MBA from Syracuse University. 🔗 Connect with Kris on LinkedIn 🔗 Connect with Terradepth on LinkedIn 📸 Instagram 🐦 X ▶️ YouTube 🛠️ Additional Tools & Resources: 🎙️ Go backstage and check out my studio 🎓 Take my digital strategy training course for oil and gas 🤝 Connect with Me: 📚 Blog series 🔗 LinkedIn 📣 X (formerly Twitter) 📢 Contact for Lectures and Keynotes: I speak regularly on these and other topics. Click here to book a brief call about your upcoming event needs. ⚠️ Disclaimer: The views expressed in this podcast are my own and do not constitute professional advice.

    33 min

  6. MAY 14

    Empirical Gas: A New Benchmark in Measured Clean Energy

    Natural gas producers have long struggled to differentiate their product in a market that treats gas as a commodity. When it comes to carbon intensity (CI), the industry is reliant on emission factors and self-reported data, and lacks a credible, data-driven approach to proving their gas carries a lower CI.  With new regulations like the Inflation Reduction Act’s Waste Emission Charge and Europe’s carbon border tax, the opportunity to produce verifiable low-emission gas has grown dramatically. Enter “empirical gas”—natural gas measured in real time with actual data instead of estimates. In this episode, I catch up with my buddy Mark Smith, CEO of Clean Connect, about how his company integrates AI, camera-based monitoring, and process simulation software to create real-time, third-party verifiable emissions data. This transformation not only reduces tax burdens but unlocks access to premium markets willing to pay for low-carbon gas. The implications are massive for producers, traders, and tech firms alike. 👤 About the Guest Mark Smith is the CEO of Clean Connect, a technology company based in Colorado. Clean Connect offers AI-powered camera systems, control room software, and blockchain-based trading platforms that enable real-time emissions monitoring, measurement, reporting, and verification. Their technology underpins the emerging market of empirical gas, empowering producers to offer provably low-emission natural gas certified by international standards like ISO 14067 and ISCC+. Connect with Mark Smith: 🔗 Clean Connect Website 🔗 LinkedIn - Mark Smith Additional Tools & Resources 🎙 Go backstage: My Podcast Studio 🎓 Take the course: Digital Strategy for Oil and Gas Connect with Me 🌐 Resources 📝 Substack 🔗 LinkedIn ✖️ X (Twitter) Contact for Lectures and Keynotes I speak regularly on these and other topics. Book a brief call about your event. Disclaimer The views expressed in this podcast are my own and do not constitute professional advice.

    34 min

  7. MAY 7

    Opening Oil & Gas to the World: Tokenization and the Future of Investment

    The oil and gas industry has traditionally relied on  financial instruments like futures and private equity—frameworks that have largely benefitted institutional investors while leaving little room for broader participation. But as digital assets continue to reshape capital markets, tokenization presents a new way forward. With blockchain technology and regulatory frameworks maturing, real-world asset-backed tokens are gaining traction - even in sectors once considered too complex for digital finance.  In this episode, I speak with Dave Rademacher, Co-Founder of OilXCoin a security token backed by oil and gas reserves which also provides investors exposure to their “upstream” value chains. Dave explains how OilXCoin is bridging traditional oil and gas with digital asset markets by creating a compliant, growth-focused investment vehicle that opens the sector to new types of investors. We discuss what sets OilXCoin apart from pure commodity-backed tokens, how it integrates production-based revenues, and why upstream oil and gas is ripe for tokenization. 👤 About the Guest Dave Rademacher is the Co-Founder of OilXCoin, where he leads strategic growth and market expansion efforts. With a global leadership background at BMW Group across EMEA and APAC, Dave brings a strong track record in scaling businesses and navigating complex markets. At OilXCoin, he’s focused on bridging the gap between traditional oil and gas and digital finance by offering compliant, asset-backed investment opportunities through tokenization. His aim is to make the oil and gas industry accessible to both seasoned crypto investors and traditional market participants. 🔗 Connect with Dave 🌐 Website: OilXCoin 🔗 LinkedIn: Dave Rademacher 🛠️ Additional Tools & Resources 📄 Explore Geoffrey’s Substack articles 🎧 Listen to more episodes of Digital Innovations in Oil and Gas 📢 Visit GeoffreyCann.com for insights on digital transformation in oil and gas 🤝 Connect with Me 🔗 LinkedIn: Geoffrey Cann 🐦 X (Twitter): @geoffreycann 📩 Contact me for keynotes and lectures: GeoffreyCann.com/contact ⚠️ Disclaimer The views expressed in this podcast are those of the guest and host and do not constitute financial or professional advice.

    33 min
  8. How Big Oil Fell Behind In The Digital Race: And How It Can Regain Leadership

    APR 30

    How Big Oil Fell Behind In The Digital Race: And How It Can Regain Leadership

    Twenty years ago, Big Oil companies like Shell and Exxon were the stars of the capital markets. Huge revenues, stellar profits, high share prices, robust price/earning ratios and reliable dividends placed these companies among the world’s best, magnets for top engineering talent and voices of influence in the halls of governments globally. But no more. They lost the market leadership crown to the digital giants, including Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, and Google. Oil and gas concerns are still market leaders as measured by revenue, but not by other measures of value. The gap now is so vast it’s hard to imagine how they might ever regain their market positioning. And now the digital companies are stretching into energy for their data centers, but not yet clean liquid energy, which creates the opportunity. In this podcast I set out several steps the industry can take to recapture its former glory.  ⚒️ Additional Tools & Resources 💡 Go backstage and check out my studio: 🔗  https://geoffreycann.com/mystudio/ 📚 Take my one-day digital strategy training course for oil and gas: 🔗 https://www.udemy.com/course/digital-oil-and-gas/?referralCode=0161D4D49AB75735A185 🤝 Connect with Me ✍️ Blog: https://digitaloilgas.substack.com/ 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/advocate-digital-innovation-for-energy/ 🐦 X: https://x.com/geoffreycann 🎤Contact for Lectures and Keynotes I speak regularly on these and other topics. Book a brief call to discuss your upcoming event needs. ⚠️ Disclaimer The views expressed in this podcast are my own and do not constitute professional advice.

    12 min
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A weekly podcast on the impacts of digital on the oil and gas industry.

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