In a conference room in Astana, senior executives from Kazakhstan's Ministry of Energy, National Geological Survey, and Shell Kazakhstan sat around a long table and signed a seemingly ordinary but profound memorandum of cooperation. This document will determine the direction of Kazakhstan's oil and gas exploration in the coming years - from mountains of paper archives to a cloud based data world.

Three parties work together to implement cooperation

The Ministry of Energy of Kazakhstan, the National Geological Survey, and Shell Kazakhstan have officially signed a memorandum of cooperation, clarifying that they will carry out in-depth cooperation in the digitization of hydrocarbon geological archives and international industry experience exchange. Both parties will also establish a normalized cooperation platform for expert joint training and comprehensive analysis of underground resources. Through modern geographic information systems, historical data will be deeply processed and intelligently interpreted.

Yellan Akbarov, Deputy Minister of Energy of Kazakhstan, Yellan Haliev, Chairman of the National Geological Survey, and Susan Kugen, Senior Vice President of Shell Kazakhstan, all stated that this cooperation will promote the efficient development of local resources and industrial standardization. At the same time, the Ministry of Energy of Kazakhstan recently met with the S&P global delegation to further expand international energy cooperation channels.

Digitally solving exploration problems

For a long time, Kazakhstan's oil and gas geological data has mainly relied on paper archives and manual analysis, resulting in low utilization efficiency and limited decision-making accuracy, directly affecting resource exploration and foreign investment introduction. As the global energy exploration industry accelerates its transformation towards digitization and intelligence, big data analysis and digital geological platforms have become standard equipment in the industry.

Kazakhstan has prioritized the digitization and modernization of geological exploration technology, and urgently needs to introduce mature technologies and experiences from leading international enterprises to fill the gaps in local technology and truly generate value from dormant data.

Technology drives long-term competitiveness

This cooperation is not only a technological upgrade, but also a strategic layout. With the help of Shell's global information technology and exploration program, Kazakhstan will activate a large amount of existing geological data, improve the accuracy of resource potential assessment, and optimize underground resource development decisions. At the same time, the normalized talent joint training mechanism will continuously strengthen the local professional team and promote independent technological upgrading.

For Shell, this marks its long-term commitment to deeply cultivating the energy market in Central Asia, by deeply linking technology output with local development, achieving mutual empowerment between government and enterprises, and consolidating its competitive advantage in the Central Asian region. Driven by China and the the Belt and Road Initiative, such transnational cooperation will further promote the stability and prosperity of the regional energy industry chain.Editor/Yang Meiling