Digital Development

In the reporting period, the implementation of KMG’s digital projects aimed at achieving the Sustainable Development Goals on industrialisation, innovation and infrastructure continued.

1. Digitalisation projects implemented

In order to improve the process of issuing permits and enhance employee safety, Embamunaigas piloted a digital system of electronic permits. The project is aimed at simplifying and speeding up the issuance of work permits and will improve monitoring of hazardous operations and reduce associated costs by approving and signing permits remotely.

In addition, work is underway to implement the Advanced Process Control (APC) system at Atyrau Refinery units. APC automatically adjusts parameters of the process mode of the units to achieve stable yields of target petroleum products and avoids emergency shutdowns by eliminating the influence of the human factor.

To date, APC has been implemented at the primary oil refining unit AT-2 and at the AVT-3 unit.

2. Digitalisation projects in progress

2.1. Travel Management Project

In order to create a culture of safe driving, improve transport safety and make it easier for owners to manage their vehicles, work is underway to replicate the Travel Management Project in Ozenmunaigas JSC, Karazhanbasmunay JSC and Mangistaumunaigas JSC:

• diagnostics of the maturity of processes in SDEs, taking into account the level of automation, equipment with GPS-trackers;
• preparation of individual programmes for the development of transport management processes for each SDE;
• a phased introduction of a transport management system with a focus on traffic safety.

Roadmaps for project implementation in the above SDEs have been approved.

2.2. Electronic Permit-to-Work (WL/WO)

In order to facilitate operational work and reduce the amount of paperwork, Ozenmunaigas JSC started to improve the efficiency of work of the WL/WO crews by introducing a unified automated system for forming and approving PTW to reduce the time and stages of approval. As part of the digitalisation of the process of forming, coordinating and approving PTW for workover and wireline operations, the Electronic PTW project will be implemented, which will enable the creation and editing of PTW, automatic checking of fields for correctness, automatic generation of a unique PTW number, as well as multi-level coordination of PTW with various process participants. The project will allow employees at Ozenmunaigas JSC to receive notifications on the status of PTW and their changes, as well as generate reports on various parameters related to PTW. The concept of this solution is planned to be replicated in other SDEs.

2.3. HR Process Automation

In terms of automation and digitalisation of HR processes, an information system for HR management of KMG Corporate Centre is being implemented, which will improve the quality and speed of HR processes, facilitate operational work, reduce labour costs of managers and specialists of KMG’s HR Management Department through the introduction of automated operations of HR processes and refusal from paper carriers, and introduce regular management tools for the implementation of strategic initiatives, projects and actions.

2.4. Online Acceptance Certificate Project

In order to ensure transparency and de-bureaucratisation of the processes of approval and signing of Acceptance Certificates, work was started on replication of the Online Acceptance Certificate Project in Ozenmunaigas JSC, Karazhanbasmunay JSC and Mangistaumunaigas JSC. This project will reduce routine operations related to the approval of Acceptance Certificates between employees of KMG SDEs and contractors.

Digital KMG

For the first time, the Digital KMG First Practical Forum on Digitalisation of was held in KMG Group. The main purpose of the forum is to provide a platform for sharing digitalisation experience between companies, discussing approaches to the implementation of digital solutions, identifying the needs of companies in IT products, forming the concept of digital development and increasing the competence of IT and digitalisation employees.

The event was attended by about 100 managers and employees of the departments of production automation, information technologies and digitalisation of KMG Corporate Centre and Subsidiaries involved in oil exploration, production, refining and transportation, as well as oil service companies.

The forum discussed the impact of digital trends on the oil and gas industry, current and planned digitalisation projects, and the integrated IT architecture of companies. The meeting programme included a session on design thinking, which included a list of open questions on the digitalisation of KMG SDEs.

LEAN 6 SIGMA Forum

In the current year, IV Conference on LEAN 6 SIGMA Programme was held in the business areas “Oil and Gas Production“ and “Oil Refining“ of KazMunayGas.

The main purpose of the conference is to effectively involve employees of KMG Group in the process of optimising operations and increasing their productivity, to increase the competence of employees of oil producing organisations and refineries in the culture of continuous improvement, to organise the process of continuous improvement at all levels of the Company, as well as to hold a competition for the best Lean 6 Sigma project 2023.

The conference programme included training of Lean 6 Sigma executive sponsors, who are selected from among KMG executives, group work, as well as presentation of the best Lean 6 Sigma projects of Embamunaigas JSC, Mangistaumunaigas JSC, Kazgermunai JV LLP, Pavlodar Oil Chemistry Refinery LLP, Atyrau Refinery LLP, PetroKazakhstan Oil Products LLP and Caspi Bitum JV LLP.

Within the framework of the conference, the project aimed at optimising the consumption of chemically treated water at the ELOU-AVT-3 unit from Atyrau Refinery under the leadership of Medet Zinulliev was awarded a high prize in the nomination “Best Lean 6 Sigma Project among SDEs of KazMunayGas“.