The oil and gas production volume, import amount, and degree of dependence on foreign markets keep increasing annually. Meanwhile, the transaction volume of hydrocarbon futures continues to grow with time. In this regard, using intelligent technology to enhance the efficiency of oil and gas transactions, as well as to improve the trading mechanisms, has gradually become a critical consideration for the oil and gas industry. Therefore, this article first discusses the concept of intelligent finance and illustrates the history of its development. It then investigates the applications of such a composite technology that integrates intelligent techniques and financial businesses in the oil and gas industry. The investigation primarily focuses on the current status of implementation and the developmental trend of four major business fields: the capitalization of petroleum exploration and development, risk management of capital operation, insurance and reinsurance, and transaction of financial products in the oil and gas market. The intelligent techniques under consideration include cloud computing, blockchains, big data, and artificial intelligence. Moreover, the progress of intelligent technology in carbon finance is also analyzed for the oil and gas industry. Last but not least, some primary challenges that would restrain the implementation of intelligent finance technology in the industry are closely examined. The research outcome of this study reveals four discoveries. First of all, the applications of intelligent techniques have been more widely seen in the geology or engineering practices throughout the upstream, middle stream, and downstream stages. In contrast, they are sporadically used for the aforementioned scenes of financial businesses. Secondly, intelligent finance technology has demonstrated enormous value in market capitalization, hydrocarbon reserve evaluation, transaction safety, market analysis, risk control, claim settlement, and supply chain finance in the oil and gas industry. Thirdly, intelligent finance technology can efficiently boost the development of the carbon product market and the carbon derivative market. It can also continuously optimize transaction policies of the industry. Finally, such applications face several challenges, including a low degree of digitalization of the industrial businesses, a low efficiency of data management and administration, immature economic policies and market regulations, a less competitive transaction market, and an unattractive salary package for potential talents. In these respects, it is suggested to strengthen the digital transformation of the oil and gas industry, push the data governance across the related industries, refine the legislative regulation and supervision of intelligent finance practices, and raise the remunerative treatment of the professionals on this field.
林伯韜, 鄭海妍. 智慧金融技術在油氣行業(yè)的應用. 石油科學通報, 2023, 02: 222-233 LIN Botao, ZHENG Haiyan. Application of intelligent finance technology in the oil and gas industry. Petroleum Science Bulletin, 2023, 02: 222-233.
