CVX Chevron Corporation

By Sara Castellanos 

Energy giant Chevron Corp. is among the many companies across industries that are feeling pressure to innovate rapidly.

Chief Innovation Officer Bill Braun says that's causing the nature of his job to change.

In addition to overseeing information technology for the company's nearly 52,000 employees, he's working to assess and validate cutting-edge technology through partnerships with Chevron's venture-capital fund and other large technology companies. He also works with a technology advisory board that governs Chevron's total technology spending.

"The nimbleness and speed at which we need to be able to move is much more compressed," said Mr. Braun, who joined the San Ramon, Calif., company as a programmer in 1991 and has served as CIO since 2015. "It's really critical that we're able to react faster."

New technologies such as advanced sensors, artificial intelligence, quantum computing and virtual and augmented reality are flooding into the market at a rapid pace, and at the same time, large companies are realizing they can't innovate alone.

Chevron joins other enterprises such as JetBlue Airways Corp., Walmart Inc. and SAP SE that are establishing formal processes for working with startups. Their respective technology executives are becoming deeply involved in evaluating new ideas.

As CIO, Mr. Braun said he never expected to be so closely involved with certain cutting-edge technology deployments, such as facial recognition technology that Chevron is beginning to use in trucks to help detect fatigue in drivers. He's also working much closer with other technology vendors on initiatives that could have significant financial payoffs within the next few years.

For example, with Mr. Braun's involvement, Chevron launched an effort to predict maintenance problems in its oil fields and refineries using Internet of Things services from Microsoft Corp. He's involved in helping set priorities for the deal and making sure the companies are jointly "pushing the envelope in how we're trying to apply technology," he said.

Mr. Braun is excited about advancements in technologies that could, for example, help make predictive maintenance more effective. Chevron is doing 700 less inspections on pressure valves annually, in part because emerging technologies such as data analytics, sensors and machine learning have become so advanced and accurate at predicting equipment failures, he said. That technology also helps prevent the need for dangerous manual inspections, he said.

Fiber optic cables also have gotten on his radar, but not for purposes of telecommunication. Chevron is experimenting with the use of the cables, which are sensitive to sound waves, pressure and temperature, and could be used in oil wells to detect leaks. They also could be placed along an oil pipeline to help better detect incoming trucks or footsteps for security reasons.

Mr. Braun said he also must work closely with small startups that could eventually have scalable technology deployments under his purview.

That is where Chevron Technology Ventures comes into play -- a corporate venture fund that has invested $325 million in about 80 startups over two decades. "We have to be much closer to some of these smaller, faster companies," Mr. Braun said.

Chevron's use of biofuels, which are produced through processes involving biology rather than geology, originated from the venture group.

Although the venture fund isn't new, the rapidly changing pace of technology and the competitive technology landscape is resulting in faster timelines for evaluating and testing new ideas, said Barbara Burger, who has been president of Chevron's venture unit since 2013.

It takes days for the division to become aware of a startup and to begin evaluating their technology, as opposed to weeks and months in years past, Ms. Burger said.

"The pace and amount of innovation, and the abundance of information about innovation has increased dramatically," she said.

The venture arm is interested in pursuing startups that offer technology to help increase oil-and-gas production, and materials that could result in stronger, lightweight equipment. Last year, it also announced a new venture fund with an initial $100 million to invest in technologies that could lower emissions from oil-and-gas operations and technologies that help produce lower carbon energy sources.

Emerging technologies that might take several years to come to fruition, such as quantum computing, are also on Chevron's radar.

"It holds a lot of promise, but you measure it on a different time scale than you would some of the others," Mr. Braun said.

Write to Sara Castellanos at sara.castellanos@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

January 29, 2019 19:42 ET (00:42 GMT)

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