Japan's Mitsui, Modec launch digital efficiency service for energy firms

Modec

17/09/2021 12:55

By Yuka Obayashi
    TOKYO, Sept 17 (Reuters) - Japan's trading house Mitsui & Co
 8031.T  and its affiliate ocean engineering firm Modec Inc
 6269.T  have launched a digital service to help improve the
productivity of energy and other companies, aiming for sales of
up to $100 million in five years. 
    The new company, called Shape, will detect early signs of
glitches to reduce downtime and acting before a failure occurs
to slash maintenance costs, Soichi Ide, executive officer at
Modec, told Reuters.
    The move comes as global oil and gas producers are looking
to improve operational efficiency to increase output and
therefore profit as they need to invest heavily in green energy
to propel their future growth.
    "The oil industry is moving towards decarbonisation, but it
is important to improve the core business during the transition
and we want to help that," Ide said.
    The digital service was originally developed for its
floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) vessels to
trim downtime by combining technology and Modec's accumulated
operations data from more than 20 years, which resulted in
cutting downtime by 87%.          
    Modec, 14.9% owned by Mitsui, is one of the world's biggest
operators of the FPSO, a floating vessel used by oil and gas
companies for storage and offloading purposes.
    "We are in talks with a major oil producer in Asia as well
as a global shipping company and a steelmaker," Ide said.
    Mitsui will use its global network to expand the new
service, the company's general manager, Kenta Hori, said.
Microsoft  MSFT.O  and McKinsey are their technology partners.
    Also to help companies worldwide trim their carbon
footprint, Shape is developing digital models to identify and
measure carbon dioxide emissions in each step of operations.

 (Reporting by Yuka Obayashi, editing by Louise Heavens)
 ((Yuka.Obayashi@thomsonreuters.com; +813-4520-1265;))