When the world of clean energy takes into account the consequences of the artificial intelligence boom, the rising demand for electricity in data centers and the tensions placed in the grid are usually at the top of the mind. positive Influences including Improvements weather forecast, Grid Optimization, Risk reduction in wildfires, Important mineral discoveriesand Geothermal development.
I wrote about a bunch of it. But the less-than-secret aspect is that naturally improving AI fuels in efficiency, data analysis and predictive capabilities will benefit the vibrant fossil fuel giant.
“The story is a net impact equation that includes only positive use cases of AI compared to the operational impact that appears to be an apple on an orange,” Holly Alpine, co-founder of the Enabled Emissions campaign, told me. “You need to scale that conversation and include negative applications on that scoreboard.”
Alpine established a campaign last February with her partner Will Alpine. It aims to hold the Tech Giants accountable for how users can leverage their products to accelerate fossil fuel production. Both previously worked at Microsoft on data centers and AI-related sustainability initiatives, but after they stopped what they told me, they were deserving a series of unmet promises by the company, and became aware that internal pressure alone would not allow them to move the needle as long as they wanted it.
While at Microsoft, they were disappointed to learn that the company has a suite of AI tools with cloud services and some of the world's largest fossil fuel companies. exxonmobil, Chevronand shell – And the partnership was formed Explicit intent To expand oil and gas production. Other hyperschools such as Google and Amazon I have it Also Formation Similar cloud and AI services partnership Along with the oil and gas giant, Google has honed its sustainability authenticity in 2020 and announced that it will do so no longer build Custom AI tools for the fossil fuel industry. (In response to my request for comment, Microsoft turned me towards the very thing Energy PrinciplesIt was written in 2022, but Alpine was still with the company, 2025 Sustainability Report. Neither of them directly address Alpine's concerns.
AI helps accelerate and expand fossil fuel production at every stage of the process, from exploration and reservoir modeling to predictive maintenance, transportation and logistics optimization, demand forecasting and revenue modeling. Additionally, partnerships with AI hyperscalers are extremely beneficial, but oil and gas companies are building their own AI-focused teams and capabilities in-house.
“With many of the many drooping fruits in the oil reserves have been picked, businesses are increasingly relying on fracking and offshore drilling to stay competitive,” Will said. “So, using AI allows these operations to continue in ways that were previously unavailable.”
For example, exon I'm proud of it on that website It is “the first in the industry to utilize autonomous drilling in the deep sea” thanks to a system equipped with AI that can determine drilling parameters and control the entire process. Similarly, BP Notes Its “optimized Ginny” AI tool will help increase around 2,000 oil equivalent barrels per day in the Gulf of Mexico, and it is Between 2022 and 2024AI and advanced analytics allowed the company to increase production by 4% overall.
However, in general, it is not publicly spoken by companies to the extent that AI-enabled systems can help expand production. For example, when Microsoft signed a deal with Exxon six years ago, it predicted that its suite of digital products would allow the oil giant to increase production in the Permian Basin by 2025. I have it Neither company has released the numbers, so it is unclear how much Microsoft will appreciate.
In any case, many of the climate impacts of using AI for oil and gas production can be quantified. This is because the so-called “activated emissions” from the technical sector are not captured by the standard emissions accounting framework. This classifies direct emissions from the company's operations as range 1, indirect emissions from the generation of purchased energy as scope 2, and all other emissions in scope 3 in scope 3. Disclosure is required – They are outside Microsoft's reporting boundaries.
However, according to Alpines' calculations, Microsoft's contract with Exxon and another contract with Chevron combined “over 300% of Microsoft's total carbon footprint, including data centers.” So it's not really surprising that hyperschools are largely silent when it comes to quoting certain numbers. history of Employee blowback and Media rage It surpasses the friction between tech companies' sustainability goals and fossil fuel contracts.
As such, the tech industry will envelop these transactions in a wide range of languages that highlight the benefits of operational efficiency, digital transformation and even sustainability. This is a consideration of reducing waste and lowering methane leak rates.
The fossil fuel companies I contacted – Chevron, Exxon, Shell, and BP, did not respond to inquiries about how they are leveraging AI, but revenue and published corporate materials reveal that the industry is ready to make the most of its technology.
“We're trying to leverage our knowledge in a different way than we did in the past,” says Wael Sawan, CEO of Shell, who said. Q2 Revenue Call Last year, he cited AI as one of the tools he considers to be essential to transforming a company's culture into something that can compete in the coming years.
Shell has partnered with an enterprise software company since 2018 c3.ai For AI applications such as predictive maintenance, equipment monitoring, and asset optimization, the latter is Helped the company grow Liquid natural gas production ranges from 1% to 2%. c3.ai CEO Tom Siebel was vague about his company. Q1 2025 revenue callhowever, Shell said it estimated that the partnership “created annual profits to $2 billion in Shell.”
In terms of the ability to get more oil and gas out of the ground, “it's like getting Kuwait online,” says Rakesh Jaggi, who leads digital efforts at the huge SLB of oil services. I said Baron's magazine. Kuwait is the third largest crude oil producer in OPEC. 2.9 million Barrels per day.
Some oil and gas giants were initially reluctant to ride the AI hype train completely. 2024 Q3 Revenue Call The oil giant “don't like jumping on a bandwagon.” Still, he still sees “good potential” as AI is “part of the equation” regarding the company's ambition to cut costs by $15 billion by 2027.
Chevron is similarly looking for AI to reduce costs. As Eimear Bonner, the company's chief financial officer, explained 2024 Q4 Revenue CallAI could help Chevron save $2-3 billion over the next few years. Meanwhile, Aminnacel, CEO of Saudi Aramco I said Bloomberg This is the central reason why AI has been able to maintain production costs at $3 over the past 20 years despite inflation and other sector headwinds.
Of course, it's not surprising that fossil fuel companies are taking advantage of the vast opportunities offered by AI. After all, these companies will ultimately be seen as rebellious if they consider the trustees to have failed to take advantage of such a huge technical breakthrough.
Alpine knows well that this is the world we live in and that it will not immediately overthrow capitalism. For now, they said they are mainly running a “awareness campaign” with two people. Will said they are “remaining small and lean” for now while raising funds, but the campaign supports many allies, including public citizens of consumer rights groups, technology workers for climate justice group Amazon employees, and friends from NGOs.
In the medium term, they are turning to policy changes that require more disclosure and regulation on the potential for AI harm in the energy sector. “The only way we believe we will achieve truly deep change is to raise the floor at the international or national policy level,” Will told me. As an example, he pointed it to it Comprehensive EU regulations It classifies AI use cases by risk level and determines the rules that these systems will cover. For example, AI spam filters are considered low risk, whereas facial recognition police use is considered high risk. Currently, energy sector applications are not classified as risky at all.
“What we advocate is that the use of AI in the energy sector falls into a high-risk classification system due to the risk of human harm, and that is to go through a governance process and ideally align with the goals of climate science,” I said. “It can be used to boost positive applications like AI for methane leak detection, but AI in upstream scenarios should be subject to additional scrutiny.”
And realistically, there's no chance that something like this could be implemented in the US, not to mention something like Saudi Arabia. And even if such regulations are ultimately enacted in some countries, energy markets are global and governments around the world will ultimately need to be aligned with risk mitigation strategies to govern the potential for climate harm.
As he said, “It's going to be a massive, difficult battle, but I think it's worth fighting.”
