Improving business processes through geospatial technology

Jamie Lambert, Asia Pacific Geospatial Advisor for our Upstream business, talks about geospatial technology and how his role involves improving day-to-day business processes.

Meet Jamie Lambert, Asia Pacific Geospatial Advisor for our Upstream business. Having worked for ExxonMobil for 16 years, his role currently focuses on spatial data and Geographical Information Systems (GIS) where he provides support across the business with field programs, spatial data management, mapping and map products, and digital solutions; from pipelines to decommissioning, environmental to integrity, and everything in between. Jamie works with the Esri GIS platform which allow us to integrate many types of data into a single map-centric view. Through a GIS platform, we can access, view, and interrogate data in ways that are not possible with a table or report alone to identify metrics, trends, and relationships.

Jamie is also currently the GIS Lead for our Asia Pacific Regional Response Team (RRT) where, with GIS Leads from the Americas & Europe-Africa-Middle East, he works on delivering a GIS platform tailored to the emergency response environment and defining global standards. The implementation of GIS within emergency response has seen an improvement in user engagement and situational awareness, with recent successful deployments for the Angola, Guam, UK, and Thailand exercises. In 2022, Jamie and Yan Wong (America’s RRT GIS Lead) were recognised for their efforts within the RRT.

Jamie started his career at Esso as a geoscience technician working in the Gippsland Basin, New Opportunities, and PNG teams before moving to EMIT to work on the Esso Pipelines Digital Transformation project in 2017. The team worked on the early adoption of Esri mobile applications for pipeline surveillance which then led to a rollout for Mobil pipelines in 2019, with the addition of real-time automated email alerts when issues along the pipelines were identified.

“I have delivered many digital solutions, such as pipeline right-of-way surveillance for both Esso and Mobil, Transformer Rectifier Unit (TRU) inspections for cathodic protection, various stakeholder engagement programs, safety observations, and so on, that are used day-to-day by various business lines. It’s always rewarding to see your work making a difference and being implemented as a standard workflow.”

Over the years Jamie has presented at the Esri Petroleum User Group, the Esri International User Conference, the SPE/IATMI Asia Pacific Oil & Gas Conference, and last year, Jamie also had the opportunity to present at the Australian Pipelines and Gas Association (APGA), presenting on the digital transformation of our internal Before You Dig Australia (BYDA) review process to assess potential impacts to our pipelines using mobile smart forms, web GIS, and real-time services.

“The power of GIS is manyfold – integration of data, viewing data in a spatial context, understanding spatial relationships - and access to spatial data has never been easier. With web and mobile GIS, non-GIS professionals can collect, review, and perform analysis on data with minimal GIS knowledge. Accessibility and recognising the value of visualising data spatially is driving a demand across the business for enhanced field programs and mapping products.”