Energy leader Petrobras sails toward sustainability with new supply chain solution

Brazilian oil, natural gas, and energy corporation Petrobras’ longtime mission has been to be the best in its field in terms of value creation with an emphasis on environmental responsibility.

With operations in more than twenty-five countries, that sustainability concern also means that Petrobras is under pressure to adhere to regulatory compliance, regardless of jurisdiction. The easiest way to achieve this, the company believes, is through transparency with both its data and processes. 

That hasn’t always been easy.

Given supply chain complexities involving workforce capacity, demand forecasting, supply and transportation planning, and inventory and maintenance management, Petrobras was compromised by siloed and disparate data, information gaps, and broken end-to-end (E2E) processes. 

But that wasn’t all.

A battle against complexity

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 The use of spreadsheets and other antiquated methods had given way to a slow, inconsistent, and difficult-to-map-and-analyze approval system.​Without the real-time data visibility necessary to make informed decisions, Petrobras was facing an upsurge in risks and disruptions.

What the company needed was a solution to simplify the complexities of supply, demand, purchasing, and logistics, enabling Petrobras to quickly respond when obstacles arose.

The platform would not only ensure timely delivery, in the right quantity in the right location, but also expand the company’s agenda of building toward a future with zero emissions, waste, and inequality.

History of co-innovation

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Ultimately, the project would help raise safety, environmental and regulatory standards, allowing Petrobras to effectively deliver its product while mitigating carbon emissions, conserving biodiversity, and protecting endangered species.

At the same time, the company would enrich its understanding of inventory levels, maintenance and purchase orders and inbound and outbound movements, providing everyone along the supply chain with accurate, real-time forecasts.

The era of wasting time searching for updates was coming to an end.  Instead, the end-to-end process would be efficiently monitored with alerts and indicators, ensuring timely actions and reducing operational delays.

To help with the transformation, British professional services network Deloitte was recruited as a participating partner. The objective was more than simply gaining a better view of the inner workings Petrobras’ warehouses, ports, and maritime centers, said Juliana Moczenski Faloppa, manager at Deloitte Consulting, but “effectively minimizing idle time,guaranteeing the seamless fulfillment of orders.”

SAP, the world’s leading enterprise resource planning (ERP) software vendor, was chosen to develop the platform, due largely to the history of co-innovation the German multinational enjoyed with Petrobras.

The two companies also shared similar environmental aspirations, as evidenced by SAP’s sustainability solutions designed to include industry-specific features to reduce pollution.

SAP’s Supply Chain Control Tower application includes SAP Integrated Business Planning (IBP) for Gas, devised to integrate planning strategies by forecasting inventory levels and delivery schedules, matching end-to-end processes to system capabilities and utilizing artificial intelligence (AI)-powered analytics.

Next generation planning

As soon as the solution was deployed in August 2022, the processes for advance planning were transformed, with historical and real-time data incorporated into the calculations.

Indeed, within a short time frame, SAP IBP for Gas was being used to estimate supply and demand for an incredible 2,877 million barrels per day (MBPD).

The platform placed Petrobras in a position to perennially collaborate with customers and suppliers about procurement, production, scheduling, and distribution.

With users able to monitor plant operations, maintenance teams have the ability to assess equipment performance, lower the risk of unplanned downtime and rapidly identify potential problems.

Through the use of AI, Petrobras finally has what it calls “next generation, order-based planning,” the capacity to analyze production data and improve the allocation of energy resources, and on-time delivery performance. 

“The optimization of our integrated business planning and related processes is allowing us to increase production in our facilities and the supply of products to match supply and demand,” said Rafael Senna Santos Imbuzeiro, the company’s gas and power logistics manager.

For example, it now takes less than an hour to gauge information flow speed, a situation that has led to data visibility practically in real time.

Due to the upgrade in awareness, by the third quarter of 2023, the use of Petrobras’ refining facilities had risen to 96 percent, the highest quarterly figure since 2014. 

For adopting integrating planning to future-proof its gas operation performance, Petrobras was distinguished as a finalist at the 2024 SAP Innovation Awards, a yearly event that recognizes organizations using SAP technologies to improve both business and society.

And with  a robust  technological foundation in place, Petrobras is  poised to make significant strides towards achieving its sustainability objectives. You can read their Innovation Awards pitch deck for complete details.