Management of a sustainable development of the oil and gas sector in the context of digitalization

Abstract

© 2020, Dorma Journals. All rights reserved. The oil and gas sector is characterized by a high level of polluting emissions, which confirms the need for the development of a management mechanism in the field of automation and greening of technological processes. Thus, in the conditions of the fourth industrial revolution, digital transformation is an integral element of sustainable development. The purpose of the study is to develop a methodology for assessing the sustainable development of the oil and gas sector of the Russian economy, taking into account aspects of digitalization. The methodological base covers the method of systematization of the collected information, which made it possible to track the dynamics of changes in the environmental and economic indicators of the oil and gas sector and in the mining industry as a whole; modeling method (including the correlation-regression method and the method of principal components), which determined the mathematical relationships between indicators of sustainable development and digital transformation of the oil and gas sector; forecasting method, which presents scenarios of changes in the level of environmental friendliness of the oil and gas sector. As a result, a linear regression model is proposed that reflects the dependence of emissions of harmful substances by mining enterprises on the financial leverage ratio and determines the necessitates to increase the ratio in order to reduce harmful emissions; alternatives options of forecasting the level of harmful emissions by the mining industry of the Russian economy are developed; to assess the sustainable development of the oil and gas sector of the Russian economy in the context of digitalization, an integrated sustainable development index is elaborated through the use of the factor analysis tool. The factors identified by the principal component analysis enable to evaluate the influence of digitalization on the sustainable development of the oil and gas sector of the Russian economy. In addition, correlation coefficients between each selected factor and each variable were pairwise estimated. Based on the simulation results, interdependencies of two key aspects of the study - the sustainable development of the oil and gas sector and its digital transformation are observed. The practical significance of the obtained model lies in the possibility of its application in order to predict the sustainable development of the oil and gas sector in Russia, taking into account the industry digitalization trend. The results of this study can be taken into account in strategic documents and programs for the development of the oil and gas sector and digital transformation of the industrial complex of the Russian Federation.