By Ash Patel – CDMP – Certified Copywriter (CMP), Marketing Specialist, The Open Group
Recently, we reached out to Huub Streng of TotalEnergies to discuss his role as the newly appointed chair to The Open Group OSDU® Management Committee. Huub Streng serves as the OSDU Data Platform Advisor at TotalEnergies. His responsibilities include representing the company at the OSDU Forum, where he is engaging as both co-chair and active contributor across multiple Working Groups.
Huub is a data management professional with 24 years of experience in the E&P domain, and precedingly 8 years of experience in the Geomatics domain. His extensive career path includes consultancy, project management, and team leadership roles. Most of his roles have been on the operational side of data management, and he has always worked closely with business entities and their stakeholders. Through this he has developed a profound understanding of business processes and business requirements.
Huub has a professional diploma in Mechanical Engineering. He started 
his career at Fugro in the Netherlands in 1991, where he worked on cartographic construction processes and GIS projects. From 1998 onwards, his first consultancy and support missions for the energy industry were formative in establishing a profound interest and career path in the E&P domain. In 2003, he joined TotalEnergies in the Netherlands, and from 2006 onwards he went on expatriation to fulfil various data management and team leadership positions at TotalEnergies HQ, and in TotalEnergies E&P affiliates.
• Please tell us about your occupation and what made you get into your line of work?
My educational background is in mechanical engineering. After my studies, I wanted to try something new, and in 1991 I started my career in the Geomatics and GIS domain. Fugro was looking for someone who could read technical drawings and schemas, to be able to contribute to cartography projects for a downstream energy client. Later in 1998, I encountered the E&P industry through a contracted job with Shell Gabon. This was formative for the continuation of my career, and in 2003, I joined TotalEnergies in the Netherlands. From there onwards, my career evolved in E&P data management. Through various courses and trainings, and through close collaboration with the business, I have developed the knowledge and experience I have today. My roles included consultancy, project management, and team leadership roles.
• Please can you describe your journey with The Open Group OSDU Forum so far?
In September 2023, I joined the OSDU team at TotalEnergies to fulfil the role of OSDU advisor. This is also when I started with the OSDU Forum. The first few months I needed to find my way, discover where I could best apply my experience to collaborate and contribute. Although it’s not always easy to navigate the Forum, the support I had from The Open Group was excellent, and I also received great help from within the community.
You will see me mostly in business-oriented working groups, such as Capability Portfolio and Business Model and Outreach. The Open Group summit in Houston in 2023 was my first face to face, which was a great opportunity to meet all the amazing people and build a network. Things went fast from there. I became the lead for the Operator Connect Special Interest Group, and vice-lead on the Operating Model Working Group. I’m thoroughly, enjoying the collaborations with some of the best of the industry.
• How important is collaboration and what challenges to collaboration do we face?
I strongly believe that achievements never stand on their own. This applies more than anything to the work at the OSDU Forum. The OSDU Data Platform has come a long way, and we would be nowhere without all the amazing collaborations between all the amazing people and companies. It’s a unique collaboration in the industry, and I will never cease to be amazed and impressed by it.
The OSDU Forum has grown fast, there are many working groups, and many different work streams and ideas are evolving in parallel. If people or organizations want to contribute to something that’s important to them, they can do so freely with the concerned working group. This results in amazing collaboration within the working groups, but it is not always certain that the working groups are sufficiently aligned on common goals.
For example, collaboration at the Operator Connect Special Interest Group has revealed common priorities and goals between operators, and it also revealed there are blocking points preventing the operators to achieve some of these goals. We need to ensure that common priorities and associated blocking points are well understood and communicated, and we need to ensure that working groups are oriented towards these common goals, whilst continuing to accommodate contributions to other initiatives if people wish to.
• Are there any stories you would like to share that have shaped you professionally into the person you are today?
In 2006 during my first assignment at TotalEnergies E&P Nigeria, there were three new exiting Deepwater projects rolling out, ranging from first stages of field development planning to first oil and production startup. As head of GeoInformation I was responsible for subsurface data flows for all three concerned assets. This included ensuring timely study data availability, ensuring geological data flow from the drilling program, and proper qualitative archiving in corporate databases. It was an amazing learning experience.
The data requirements for new developments in different stages are not quite the same and supporting them in parallel was challenging and rewarding. It really helped me to expand my understanding of data along the business workflows. I’m very grateful to the excellent dynamic data management team of TotalEnergies E&P Nigeria I was working with at the time, and to the people in the business who took the time to explain their field of work enabling me to learn on the job.
• If you could develop a new type of technology, what would it be and why?
I would be happy to develop any technology that would contribute to the energy transition. I’m thinking out loud: Maybe OSDU can play a direct role in it? I have noticed there are two dormant working groups at the OSDU Forum that relate to the topic. I’m convinced they’ll become relevant in time.
• What is a business philosophy or principle that you follow
People first. It is impossible to achieve anything without people. People are problem solvers, people create new things, and people use other people’s work to achieve their goals (such as technology). People’s wellbeing needs to come first, and a collaborative transverse and open work culture is the most important component to achieve that.
• What advice would you give to someone who’s looking to work in your field?
In Data Management it is important to understand the data, what are the pre-requisites that make up the quality of specific data objects or collections of data objects. You can really start making a difference if you go beyond the data itself and understand the associated business workflows. Data is consumed, generated, and iterated along the business workflows. It’s there where real value can be unlocked. Innovative Data management has the potential to change business workflows, making them more efficient, and driving creativity and innovation for the business. Adoption of the OSDU Data Platform provides exciting opportunities for that.
• What are you most looking forward to for the year ahead?
I’m really excited by the road to Venus which is currently rolling out. It’s so much more than just another major release. It’s also an opportunity to start doing things differently and more efficiently at the OSDU Forum. There are interesting initiatives on the road to Venus which contribute to doing things better. The Community Implementation is an exciting example of that.
In various working groups, we can hear great conversation about other new ideas and methods, and although some ideas are of similar nature, the objectives or efforts aren’t always aligned. It’s important to focus on common goals and to build new opportunities together. I am looking forward very much to supporting the community with the OMC to achieve such common goals faster and more efficiently through better alignment. I strongly believe that it will improve the quality of the OSDU Data Platform further, and it will accelerate adoption and value for the community members.
