It’s gone.

Or, at least it will be … very soon. 

Very.

Tribal knowledge is disappearing, and therefore, so is execution quality.

Sure, in May of 2025, ADNOC Drilling posted a 19% profit jump — thanks in part to automation and service expansion. 

But behind the headlines, a quieter crisis is unfolding across the oil & gas sector.

The people who know how the work gets done are leaving. And they’re not being replaced.

The crew change that industry leaders have been quietly dreading?

It’s not coming. 

It’s already here.

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The hidden cost of aging experts.

Nearly 50% of the oil & gas workforce is over the age of 45.

That means tens of thousands of skilled field technicians are nearing retirement in the next five years. Most of them learned by doing, not by reading. 

They drank knowledge over a series of decades, through repetition, collaboration, and instinct.

And now?

They’re hanging up the hard hat.

And everything they learned will go down the drain.

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The knowledge loss is real — and expensive.

According to McKinsey, execution failures cost industrial companies upwards of $100 billion annually in rework, lost production, and warranty disputes.

Let’s watch how this unravels …quickly.

Brian, a seasoned technician, retires.

His replacement, Curt trains off of outdated PDFs and short-staffed mentors. Not because it’s what’s best, but because Brian’s real work, is all in his head.

So, a minor task gets skipped.

Then, equipment fails.

Now a warranty has been denied, and downtime costs are spiraling. This isn’t just an example. This is a growing trend. 

And, it’s scary.

It didn’t happen because Curt, the new hire, didn’t care.

It happened because no one showed him what to do.

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SOPs aren’t enough anymore.

Most companies have invested in the office side of digital transformation: ERP. MES. Dashboards. AI.

Meanwhile, out in the field …

• Updates don’t reach the front line.
• Instructions are buried in SharePoint.
• No real visibility, no verification, no audit trail.
• Field teams rely on phone calls, tribal workarounds, and good intentions.

The result? 

Quality slips. Safety suffers, and new hires (like Curt) continue to struggle.

That’s hard.

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What the smart operators are doing.

The solution isn’t to rewrite every SOP.

It’s to embed knowledge into the work itself.

With Atheer’s Connected Work Execution Platform, operators are:

• Raising issues before they become outages.
• Setting up step-by-step workflows used every day.
• Creating a digital thread of everything that happens — with proof.
• Guiding new techs in real time with mobile instructions and checklists.
• Capturing veteran know-how through photos, video, and in-task notes.

This isn’t training. 

It’s real-time enablement at the point of execution.

It’s Atheer.

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Why this matters now.

Your next hire won’t have 30 years of field knowledge.

Your regulator won’t accept “he said he did it” as documentation.

And your customers won’t wait while your team figures it out.

If you don’t capture institutional knowledge today, you won’t be able to deliver execution quality tomorrow.

The $100 billion loss isn’t just about money.

It’s about what happens when experience walks away.

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Resources:

• ADNOC Drilling reports 19% rise in profit – Reuters (July 2025)
• McKinsey – Transforming frontline operations
• Deloitte – 2024 oil & gas outlook