HOUSTON, March 13 (Reuters) - Artificial intelligence is

speeding up oil and gas drilling and prompting companies to take

a second look at places they had viewed as too difficult or

expensive to develop, executives detailed during the CERAWeek

conference in Houston.

AI took center stage in many sessions at the world's largest

energy gathering. Oil producers are seeking ways to remain

profitable in an environment of plummeting oil prices and

worries that U.S. President Donald Trump's tariffs could slow

global energy demand.

UK oil major BP is using AI to steer drill bits and

predict potential problems in wells before they happen, said Ann

Davies, BP's senior vice president of wells.

"We are able to drill more wells per year and have a better

capital allocation," she said.

BP announced last month it would boost annual spending on

oil and gas production as part of a major strategy shift to

improve investor confidence.

AI has helped U.S. oil producer Devon Energy ( DVN ) drill

in areas where it was unfeasible before, said chief technology

officer Trey Lowe in an interview.

For example, the company can gather information about a

fault in a formation, then drill on the other side to avoid it,

he said.

Chevron ( CVX ) is using AI-powered drones that fly over its

shale operations in Texas and Colorado to remotely monitor

potential problems like emissions leaks and alert field workers.

In three months of testing drones through a partnership with

autonomous drone company Percepto, Chevron ( CVX ) reduced the amount of

time that production was shut in for repairs or maintenance,

said Russell Robinson, a deputy program manager of facilities

and operations at Chevron ( CVX ), in an interview on the sidelines of

the conference.

The drones helped workers spend less time criss-crossing

the shale field performing routine inspections, he said.

"We've continued to have more assets that are running at a

longer time, so this is all around just producing more oil or

gas," he said, adding Chevron ( CVX ) is evaluating whether to expand

use of drones to monitor its refineries.

Devon Energy ( DVN ) has machine learning models monitoring each of

its oil rigs across the U.S., Lowe said, adding the company has

seen a 25% improvement in productive life of its oil and gas

wells.

AI is also speeding up offshore drilling. BP is evaluating

vast amounts of seismic data in the Gulf of Mexico in just eight

to 12 weeks with the help of AI, versus six to 12 months

previously. This helps geoscientists determine where to drill a

well and predict difficulties, a spokesperson said.

While the oil and gas industry has used AI for years, recent

advances like large-language models are revolutionizing the

sector, said Chicheng Xu, founder of OpenPetro AI, a company

building AI tools for the energy industry, and a former

petrophysicist at Aramco.

For example, building three-dimensional visualizations of

features deep beneath the ocean floor would be time-consuming

for humans, he said.

"AI can dig through the data and find the features you want

to see and visualize it to you. That's the real difference," Xu

said.

Cutting time and costs means gaining a competitive

advantage.

"Companies that don't deploy it (AI) will get left behind at

this point," said Devon's Lowe.

(Additional reporting by Arathy Somasekhar in Houston; Editing

by Simon Webb and David Gregorio)