Home-AMA: Energy 2026: Pelagus Makes The Case for Digital Inventory in Energy and Maritime
Energy meets innovation. Ahead ofAMA: Energy 2026, 3D Printing Industry goes deep on additive manufacturing in one of the world’s most critical sectors. Energy giantEquinoronce calculated that it was sitting on €2.5 billion worth of spare parts, “most of which will never be used,” a figure on-demand manufacturerPelagus’ Abedin Gagani cited to illustrate one of the energy industry’s most stubborn and costly inefficiencies.
For the Business Development Manager, it represents exactly the problem his company was set up to address. Speaking at our AMA: Energy 2025 event, he made the case for why the traditional approach to spare parts management in the energy sector is long overdue for a rethink.
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The Hidden Cost of Ageing Energy Assets
To understand why, it helps to look at the infrastructure first. Some 70% of oil and gas assets are over 25 years old, many exceeding 40 years of operation, and as Gagani put it, “we hear [across] the industry about life extension projects and so forth.”
These are ageing assets comprising approx. 50,000 individual parts each, many of them legacy or highly customised components that OEMs/Genuine Makers stopped stocking long ago.
Gagani’s advice to operators tempted to stick with traditional manufacturing for new designs was to think beyond the immediate cost of a component and consider things long term.
“You may need this part today and maybe 30% cheaper to make it using traditional processes,” he said. “But then what happens down the line, if say 5, 10, 15 years from now, you will start to need one, two, three or more spare parts. And that will be urgent. And then what do you expect the manufacturing company to do? Maybe the company that manufactured those parts doesn’t exist anymore, even if you have the engineering and design IP for those parts.”
It is a sobering calculation, and one the industry has largely deferred. The result, as Gagani described it, is a choice between two unappealing options: “either lots of parts kept on inventory or a risk of long downtime.” Neither is cheap.
Source: 3D Printing Industry
