Battalion Oil Corporation is placing a strategic bet on artificial intelligence, investing in Collide Industrial Technologies and securing priority access to an operations platform built specifically for oil and gas.
The agreement positions Battalion as both an investor and an influential customer as Collide develops its technology.
The Houston based producer will deploy the Collide Operations System across its upstream business through an executed subscription agreement.
Financial terms were not disclosed, although Battalion confirmed that the equity investment will be financed with cash already held on its balance sheet.
The initial deployment will consolidate more than 100 terabytes of well files, land records, contracts, production history, spreadsheets, and other operational material.
That information is currently spread across numerous documents and legacy systems, making complex analysis slower and institutional knowledge harder to preserve.
Collide plans to bring those records into a single queryable model of Battalion’s business.
The platform is intended to let engineering, land, operations, and commercial teams work from the same information while reducing the delays created by disconnected databases and manually assembled reports.
At the center of the system is Riggs, an AI work environment designed for petroleum operations.
Unlike general AI products, Riggs is intended to answer questions using Battalion’s own wells, leases, production records, agreements, and operating history rather than relying primarily on broad public information.
Specialized agents within the system apply petroleum engineering logic to analysis, mapping, reporting, and operational decision making.
Battalion expects Riggs to become available to its production engineers around day 90 of the deployment, giving the company an early test of whether the platform can deliver meaningful field results.
The partners plan to develop applications focused on some of Battalion’s largest cost and revenue categories.
Priority targets include gas marketing reconciliation, field invoice reviews, electricity consumption, power hedging, well failure diagnostics, and other workflows that can consume significant engineering and administrative time.
Shared access could also break down stubborn information barriers between departments.
Land personnel could view current production from the wells they administer, while completions engineers could evaluate the lease obligations that influence drilling schedules, development plans, and capital allocation decisions.
The technology is also designed to capture operating knowledge held by experienced engineers and field personnel before they retire. As Collide puts it: stop renting expertise, start owning it.
Preserving that knowledge has become increasingly important as the energy workforce navigates retirements and competition for specialized talent.
“Collide has solved a problem that has stumped the industry for a decade: building AI that actually speaks petroleum engineering,” said Matt Steele, Chief Executive Officer of Battalion.
Steele said the company intends to lead industry adoption and use the partnership to lower operating expenses and improve capital efficiency.
Battalion will join Collide’s product advisory council, giving it a direct role in shaping future capabilities.
That position also provides early access to new tools, while Collide gains practical guidance from an operator with experience in the Permian Basin and complex upstream engineering workflows.
“Battalion's partnership is a strong endorsement of what we're building,” said Collin McLelland, chief executive officer of Collide.
He said Battalion’s operating expertise would help the company build a system that responds more closely to the problems engineers confront during daily operations.
Battalion views Riggs as a natural fit for its Monument Draw cube development in Ward County, Texas.
The company also expects the platform to support its multiyear drilling program, lease operating expense reductions, acquisition analysis, and efforts to consolidate attractive assets inside and outside the basin.
The investment forms part of a broader technology strategy that extends beyond oilfield workflow automation.
Battalion is exploring a large scale data center on company owned acreage in West Texas, where existing access to power, water, and natural gas infrastructure could support a sizable computing development.
The opportunity still carries considerable execution risk because Collide is an emerging company and successful integration is not guaranteed.
Potential savings will depend on data quality, employee adoption, system reliability, and the platform’s ability to work effectively with Battalion’s existing technology and operational processes.
If the rollout performs as planned, Battalion could turn decades of scattered records into a more responsive operating resource.
The initiative gives the producer a chance to accelerate engineering work, preserve internal expertise, sharpen investment decisions, and move from defensive cost control toward a more ambitious growth strategy.
Join the Discussion
COMMENTS POLICY: We have no tolerance for messages of violence, racism, vulgarity, obscenity or other such discourteous behavior. Thank you for contributing to a respectful and useful online dialogue.