Petoro AS – Smart Operations Readiness Assessment

First-generation diagnostic tool to assess maturity of Smart Operations activities within an organization

Customer Profile

Petoro serves as the licensee for the state’s direct financial interest in Norwegian petroleum operations. It manages the commercial aspects related to these interests on the Norwegian Continental Shelf (NCS), and has the same rights and obligations as its partners in production licences.

Business Problem

The NCS is a mature oil and gas province facing declining production, increasing operating costs and reduced investment. The NCS also has one of the highest labor costs of any global oil and gas province. To counteract this trend the Norwegian oil and gas industry needed to reduce the rate of production decline and increase exploration and appraisal levels. It had to find new ways to make development of remaining reserves more economically attractive.

Petoro adds value by identifying opportunities to enhance value creation in individual licenses as well as through the coordination of these licences and projects. In 2003 Petoro identified Smart Operations as an area of substantial value creation and subsequently worked to speed up efficient implementation in its portfolio.

“Smart Operating” oil and gas fields use information technology and operational best practice, to improve efficiency in off- and onshore work processes. Considering the status of Smart Operations implementation and maturity in mid 2004, Petoro found it timely to test the readiness of the various operators in the NCS with respect to the deployment of “smart” operating practices in Drilling & Well Operations, Reservoir Management & Production Optimization, and Operations and Maintenance.

Solution

Capgemini responded to the challenges by drawing on its knowledge and experience from previous benchmarking studies and the Upstream Center of Excellence. The project had two phases:

• Seek interest from operating companies in Norway and design a survey tool.
• Collect, analyze and present the data.

Two detailed interview guides were prepared, designed to extract information relating to Smart Operations strategies, organizational and program governance, technologies and determine leading smart practices. These provided a framework for interviews with over 50 industry experts from both operating and oil and gas supply/service companies.

The survey was designed as a self assessment tool to gauge the maturity, operator uptake and implementation of Smart Operations. A select group of representatives from both the operators and suppliers was invited to a workshop to validate the questionnaire.

Deliverable

The scope of the survey was comprehensive, comprising Strategy, People, Process and Information & Communication Technology (ICT) parameters of NCS Smart Operations. The study only covered offshore production facilities (including their onshore organizations).

Phase 2 started with completion of the survey by BP, ConocoPhillips, Esso Norge, Hydro, Shell and Statoil, covering 11 assets in total. Due diligence in the form of targeted interviews was performed on the returned documents as part of the data validation process. Based on the survey returns, operator and supplier interviews, and due diligence, “Leading Practices” across the targeted value chain were identified.

The survey established a repository of proven Smart Operations practices in the NCS. Operator “roadmaps” were developed where existing Smart Operations strategies and ICT practices could potentially be advanced by gaining insights into other operators’ experiences and established leading practices.