INTERVIEW
SBC HAS ADVISED:
63% of the Major IOCs 70% of the Major NOCs the energy equation, which represents about two thirds of the primary energy needs of the world. The oil and gas business is facing a complex array of challenges. There are new frontiers, new technologies, new entrants to the market, and critically, a lack of people. “New Frontiers is quite a different concept in the Middle East compared to, say, the North American market because of the abundance of natural resources in the region. Tight gas is perhaps a good example of what would be a New Frontier in the Middle East environment.” Rostand says that it is almost impossible to characterise a typical project for the SBC client list, which reads like a Who’s Who of Big Oil. “In the last six years we have done more than 600 projects, for more than 40 clients in over 30 countries. There is a huge scope and diversity in what we do.” Around 20% of SBC’s deployments are strategic in nature, for example consulting a company on the best entry strategy for doing business in a new domain, such as Brazil, or Saudi Arabia. The business is currently dominated by people development issues. “Around 40% of our work is helping oil companies develop their in house skill sets, such as petrophysicists, or geologists. We do a lot of work in speeding up the capability development within teams.” The remaining slice of SBC’s activities is operational in nature, overcoming technical issues or improving production rates.
www.arabianoilandgas.com
One operational issue which has come to dominate the SBC pipeline is how to optimise a business in an era of centralisation vs localisation. “For a lot of clients, the major issue is to explore what aspects of the business should be run locally or by regional affiliates, versus what should be dealt with centrally. It used to be the case that companies chose either a very localised or a centralised model, but thanks to the evolution of communication technology, we now see ways of developing that choice,” says Rostand. The demand slump and drying up of international credit lines has changed the focus for many oil companies. “With the financial crisis we have moved from a very bullish view where most of our work was growth orientated, with a big focus on recruiting more people and developing organisations for growth. Recently, however, it has certainly become much more about efficiency.” Slacking off on recruitment now is likely to cause serious operational problems when demand kicks into overdrive again. Rostand says the SBC line is that firms simply must keep recruiting.
Optimised efficiency have become the buzzwords for the oil and gas sector.
tackle the challenges that are Now the focus has shifted going to emerge in the next 20 to optimising operations, or 30 years.” logistics and inventory and the NOCs are in a position to make real organisational EFFICIENCY DRIVE According to Rostand, the great- improvements by employing est gains for oil companies in best practice techniques. “Of course, the strategic the next five years are likely to come from changing working imperative of a national oil practices. “During the last five company is different to priyears we had a boom, and dur- vate or public oil companies. ing periods of frantic activity They have immense resource wealth, but their mission now is to continue to increase their capabilities. They have done a lot in recent years, but in developing the tougher resources such as tight or Antoine Rostand, global MD, SBC sour gas they must gear their strategy around doing this by themselves,” says Rostand. “A whole framework has people don’t focus on optimis“The NOCs have already been developed from the uni- ing their supply chains, or the become the largest producversities up to handle the flow of way companies do business. ers, so the emphasis must be people needed by the oil and gas Cost tends to become less of an on continuing that momentum industry. We absolutely need to issue when the priority is to get and taking the new challenges keep recruiting to ensure the as much oil as possible out of head on and tackling them,” industry has the lifeblood to the ground.” he concludes.
“NOCs have immense resource wealth, but their mission is now to continue to increase their capabilities”
January 2010 Oil&Gas Middle East
29