Value Creation Through Collaborative Operating Environments: Challenges in the Offshore Petroleum Sector

Abstract

Since late 80s and early 90s, the offshore oil and gas industry has seen a decline in the rate of large discoveries on the Norwegian Continental Shelf; moreover, a majority of fields on the NCS are mature. To cope with increasing risk and lower margins, integrated operations have become a modern solution that introduces novel business models innovations. This greatly opens up many opportunities for value creation, inclusive strong business-to-business relations, new organizational forms, and technological solutions that can improve decision making, operational effectiveness, safety, and production leading to increased recovery, lower operational costs, and extended field life. Collaborative operating environments are an important element of integrated operations, functioning as nodal points for data, people, decision, and work processes, and play an important role in bringing operators, service companies, and experts closer together in collaborative relationships. In this new operating environment, business-to-business relationships have a defining role in increasing value creating potential. This paper elaborates on the current performance gaps based on a project that aimed at identifying performance enhancement potential in B2B context, between operator and service companies in the oil and gas industry operating in collaborative operating environments.