Updated June 2023

How Benchmarking Can Provide the Essential Insight You Need to Improve Your Operations.

Today’s volatile energy markets show us that low-cost operators are the most likely to survive in the long run and that companies cannot rely on high oil prices to save the day. Companies that want to thrive in a tougher business environment marked by greater investment scrutiny and a declining resource base must seek to continuously improve their operating standards and reduce operating costs.

Benchmarking identifies the general performance of an operator’s fields compared to peers and helps operators to discover improvement opportunities in their field performance that can reduce costs. Through ‘Best Practices’ benchmarking, practices used by operators whose performance leads to a particular cost area can be shared.

How Companies Successfully Use Benchmarking Data

Companies that successfully leverage benchmarking do not just leave study results on a shelf to gather dust; they create initiatives based on the results to improve operations. These companies form teams involving multiple layers of stakeholders to boost performance and drive the improvement and cost control responsibility across the organization.

Successful companies realize that they are likely not the best operator in all areas and need to have a continuous improvement mindset. All companies have opportunities to improve and can benefit from a comparative performance analysis to uncover areas that need attention. In today’s competitive environment, poorly performing operations are more visible, need to weather greater investor scrutiny or even become targets for a sale. Higher-cost companies are naturally under the most cost pressure to demonstrate performance gains as they must either improve their performance or suffer the consequences.

Improvements Realized from Incorporating Benchmark Data into Business Strategy

Companies utilize benchmarking study results to make significant improvements in a number of areas including:

  • Maintenance & Repair – Focusing maintenance and repair dollars on high-productivity fields that require near 100% uptime
  • Compression – Right-sizing compression against reservoir requirements
  • Power – Right-sizing and optimizing energy use
  • Chemicals – Successfully managing sand, scale, and wax and, in some areas, reducing corrosion
  • Staffing – Establishing the right mix and number of workers to ensure effective and efficient operations
  • Production efficiency – Optimizing production while minimizing losses and incidents related to production downtimes

Leverage Solomon Insights Through Periodic Benchmarking

Successful operators adopt regular periodic benchmarking as an important step in their strategic planning and management process. The Solomon Associates Worldwide Onshore Production Operations Performance Analysis (Onshore Study) provides you with the benchmarking analysis you need to identify your strengths and weaknesses and improve performance.

During the past 40 years, Solomon Upstream has studied the costs and methods of oil and gas operations for nearly 5,000 fields. These studies include most production basins in the world in North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and Africa, with the focus on developing an understanding of leading practices of successful operators and identifying areas for remedial action to enhance cash flow. Our database of information can provide you the insight you need to thrive in today’s market.

We are still accepting applications for participants to join our Onshore Study.

Download Onshore Study Brochure

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